58 Chevy Build
Re: 58 Chevy Build
It's now late August 2015 and progress is going at a fair pace, parts are starting to arrive for motor upgrades, gearbox rebuild/upgrade, refurbished parts from blasting/painting/plating etc, time for assembly work to finally begin.
Last edited by Chev58 on Sun 02 Apr 2017, 20:05, edited 1 time in total.
58 Chevy Apache
- IndianaJones
- Posts: 4866
- Joined: Sun 23 Aug 2009, 17:39
- Location: Citrusdal, RSA
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Awesome thread, thank you for sharing.
Looks like you found a very good example of Apache to start with, it being a stepside is definitely a bonus. One can clearly see thus far, that a lot of effort, forethought and attention to detail have gone into the project, it is to be commended. It is often that little touches like electroplating parts, are overlooked, or skimped on, and it can make such a big difference.
Please excuse my questions, during the course of this build thread, cause it is one, I will definitely follow closely.
How do you envision the stance of the bakkie when done, having a rake (or raked stance), or are you planning on having it sit flat, or whatever? And how did you take it into account for final fitment of the suspension members?
Could you run the engine, as received from Rocket 88, with the harness & PCM?
Did you fabricate the 4-link parts yourself?
Where did you buy the air-bag system from?
Looks like you found a very good example of Apache to start with, it being a stepside is definitely a bonus. One can clearly see thus far, that a lot of effort, forethought and attention to detail have gone into the project, it is to be commended. It is often that little touches like electroplating parts, are overlooked, or skimped on, and it can make such a big difference.
Please excuse my questions, during the course of this build thread, cause it is one, I will definitely follow closely.
How do you envision the stance of the bakkie when done, having a rake (or raked stance), or are you planning on having it sit flat, or whatever? And how did you take it into account for final fitment of the suspension members?
Could you run the engine, as received from Rocket 88, with the harness & PCM?
Did you fabricate the 4-link parts yourself?
Where did you buy the air-bag system from?
Re: 58 Chevy Build
The air bags are from Gremeltech in CT.IndianaJones wrote:Awesome thread, thank you for sharing.
Looks like you found a very good example of Apache to start with, it being a stepside is definitely a bonus. One can clearly see thus far, that a lot of effort, forethought and attention to detail have gone into the project, it is to be commended. It is often that little touches like electroplating parts, are overlooked, or skimped on, and it can make such a big difference.
Thanks, having looked at a few Apache's before buying this one was a disappointment to say the least, as most are so far rotten and badly repaired/patched in the past - I was just not prepared to spend a year or more just to cut out rust and repair old repairs, so my patience eventually paid off even though many would say I paid too much for her(to which I tend to agree, but I could have had a rust bucket for the same price too and that would have cost me more in the long run)
Q. Please excuse my questions, during the course of this build thread, cause it is one, I will definitely follow closely.
Q1. How do you envision the stance of the bakkie when done, having a rake (or raked stance), or are you planning on having it sit flat, or whatever? And how did you take it into account for final fitment of the suspension members?
Well I suppose the 1st question is what size rims & tires to fit?
I don't like the look of a huge rim with those skinny rubber bands around them, not on an old car anyway. So I went to my tyre guys and collected a few old tires to get an overall idea of what would fill the wheel well nicely and still be practical & functional - so 27" OD was the size to go for.
Then I wanted a nice looking rim to match the vehicle style, so many hrs & web sites later I decided that a set of Lengend 42 Vision wheels were the ones I wanted.
After refitting front clip and loadbin with the 27" sample tire and then raising lowering the chassis on jack stands I came up with (what I think) a nice stance and took and noted all measurements in order for me to position the front & rear suspension correctly, the idea was to have a suspension system fitted in normal operation setup but installed in a lowered position/as needed for the ride height and ultimately functioning like it was intended too.( just lowering from normal position will in most cases lead to some or other alignment adjustment issue compromising the ride quality/safety).
Obviously marking the original axle/suspension center lines was crucial in order to get the new suspension fitting properly in the wheel wells. So I chose 18" x 9.5 for the rear & will be fitted with 295/50 - 18 tires and 17" x 8 on the front fitted with 235/65-17, this combination gave me the looks, stance and had some tire wall to show and it should still handle well and not give a harsh ride.
