From monster truck to street-pride is expensive!

[the1ted]

I bought a monster truck in 1986 and campaigned it for about a year before shutting it down. You can view photos at

www.monsterphotos.com

and look under 'Mr. Bad' in the monster trucks. A few years after trying to compete with it I dismantled it and put it back on the street. The cab and bed were 1984, the frame was a heavy 1/2 ton 4x4 and the axles were 3/4 ton. The following 20 years it served as a work truck seeing lots of winter action with a snow plow attached. Somewhere in the last few years I forgot to wash off the under carriage and the salt ate thru the brake lines. I discovered that when I pulled out on the farm road I live on and attempted to slow for a turn and the brakes went to the floor-literally. No pressure whatsoever! I had disconnected the emergency brake set-up when we did the street build (bad idea) and never thought of it again until the emergency actually happened. I pulled into low gear on the column (automatic) and idled back home where I had it towed to the GMC dealer.
We replaced all the brake lines and while it was on the lift the mechanic took a ball point pen out of his front pocket and pushed it thru the crossmember support on the frame right behind the cab-YIKES! I took it home and rented a commercial sandblaster and proceeded to blast the rear of the frame after removing the bed, springs, brake lines and rear axle.
The more I blasted the rear, the more I saw rust problems throughout the front of the frame and cab-especially the body mounts which had dried and split. At this point I decided to tear it down to bare frame and replace the crossmember-not an easy process. I will post pictures later, but wanted to get this thread started.

[texastruckjunky]

Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you, can't wait to see what it looks like.

[the1ted]

My very first truck was a 1973 Chevy Blazer, bought new. I had the idea to get a 4x4 because I got stuck in a line leaving our new shopping mall in 1972-3 and decided I could jump the curb and grass to get to the street a lot faster!

[the1ted]

I finally found a few scans of the truck in the day (1986). One is with my son in his Bigfoot truck, the second is of the truck at the first car crush in Springfield MO, and finally my son (now 30 with a son the same age as he is in the picture) sitting in the wheel of Mr Bad.

[82ccshorty]

This is a cool truck. What's your plans with it?
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[the1ted]

It has been back on the street for 20+ years until I discovered immense rust damage underneath from snow plowing. I am rebuilding it completely with 1-ton running gear (Dana 60 with 4:88 gears and locker, GM 1-ton rear w/same) and will get some more pictures up ASAP! Thanks for you post.

[the1ted]

Here is the best picture of the truck post/monster version.

[str8axle55]

I like the post Monster pic. It sounds like the cab on my crew, nothing left underneath for mounts, braces, I hate salt.

[the1ted]

I got the front frame hangers for the rear springs from a guy in Las Vegas. No salt there!

[Adam j]

Do you still have the winch bumper that was on the monster truck
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[Adam j]

Do you still have the winch bumper that was on it
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[the1ted]

The winch and bumper are long gone-over 20 years ago.

[96twodoor]

wow that is pretty cool , just seeing that truck plowing you would have no idea that it used to crush cars .

[the1ted]

Trust me, the thought is still there!

[the1ted]

Here is a picture (taken of my parts truck) that shows the crossmember I replaced. The rust on the brackets that go to the bottom frame rail had taken the form shown in the front spring hanger photo. It had lost all integrity and was flaking and crumbling.

[the1ted]

This photo is of the truck in its current state. The crossmember has been replaced. It required sacrificing another truck frame because you can't remove the crossmember whole. The frames have been harder to find as so many were crushed in the clunker trade-in program. I ground out the rivets on my old crossmember and cut it in half to remove it. The replacement we split down the middle and put both halves inside the frame rails then oversized each rivet hole to 7/16. This helped to line up the new piece also. The next step was to replace the rivets with Grade 8 bolts-being sure to place a star washer under the head of each bolt to prevent walking out (as mentioned earlier I got this tip from an engineer-there is a small radius from the head of a bolt to the shank) and made sure each bolt had enough shank to pass thru all layers of frame and crossmember before applying a heavy Grade 8 flat and a locking (crimp style) Grade 8 nut. This is as close as you can come to duplicating a weld-and you still have the flex movement needed. We pre-drilled 3/4" holes downward thru the crossmember and a 2" square heavy tubing piece placed underneath, then repeated the bolting method used on the frame. It was tight, so I used 2 Porta-Powers to spread the frame rails and drop in the 3/4 x 3 1/2" bolts.

