Wampus Cat

[TJ's Chevy]

Nice to see another truck with a 6 cyl in it. Becoming a rare breed. The sway bar will be a nice touch.

[TxCajun]

Originally Posted by TJ's Chevy

Nice to see another truck with a 6 cyl in it. Becoming a rare breed. The sway bar will be a nice touch.

Thanks! Rare breed indeed.
I'm planning on keeping it simple with the straight six and three speed on the column; just make upgrades to brakes, suspension, and cosmetics.

[TxCajun]

The springs on the truck appeared to have perhaps been "lowered" by heating, or perhaps just sagged over the years.

I purchased 2" lowering springs for the front and 3" lowering springs for the rear.

While installing the front springs, I also replaced the upper ball joints and adjusted the manual steering box. The rest of the front suspension seems to be in good shape.

On the rear, I had to cut out the trailing arm pivot bolts, the spring capture hardware, and the one of the axle U-bolts, but I had planned to use new hardware anyway.

For the trailing arm pivot bolts, instead of using 4" long Grade 8 replacement bolts, I decided to use 5" long Grade 8 replacement bolts so that there are no threads inside the pivot bushing. I shortened the 5" bolts by about 5/8" so that about only 2 to 3 threads extend past the nut. I also replaced the bushings with poly bushings.

[TxCajun]

The old rear shocks were leaking, so I still need to determine the length of rear shock that I need with the lower springs, and also fabricate new upper shock mounts so that the shocks are more vertical.

With the new springs installed the distance from the center of the wheel to the bottom of the fender lip is about 17" at the front and 12" at the rear. These measurements and the pictures were taken just after taking it off the jack-stands and bouncing the truck a few times, so it may settle in a bit after sitting for a while.

[TxCajun]

April 2018

I started up the rebuilt engine for the first time with help from my brother who was visiting. After fashioning a tool for my drill, we spun the oil pump to lubricate the engine, then inserted the distributor, and cranked it up. A little tweaking of the timing and idle mixture got it running smoothly, and we then let it run for about 20 minutes for cam break-in. Oil pressure and water temperature are good; sounds great.

The engine temp started getting a little warm just sitting there in the driveway at high idle on a 84 degree day, but putting a fan in front of the truck blowing on the radiator resolved that. The stock fan sits back 2 or 3 inches from the radiator, and there is no fan shroud; might be a good candidate for an electric cooling fan this summer.

There was a minor oil leak at the front of the oil pan, but re-torquing the oil pan bolts resolved the leak.

I fabricated some new rear upper shock mounts following the design suggested on this forum by Lakeroadster; this mount relocates the upper shock mount a little higher and further back so that the shock is more upright and will operate correctly ( http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=451200 ) .
I don't have access to a mill, so I made these mounts using my side grinder with a cutoff wheel for the cutout area and my drill press for the holes.

After a little research, I chose to use Monroe Gas-Magnum 34904 shocks instead of the Monroe 32207 that are often suggested on this forum. The 34904 are very close in length dimensions to the 32207, but are a little beefier in that they have a larger diameter rod and cylinder. My truck has a tread plate rear bed floor that I estimate adds 250 to 300 pounds to the bed, so I think the additional damping may be helpful.
I haven't driven this setup yet, but it has very good damping when I put my weight on the rear bumper and try to bounce the truck.