Its been a bit since I posted, but there has actually been some progress. In my last post I mentioned some horrors in the front end sheet metal. I had examined the front clip and discovered that the frame was bent and cracked from a front end collision, and the front clip was all misaligned, with the frame actually poking through the driver side grill fins. Most of the panel pieces had cracks and dents/twists/creases etc. The main bottom support for the entire front clip was also broken, and had allowed the rad cradle to fall downwards and forwards a good ¾ inch. I was getting myself mentally prepared to deal with a real mess when I discovered something very interesting. The front end sheet metal brackets are supposed to attach to the rad cradle with 6 large bolts. But on closer inspection I discovered that all 6 bolts were missing. So the entire front end was currently being held in place by……..gravity! It had all fallen down until it came to rest on the frame. This actually turned out to be very good news. I started to take the front end sheet metal apart, piece by piece, each time examining the fit and then working out the twists and dents with hand tools. I also had to weld numerous stress cracks, and retap all the bolt holes. My son Brian came over and gave me a hand with some of the larger panels that had dents requiring a serious whalloping, and then we put it all back together. I won’t know for sure how good a job we did until we try to put it together with the hood and cab, but it appears to be pretty good from a quick eyeball inspection.
I can honestly say that doing one of these builds with no intention of nice bodywork and paint is a liberating experience. On our last build (a 56 Chevy wagon) we wanted a decent looking final product, so we tried our best to do really good body work. It turned out OK looking, but the build took over 7 years to do. I am never doing that again!
With the rust/crack/dent repairs pretty much done, it was time to start on the S10 disassembly.
The S10 disassembly went well, but it sure was slow. Since I plan on using as much as possible from the S10, I was very careful in the disassembly so that I did not end up with cracked/bent/cut/broken stuff. This, added to the fact that I have zero experience with modern cars led to a very slow disassembly. With the body removed, I had a chance to examine the frame where I had a pleasant surprise. The oil spraying created a thick layer of caked on crud which was easily removed with a scraper, exposing the waxy factory frame coating that Skymangs refers to in his S10 swap thread. This coating also came off easily with the scraper, after which a quick wipe with a varsol rag unveiled something rarely ever seen in Ontario: shiny steel on a 24 year old frame! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, as most frames this age are rotted out due to our road salt. The oil spraying also resulted in easy removal of the nuts and bolts, with most stuff just requiring a hand ratchet to remove.
I got a 2nd nice surprise during the teardown as well. As I carefully unhooked the entire wiring harness, I discovered no evidence of anybody monkeying around with it. No cut wires, no crappy splices, no bizarre fixes, just a nice factory wiring harness in wonderful condition. Since I don’t know what most of these wires do, I carefully labeled EVERYTHING, and made notes in a build book where I write down a ton of stuff that I know I’ll never remember.
I removed the drivetrain and cut off the body mounts that were in the way, but didn’t do all the grinding as I want to do that outdoors when the cold weather breaks. I’m sick of that fine dust that coats everything and turns your hands black every time you touch something!
With the frame now stripped, it was time to see if this whole thing is going to work for me. While the A.D. swap has been perfected by guys like Skymangs, Joedoh and others, there is almost nothing on the internet about the 39-46 Fargo swap. However, when I checked out Joedoh’s Hannah and Fenix projects I realized just how similar the GM and Mopar trucks are in the 40’s, and Joedoh did a great job of dealing with the unique body shape and tight, tapered engine bays of those trucks.
To get things going I tried to fit the entire front end in place, but that wasn’t happening. The idler arm and steering box are in the way of the rad cradle, and the radiator air dams inside the nose cone also bash the frame. To get the front end in place, I removed the steering box, idler arm, and interior sheet metal air dams. I also had to do some serious trimming of the frame horns, as the front grill and steering box will just fit. Next I made a bunch of wooden stands to allow me to set the front end, cab and box roughly in place, and allow me to move it around to see how things are gonna fit and look. My goal is to have the truck at roughly stock ride height (I’m not a fan of lowered trucks, and I want this thing to look as much like an original ‘46 Fargo as I can). I also had to whip up a couple of the rods that run from the firewall to the grill that adjust the grille angle and stiffen the entire front end. My son Brian came over and after a marathon 2 day blast we think we got things sorted out. Here’s what it took to do it:
The lower rad cradle is too wide for the S10 frame (even with the steering box and idler arm removed), so after a lot of measuring and thinking we cut off the bottom, and replaced it with a 3/16” U channel:
We cut the cradle high enough to leave sufficient room to be able to install the steering lines into the top of the steering box. We will be using one of the recommended Speedway 19 x 22 rads, and there is a ton of room to mount this in our cradle. With this done we were actually able to slide the entire front end into place (while suspending it from a hoist), and we set the fender centres with the front wheel centrelines. We did a little bit of measuring, some eyeballing, and finally found the sweet spot where it looked really nice. We cut some 3/16 tube to act as frame mounts and then drilled holes to allow us to bolt the revised rad cradle into what should be its final position.
We knew that we might encounter some interference where the front of the steering box meets the grill, but the gods were smiling on us and it just fit. Here’s a shot of that grill, gently curling around the front of the steering box:
At this point we are still doing a trial mock-up, so everything is lightly tacked in place. Once we know that its all going to work, we will add gussets, braces, etc and fully weld things in place.
Now that the front clip was in place we could set the cab into position. I had made up a cab lifting attachment for the hoist (I can’t remember which site member’s design I used, but it works like a charm!) and we used this to set the cab onto some 4 x 4 blocks cut to height.
I had also made wooden stands for the running boards, bedsides, etc and as a result we were able to set things into position easily. Here she sits on the various wooden stands, with the cardboard “wheels on sticks” to show us how its going to look:
We were pleased with the way it looks, and it appears to be right at the original ‘46 ride height (which is what we are after). The rear axle is going to have to slide forward about 1 ½ inches to get a visually pleasing spacing in the fenders, and we will have to raise the bed floor about 2 inches to clear the frame kickup. Other than that, it appeared to fit, so we took a bunch of measurements and fabbed up the mounts, which were tacked in place. Once we are positive that everything is right I will add some gussets and do the final welding:
More to follow!
Stephan