1971 chev tractor puller

[car66]

so on monday Dec. 17, 2012, this truck came into the scrap yard that i work at. it was driven in so i knew that meant it has to run and drive. so i fired it up and its got a healthy 350 and a good th350 with a nice dual exhaust set up. i saved it from certain death so that i can breath some new life into it. my plan is to turn it into a pulling truck to use during the summer at our local track. the body has some rust issues but nothing that cant be fixed. for $450, how could i go wrong lol. well, heres the first of what will be many pictures to come.

[Beetle]

In!

[thelonerife]

Good job saving it. Looks like a good driver.

[Mustard72]

Really nice looking truck, especially for $450. Good golly.

[gdavis]

Originally Posted by car66

so on monday Dec. 17, 2012, this truck came into the scrap yard that i work at. it was driven in so i knew that meant it has to run and drive. so i fired it up and its got a healthy 350 and a good th350 with a nice dual exhaust set up. i saved it from certain death so that i can breath some new life into it. my plan is to turn it into a pulling truck to use during the summer at our local track. the body has some rust issues but nothing that cant be fixed. for $450, how could i go wrong lol. well, heres the first of what will be many pictures to come.

you are one lucky dog. I guess it pays to work at a bone yard.

[Mustard72]

Keep us updated. I haven't seen any other puller truck build threads. This should be pretty cool.

[car66]

thanks guys, its gonna be more of a low dollar puller build but it will be a fun project. im gonna swap the trans out for a th400, i have a 2001 3/4 chevy disc brake rear thats gonna go under it and its gonna get a set of my sbc zoomies i ran back when i was doing demo derbies. as of right now, its still sitting on the trailer lol.

[car66]

made a little bit of progress on the chev today. i hope to have the front clip off by the end of the weekend.

[thelonerife]

Nice progress!

[car66]

how the motor looked when they drove it in for scrap. all i have done to the motor was put an air cleaner on it.


last picture of it before i started pulling the front apart.


how it sits at the moment, slowly making some progress

[car66]

here are the tires and the rear end im going to be using. its a 2001 3/4 ton chevy rear out of another truck that came into work and the tires are off of a man lift that was brought into work as well.

[Mustard72]

Awesome. Don't see tires like that very much on this forum!

[car66]

i picked up a pretty mint 71-72 grill shell from a good friend of mine for free


got some delete plates made from some aluminum road signs i picked up for $10. made one for the glove box, one for the radio, ashtray, heater controls, and ignition, made one to replace the gauge cluster, and made ones to cover the holes from removing the fuse block, heater fan, and heater box






i am going to be doing away with the brake booster and power steering set ups (already spoken for lol) im only going to have rear brakes after the rear end swap. does anybody on here know if a single line master cylinder would provide enough pressure to stop the rear tires only?

[gdavis]

Would it be street legal with only rear brakes. Not in Fl. Just asking.

[Gus350]

Most pulling trucks are only built for the track not street driven.

[car66]

it will never see the road. there are going to several thing that would keep it from being street legal. its going to have headers through the hood, no front brakes, no lights, and so on.

[keepitsimple]

This is just too cool.

I can't wait to see what it becomes man!

[car66]

just a mock up picture, took the brake booster off, got the power steering gear box swapped for the manual one, bolted the headers on and just had to see how it looked with the front end on it....



sorry for the crappy cell phone pic lol

[Mustard72]

Sweeeeet!!!

[Billett]

This build looks awesome. Keep the pics coming!

[car66]

got some more stuff done on the truck today. got a different master cylinder bolted up, pulled the calipers off of the front too, pulled the distributor and carb, got the motor mounts unbolted, load lever bolted up, motor is ready to get pulled out next weekend. ran the casting numbers off of the motor and it turns out its a 400 and not a 350 so the plan is to put it on a stand when it comes out and freshen it up. new gaskets, give it a nice go through, check for any cracks or signs of bad things coming. all else fails, i have a good 350 that can go into it. heres a pic

[car66]

got the motor out of the truck tonight. started cleaning up the carport a little bit and it turned into pulling the motor out lol.




the motor on the right is the one out of it and the motor on the left is the "back up" motor, one of my old demo derby motors.

[Mustard72]

So you're going to run a relatively mild motor for pulling? Not criticizing, I'm just not familiar with pulling.

[car66]

its all good man, the 400/400 combo is only going to be until i get a good big block to run in it. a buddy of mine pulled last year with his '72 3/4 ton 4x4 that only has a 350 and it did fairly well. if it works well enough to at least move the sled i'll be happy lol.

[car66]

shifter and gas tank showed up today...




its not much but its an update lol