Beulah - '49 3100LS10

[b-mac]

5 years ago, just after my son was born, I bought this truck. I had little idea what I was doing, or what I should have been looking for in a rebuild. (although I did have somewhat of an automotive background.) All I knew was the price was right, so I borrowed a trailer, dragged it home to my subdivision driveway, and got to work. At that time, I hadn't even found this message board, but I did shortly after, and I have to give a ton of credit to some great people on this board, especially Chris, who makes this look easy.

So, as I should have done years ago, I'm going to start a build thread, and slowly start dropping in pics of my progress over the last 5 years, and progress in the future. It's pretty slow going for me with small children, but working on the truck is my meditation. And when I can't get to mine, seeing other people progress, and discussing issues on this forum is the next best thing.

I'll try to fill in as much detail as I can remember, as I move through the pics. I did some things differently along the way and made plenty of mistakes. But I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Here goes:


Ah, the day we first met. Had I been smart enough to know how rough you really were, I probably would have left you there to rot. But here we are. The start of a beautiful friendship...

[b-mac]

As I mentioned above, I find this forum somewhere early on. My original plan was to do frame repair on the stock frame...the one with the large rust holes in it from above. But I the S10 swap, and I'm off to the races. I find an S10 with no brakes, and begin the teardown.

At this point, I have two trashy truck in my driveway. And my wife is pretty damn excited about it, as you can imagine.

I also find a 5.3 aluminum block and a 4L60 along the way.

Trucks come apart; 49 cab goes in the garage, 49 sheet metal goes to storage, 49 frame and chassis go to scrap yard, along w/ s10 body. I remember getting almost $80 for the 49 radiator.

[joedoh]

woooo outstanding man!

[oldman3]

Looking forward to more pics and updates...Jim

[b-mac]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the original plan was just to set the 49 cab on the s10 frame, but the floor was so rusted, that when I tried to set it down, it just started collapsing.

Got the cab on furniture dollies and began replacing basically everything below your ankles in the cab.

I don't really know what I'm doing at this point. I've got minimal welding skills, and a junky flux HF welder. And a lot of ambition.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but if I could go back, I probably would have gotten everything sandblasted at this point.

[b-mac]

Looking back through these pics, I'm pretty lucky I didn't burn my freaking house down.

[mongocanfly]

ill follow along as well...with 2 trashy trucks in the driveway,, burning the house down would have really made you number 1 in your wifes eyes...haha

[b-mac]

You can see in these pics that I did some things differently than others (and than I probably should have.) I should have just not been a cheapskate and bought the stock floor sheetmetal. But it was expensive, I wasn't reusing any of the provision: seat mount, battery box, brake reservoir access, etc., I decided to replace the floor with just sheet metal. Before I cut away the swiss cheese, I braced it up with angle iron, which will stay and become the structure for the floor. Then, I foolishly cut some 4" square tubing that I had to make the landing for the body mounts.
Again, all this was done before I found this forum. I made my own body mounts, but none of the heights of Chris' worked out because of this custom floor.

[NorCalGal]

Always interesting to see how we all approach these repairs with our own twist.

[b-mac]

Door repair and my method for flipping the cab back upright...by myself...in my single car garage.

"Hey, there's that missing headlight ring."

[b-mac]

And...She's upright. On to floor repair.

[b-mac]

A little more floor repair...lots to go.

Also, it turns out that about 50% of the exhaust manifold bolts are broken off in the head on that 5.3. Apparently, this is common. An old timer told me to use a propane torch...that it wouldn't get hot enough to damage the aluminum. I successfully removed them all.

[b-mac]

I'm moving! I got relocated. Good thing, but I've got to push things forward a little bit to move all this junk.
I hastily welded the frame mounts on with only measurements...didn't end up working out for me, but it was enough to get the truck moved.

[b-mac]

New (bigger) garage. New workbench. New loft to store all this stuff...and some of the wife and kids junk too.

[b-mac]

Lining up the front sheet metal, and making my radiator mounts.

[b-mac]

I little more on how I made my radiator mounts. Others have had some good ideas. In hindsight, I wish I had done the cross brace up front like some others, but, what's done is done.

Oh, and my radiator...in the box...where it still is today, 3 years later.

More to come.

PS. It looks like I ran out of welding gas with those ugly tacks.

[joedoh]

man nice work!

[gigamanx]

I was about to say.... looks like you're using no gas. I don't even know about welding but I those welds are what I get when I weld too far away or weld across grease and dirt. Awesome feeling to build stuff from scratch though. I'm doing my core support over the next week. Probably do a cross brace between the two frame rails. I've seen some people do a cross brace under the frame rail, but that looks too after market for me. I'd like it to sort of look like it was meant to be there. Your's are nice and sleek. Probably have to cut the inner fenders when they go on. Mine are right up against the frame rail and core right where your brackets are.

[b-mac]

You are correct, gigamanx, I did have to trim the inner fenders for these radiator mounts. I kinda screwed them up by getting impatient with the plasma cutter when I was trying to fit them the first time around. I may go to a full custom inner fender some day. A friend of mine has done a bunch of them in fully slammed, mini-trucks.
But for now, the stock rusty ones can stay until this thing is running.

[LCA1971]

Keep up the good work!!! Starting to coming along nicely.

[b-mac]

Time to mount the motor. Used universal mounts from Jegs I believe. If anyone is interested, I can look them up. Cleaned up the cradle for it. Man those stock mounts were hard to get loose. Pretty close to that steering box... Need to see if I can squeeze this u-joint in here.

One other thought here: You can just see that brass fitting coming out of the power steering pump. The stock pump from the SUV was in the way big time, so I swapped it for the truck pump. But the onboard reservoir was in the way. pulled that, and I actually tapped the inlet for that reservoir and put this fitting in. This should allow me to mount a remove the reservoir on the firewall. It shouldn't be an issue as this is the low-pressure side, and the original tank was a plastic on plastic with an o-ring seal. This also keeps me away from the high-dollar Corvette pump.

[b-mac]

If I remember right, the motor install didn't quite work the first time (you can see in the pic of the mounts above, that I had to cut them back out.)
Second install...pushed to the passengers side a little further, and a little further back. So far back, that I had to fab up a couple of recesses in the firewall. I think they turned out alright.

This allowed my u-joints, and DD shaft, and sweet shiny column all to fit nicely.

[b-mac]

Firewall clean-up. Dang there's a lot of holes. Hope I didn't fill any I'm not supposed to.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally Posted by b-mac

Firewall clean-up. Dang there's a lot of holes....

I can totally relate. I stopped counting at FIFTY holes in mine!!

[b-mac]

Front frame cleanup. My typical move is maximum mechanical cleanup, Ospho, paint thinner, then POR15. This is my first project I've used it on, but it seems strong enough. And seems to have adhered well.