Thread: 1949 Chevy, Viper powered

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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!

Have a bit of progress, sorry for the lack of updates, i will try to do better. Been hard at work since my return from overseas.

More progress. Modified the cab mounts and fabricated some rear cab mounts since the driveshaft runs right through the original center mount. New firewall, new floor, new drive shaft, lots of hours in fabricating all that sheet metal to fit correctly and look correct. the firewall and setback was all done completely off the truck, just the "measure twice, cut once" method, and it all turned out correctly. Floor was done mounted to the frame, because i had to square the cab up and mount it then put the floor in. Was about an inch out of square. Truck had a drivers side impact that had been repaired previously, so might be the cause of it being out of square. Pretty interesting stuff. One cab mount you could see through, so it got cut out and replaced. Made a makeshift jig to hold the cab in place while changing the cab mount out. Every task that should take 5 minutes, takes hours. Coming along though.

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Did some more work. Slow going. I'll try to keep it more up to date, even these pics are a few months old.

I'm still around, still working on it. bought a house in the middle of it all, so thats been sucking the money away upgrading the new shop!. But there's progress being made. Exhaust and fuel system and a few others details are complete. I'll update more often once i get back to work consistently on it.

Originally Posted by toofast_28

I'm still around, still working on it. bought a house in the middle of it all, so thats been sucking the money away upgrading the new shop!. But there's progress being made. Exhaust and fuel system and a few others details are complete. I'll update more often once i get back to work consistently on it.

Great to see you're still around! Slow progress is still progress, right?

Originally Posted by toofast_28

I'm still around, still working on it. bought a house in the middle of it all, so thats been sucking the money away upgrading the new shop!. But there's progress being made. Exhaust and fuel system and a few others details are complete. I'll update more often once i get back to work consistently on it.

Kewl!!!! Glad you're still at it!!!! I still have a V-10 Ford laying in the corner I want to do something with someday, anxious to see what all you have to go through to make the Viper engine work!!!!!!

PS---Ain't no time limit on building a Hot Rod, they always come out better if you let them age a little during the build process!!!!!!!