Thread: 1949 Chevy, Viper powered

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1st picture: Stripped, ground, wire wheeled the entire frame, welded nuts into every mounting hole that would be used, and painted the interior of the frame rails with primer.

2nd-4th pictures: Welded spreader bars across front and back, removed cross members (besides center), replaced one bad section of frame near front steering box stock location, primered inside of rails and began fitting boxing plate in 3 pieces per side. Used 3/16" plate for all boxing plate, cut straight pieces, marked to fit, cut with plasma, ground smooth, primered inside of plates, tack welded into place.

5th picture: With 2 front sections of boxing plate, radiator crossmember, and front suspension crossmember fit and tacked in place; placed frame on steel table and created jig to hold it in place, level and straight to narrow rear of frame for wide tires (305/25/22, didn't want to widen fenders). narrowed rear of frame 8 inches, 4 on each side, strung, centerlined, squared, everything necessary to ensure straightness. Welded new rear cross bar in place.

*more to follow. Some pictures missing inbetween these steps because the file is too large and shrinking it would take away what happened between them.

1st picture: From front, mustang 2 cross member in place, radiator cross member in place, front plates in place, frame narrowed in rear, all done while in jig built from steel table.

2nd picture: bed mounts moved out to retain same mounting location on bed with the narrowed rear frame.

3rd picture: Left rear boxing plate fit and tacked in place.

4th picture: Frame reinfoced inside where stock crossmember was located, note that is is also where the frame was notched to narrow the rear section. This is all behind the cab, front bed mounting holes are still in stock location. Frame was rusty and thin/pitted where the original cross member was located, necessitating the reinforcement being added, but also helps reinforce the notched section of the frame.

5th picture: Center Frame boxing section installed, tacked into place.

All pieces were primed inside, tacked in place in the jig, and most stitching was done in the jig as well.

Skipping some pictures because they are already shown above, of the frame fully welded, ground, re-welded, ground, and then sanded smooth to appear as a clean tubular frame.

1st picture: Left front suspension and tire bolted up.

2nd picture: right front suspension, Wilwood hubs, 2 inch drop spindles, tubular A-frames.

3rd picture: front suspension and 15" cross drilled, slotted rotors from 2004 Dodge Ram SRT-10.

4th picture: Front tire/wheel, 20x8.5 wheel, 265/30/20 tires. Showing brake rotor and caliper (mocked location) installed. Have to fabricate mounting brackets for the calipers to mate up to the Mustang 2 spindles.

1st picture: Narrowed the rear end from the Dodge Ram SRT-10, 6 inches out of each side to keep the pinion centered. Its a Dana super 60, 35 spline axles, 4.88 posi. Tubes are straight, and 3.5" OD, 2.5" ID, heavy stuff, so easy to narrow. Axles were shipped to Moser for shortening. Rear end was with in 1/32" of 12 inches.

2nd picture: V groove and centerline prior to welding of narrowed rear end housing. After narrowing welding and grinding you can't even see where it was narrowed, inside you can't even feel the cut line (no weld inside). Came out as straight as it was before i cut it. The heavy straight tubes helped that a lot, most rearends have swedged tubes or thin wall and makes it so you need a kit to line up the bearings. Cost me $242 to have the axles shortened, everything else was done by myself (not my first rear end narrowing job).

3rd picture: Because of narrowing the frame to fit the wide tires, 4-link had to go inside the frame, picture shows brackets welded to the fabricated crossmemeber. All of it fits under the bed with no modifications.

4th picture: Motor, Trans, and Modified X-member installed. The beast of motor/trans combo left little room to make it a true "X". The bars are parallel and tied into the rear cross member. Trans mount, drive shaft loop, rear cab mount (another cross member) will all be tied into this, plus bracing added. Motor mounts are located in previous posts.

5th picture: This is how she sits until i get home in July. Motor mounted, cab off, though it has been on and fitted since the motor was installed.

Have to mount the air bags, air tank/compressor, battery, fuel system, build a fuel tank, add a crossmember behind the rear end (air bag/Fuel tank mount), fabricate a panhard bar or Watts linkage, and a hand full of other things before i tackle getting it running and move to the interior and touch up the rest of the body and build a new firewall, all kinds of fun stuff!

Looks great! Keep up the good work on this unique and cool build. That thing should really scoot with a v10!!!!

Don Jr.

A nice cool build and some thing so different . Been a while any thing to update on the Truck .

Originally Posted by bluestang67

A nice cool build and some thing so different . Been a while any thing to update on the Truck .

Still in Iraq for another month, have all kinds of parts sitting in the garage at home to finish it when i get home next month though! Dad has worked on it a little bit, but nothing drastic has changed, so no new pictures. I will up date quite a bit when i get back home!