After the tire selection, I found an online ratio calculator and determined what diff gear ratio will be suitable for wheel size vz motor/gearbox combination.
Q2. Could you run the engine, as received from Rocket 88, with the harness & PCM?
I could probably have plumbed it all to test run it, but being efi it was just way to much effort to do, at least it was complete barring MAF sensor and a few damaged items from handling(Crank trigger, oil press and a cracked dist cap) plus this being a 1996 motor, who knows how long it was standing or what condition it was internally - rusted bores/seized bearings/ whatever.(more about this later in my story). Q3. Did you fabricate the 4-link parts yourself?
A friend of mine actually suggested the 4 link install and as he had made a set of bars for his hot rod build(which by the way he has not gone further than building the basic chassis - more than 2 years ago) so I relieved him of this set, as he wasn't going to need for a while (link arms are based on Art Morrison's design).
The brackets and mountings I fabricated to suite (hope they work )
Q4. Where did you buy the air-bag system from?
My reason for air was sort of 3 fold,
1. The Jag I bought to strip suspension out of was also fitted with a 350 chevy & 350 turbo box and it was already laying down lower on the front suspension than jag spec.
Now I decided to use a 454 big block motor on my build with the same suspension on an already heavy pick up, so how many test springs would I have to make/test to get the ride setup correct? = many $$$$$ probably.
Each air bag is capable of supporting 1600+kg @ 9 bar pressure, so I can adjust exactly what I need.
2. The ride quality should be good on air vs springs.
3. What to do with the rear ? as I have removed the leaf system completely - so air it is for the rear.
More about my air ride control later - very cool
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Well now that the front suspension is fitted time for the rear end.
Time for refurb and corrected gears etc.
This is what it should look like with the wheels fitted.
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Now it's end September 2015, time to strip the motor and see what horror awaits
Some scoring on the crank journals was evident of poor oil changes, so it was sent for polishing and inspection, all good only needs new bearings
The block was sent for cleaning and honing of bores. Motor mods to be done while it's apart, larger inlet valves, 272 deg cam, comp cam gear set, new valve springs to suit, new hydraulic roller lifters(as 3 where worn and pitted and the oem cam had 3 flat lobes too), exhaust ports opened up by nearly 4mm od and inlets port ramps partially smothed(this is the vortec heads tha GM made to gain torque by adding a swirl inducer into these heads, good low & mid torque, but does not do well for rpm's).
Inlet manifold was matched up to head porting and fuel injectors were up graded(as these sit under the plenum chamber, best to fit now).
Compression ratio was left std +/- 9.6:1, in the event of this motor not performing "suitably" after the above mods, it may get some forced induction to spice things up
My reason for not cranking or starting this motor over - I did not want to risk doing damage to pistons/bores if there was severe rust in them, the bores still have hove marks visible from the factory as this motor looks like it was never worked on in it's life before, also the previous owner probably could not afford servicing it either the sludge and crap in here was unbelievable .Some scoring on the crank journals was evident of poor oil changes, so it was sent for polishing and inspection, all good only needs new bearings
The block was sent for cleaning and honing of bores. Motor mods to be done while it's apart, larger inlet valves, 272 deg cam, comp cam gear set, new valve springs to suit, new hydraulic roller lifters(as 3 where worn and pitted and the oem cam had 3 flat lobes too), exhaust ports opened up by nearly 4mm od and inlets port ramps partially smothed(this is the vortec heads tha GM made to gain torque by adding a swirl inducer into these heads, good low & mid torque, but does not do well for rpm's).
Inlet manifold was matched up to head porting and fuel injectors were up graded(as these sit under the plenum chamber, best to fit now).
Compression ratio was left std +/- 9.6:1, in the event of this motor not performing "suitably" after the above mods, it may get some forced induction to spice things up
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
October 2015 was gearbox month.
Stripped down to the shell, cleaned, primed and painted. Contents of the gearbox was shocking, but expected in a way, all the clutches were trash, shift plate was hammered out were the control balls operate. With the parts list in hand, I ordered a full gearbox rebuild kit, new reverse band, new internal wiring harness and a Transgo HD2 shift kit.
Assembly was time consuming, working between a rebuild manual and the transgo instructions back and forth to do all the correct mods and parts/spring swops, installing gear sets/clutches as needed.