[survivingalone]

more pics of the frame!!! nice....

[the1ted]

Here are more frame pics. The first piece is the bracket I had laser cut from a drawing (thank God for high school drafting class!). Four of these were welded to the bottom of the axle tubes on the 1-ton rear end. It is a tight fit against the shock mount on the passenger side and the cast housing on the driver's side. From these mounts I measured and had heavy tubing for a four-link suspension system cut and welded to 4 eye ends that are adjustable and serviceable. All this was to locate and keep the rear axle in place. When I took this apart before this build, the U-bolts were twisted and had to be torched off. Leaves in both springs were broken, probably due to the axle wrap from acceleration. I was hard on the truck, especially during snowplowing, and pulled a few trees down along with just plain 'jackrabbit' driving!
The front of the traction arms are located on a piece of Grade 8 all-thread fed thru the front spring hangers and held in place with Grade 8 lockwashers, flats, and nuts. I tried to align the pivot point as close as possible to the front eye end of the springs. It came about an inch higher, but the 1-ton springs are so stiff I don't forsee any problems. In the third picture you can see the bottom of the crossmember where the bolts drop down from the replaced piece. Also there is a good look at the bolt method used to reattach the spring hanger.
Finally there is one photo of the front hanger (rear) that was original to the frame. Took them off and looked hard for replacements. Without success, I had the rust areas layered with wire welding and a few more welds added to stabilize them. One interesting thing is that you can see the penetration of the powdercoating while the were attached to the frame. Anyways, I looked on eBay and found a guy in Las Vegas who offered to search out any part you needed, so I decided to get a different set of hangers. The last pic shows the new install on these.

[survivingalone]

very nice. maybe i missed it but how much lift? what size wheels? what size tires? thanks!

[hopped up]

Originally Posted by the1ted

I finally found a few scans of the truck in the day (1986). One is with my son in his Bigfoot truck, the second is of the truck at the first car crush in Springfield MO, and finally my son (now 30 with a son the same age as he is in the picture) sitting in the wheel of Mr Bad.

is that an impala and a buick gs youre crushing!!!!!!!!!!
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[the1ted]

The total lift on this truck is 6". All spring in the front and a 1" block in the rear (all that was needed with the 1-ton spring stack height). The wheels and tires are pictured with the snow plow and are 35" BF Goodrich Mud Terrain.
As to the car crush, they were selected by the salvage dealer and guys were still pulling parts before and after the crush!

[Can't kech me]

wow! i can't beleive the transformation. sorta like an old man that looks normal, but back in the day probably wooped some ass. gonna be a wicked truck when finished.

[the1ted]

Here are 2 more pics shortly before this current rebuild. One is of the back end showing a good view of the schedule 80 pipe bumper. It was made from scraps on an overhead sprinkler system job and started life on my 1966 GMC Carryall. Indestructible! The other shows the axles that used to be underneath the original monster version. Each wheel and tire combination back then weighed 1500 lbs.

[the1ted]

The first picture is of the rear bumper with a winch installed. I had always wanted this configuration to pull vehicles onto a trailer-so now I finally did it! I am going to fit the control box to the inside of the driver's side rear fender well and use a 4" hole saw to go down thru the bed to engage and release the winch. I used 2 roller fairleads and one slotted/sacrificial fairlead to bring the cable out the back. The next view is of the front of the truck. Two decisions I made to defeat the rust and salt are all neoprene bushings (excepting the eye ends of the leaf springs) and all stainless steel lines for brakes and fuel. The following photo is the motor for the '85 next to the '57 engine. You can see the Jeep my son shows at the extreme right. All motors are 350 small blocks and note the chalk board on the back wall. It is a lifesaver trying to get 2 vehicles done at the same time. One more picture is the full view of the Jeep. I know this is a Chevy and GMC truck site but get this; the engine is a 355 Chevy small block, a TH400, the front 3/4 ton brakes and hubs are from a GM truck, the transfer case is from my '66 GMC Carryall (Rockwell T-221), and the rear is a 1-ton 14-bolt Chevy dually!

[splehigh]

Cool truck! I like the rear winch.