Lowering and swapping my 71 3/4 ton

[D3_Fab]

So I figured I'd start a project thread on my truck since I've finally started to work on it and I'm moving into a new place with my wife that has some shop space. So basic info on the truck is that it's the basic ranch truck, I got it from a friend that got it from the old lady that had it for her ranch. It was ordered with some cool extras (wish it still had them &#128529 but pretty much the usual rust and extreme lack of general maintenance. When I got the truck it didn't want to start and ran poorly.





Tires were rotted and odd ball sizes to, not a huge fan of the 16" wheels either, so I'll throw them up on Craigslist and try and get 1-200 to put towards the truck. But first gotta get it running right so a full service and tune up is a must! So I got a new edelbrock carb, plugs,wires,coil,cap,rotor,fuel filter,fuel pump,oil filter,trans filter, new internal regulated alternator.





And sure enough pulled the trans pan 😱😱😱





Yeah that's all from the trans pan :/
With my new found trust issues in the truck I figured it'd be a good time for some gauges and fix the door hing (ripped/rusted from the door jam) and a leaking fuel cap that dumped gas down the side of the truck. It also didn't have keys for the doors and the ignition key was broke off in the ignition and started with a screw driver so I replaced the ignition switch and got new locks and keys for the doors as well👍







Then I picked up some 18x9 wheels with new nitto tires for $550, 285/60/18 wheels have a 5" backspacing



Now the wheel gap was bugging me really bad because I'm used to lowered cars/trucks here's a pic of my last project I built







So figured I'd set about lowering my c20, figured I'd do an axle flip in the rear and started to drop it







But then I had to have the truck up and going to move so I just ended up pulling some leaf springs and adding air shocks in the rear and cutting some coils and machining new top spring cups to level the truck and this is where the truck sits as of today





Once we move I have a new 454ci with 30miles on rebuild and a th400 trans with 38k on it I'm gonna build up and swap into the truck, looking to make around 500hp and build some track bars to be able to put the power down without axle hop/wrap and put a LSD in the rear as well. After the swap I plan to do a proper drop front and rear with cnotch and spindles but for now it is what it is