With the shift kit installed, this should sharpen up gear shifts and also prolong clutch life, as these boxes are know to be super smooth shifters at the expense of clutch life.
With some PCM re-programming/tuning later the shift speed & firmness can be set from mild to tire smoking - lets see later
So after 2 weeks waiting my parts arrived from Summit Racing and the gearbox was completed and ready to fit. Oh and in the meantime my wheels arrived as it's November 2015 already, how time flies and it feels like progress is soooo sloooow
Stripped down to the shell, cleaned, primed and painted. Contents of the gearbox was shocking, but expected in a way, all the clutches were trash, shift plate was hammered out were the control balls operate. With the parts list in hand, I ordered a full gearbox rebuild kit, new reverse band, new internal wiring harness and a Transgo HD2 shift kit.
Assembly was time consuming, working between a rebuild manual and the transgo instructions back and forth to do all the correct mods and parts/spring swops, installing gear sets/clutches as needed.
With the shift kit installed, this should sharpen up gear shifts and also prolong clutch life, as these boxes are know to be super smooth shifters at the expense of clutch life.
With some PCM re-programming/tuning later the shift speed & firmness can be set from mild to tire smoking - lets see later
So after 2 weeks waiting my parts arrived from Summit Racing and the gearbox was completed and ready to fit. Oh and in the meantime my wheels arrived as it's November 2015 already, how time flies and it feels like progress is soooo sloooow
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Through Dec 2015 and early Jan 2016, I had the propshaft made and did plumbing for brake & fuel lines, mostly tried to hide them out the way by running them in the boxed chassis and leaving a clean and uncluttered underside.
Also built and fitted the fuel tank into the rear of the chassis under the load bin floor.
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Well with me having the chassis rolling and motor and gearbox fitted and some plumbing done, whats left to do?
Yup, BODY WORK
So I built a mobile trolley for the cab to rest on fr a few months and allow me to move it around also tip it up right to get underneath with ease. Step 1 give a a good wash with rotary pressure washer and remove near 60 years worth of dirt. Repairs required to cab included L & R cab corners, L rear inner cab mount which was previously fixed by Frikkie die Bra and all the door hinge pockets were beaten, bent or some how crowbarred into deformation.
Also filled up unwanted holes etc. Cab mount repair. Now to repair the outer cab skin. New sheet made up. And guess what? I never took a pic of the repaired cab skin
Yup, BODY WORK
So I built a mobile trolley for the cab to rest on fr a few months and allow me to move it around also tip it up right to get underneath with ease. Step 1 give a a good wash with rotary pressure washer and remove near 60 years worth of dirt. Repairs required to cab included L & R cab corners, L rear inner cab mount which was previously fixed by Frikkie die Bra and all the door hinge pockets were beaten, bent or some how crowbarred into deformation.
Also filled up unwanted holes etc. Cab mount repair. Now to repair the outer cab skin. New sheet made up. And guess what? I never took a pic of the repaired cab skin
58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
Next up, test fit cab onto chassis and fit brake booster and measure up for Vintage air a/c system in cab.
I have salvaged a good master cyl/booster assembly from a 325 BMW along with pedal assembly, now to make it fit onto the fire wall
Firewall measured many times and cut once
Fits like it was meant to be. Pat self on back
Now the Apache never had A/C so I found a universal kit from Vintage air and selected some suitable air vents I wanted and the controls to operate, nice thing is, it's all servo motor driven operation and not cable, so the controls are simple to fit anywhere in the cab/dash, but the vintage air units are designed for left hand drive vehicles and that was a problem fitting it on the left side(as obviously our steering sits right side) so I had to make some space by trimming away at the fire wall, which also eliminated the problem of the original one having been drilled with many holes and dented so at least no hole plugging here and out/off it came.
That looked so smooth and clean, I had to add a new flat sheet to the brake booster side to make it all look clean, the opening on the fire wall above the engine will get a flat plate over it as a cover and my wiring will also pass through there into the cab, once finished, it will all be smooth and wiring etc will be hidden away too.58 Chevy Apache
Re: 58 Chevy Build
wow that looks like its all going according to plan. looks great. keep it up
" better to be a racer for a moment than a spectator for a lifetime"
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