Well TeriAnn,
I recently bought a NADA 67 109 from Colorado. It's a nice core of a vehicle with some alterations. It's big attraction is that it has a Chevy 292 straight six with a Scotty's adapter mating it to the stock drivetrain. The odd thing is that it has a bolt on galvanized rear cross member but the rest of the chassis is perfect. The only tin worm is in the footwells.
Now having got the beastie home there are a few things that I don't like:
- The previous owner had rewired the truck using such things as domestic twist nuts for splices. There was no documentation with his work so I'm just going to gut her and start from scratch. The advantage here is that I will be able to base the new system round a Painless 18 circuit fuse box and use realays for those things needed.
- The Chevy engine is longer than the old LR 2.6 lump which pushes the radiator up over the front cross member. The PO had kluged in two radiators to fill the space round the steering relay and added an oil cooler. All of these were only wired to the truck and are connected together with a rats nest of hoses.
The build spec is to have a dd truck for my family that has been modernised to maximise passenger safety inside and had all the subsystems modernised/overhauled for reliuability. The truck will serve as my daily driver in competition with my '71IIA and my 101. It will also serve as the family camping vehicle and also as a means of hauling my downhill bikes and Malamute up to the mountains for some fun in the cooler air.
The build plan is something like this:
- Keep the Chevy engine but put better manifolds on it, bump the compression to 9:1 and add TBI fueling. That should give me plenty of power and get her as about economic as i can within a budget. I'd love a lump ported head but that's drag racing territory.
- Put on power steering ala Jim's truck. Pickings are thin on the ground in Phoenix so the choice of actual steering box will be down to what is available. I'll run a Chevy power steering pump.
- That will free up the area occupied by the steering relay leaving me a big square hole for a proper radiator set up.'leccy fans will pull the air through.
- Use a small block Chevy bellhousing to mate to an F250 NP435. Use an Ike adapter to mate this to my series transfer case. That should get me a pretty bomb proof powertrain with plenty of grunt.
- Add a dual aircon unit from hot rod air. This is a requirement from my wife for existing in Phoenix.
- On the chassis I'll be pulling that rear cross member, cleaning up the mounting plate installation and then securing it using bolts through a Pangolin hitch and two 3 ton shackle plates using grade 8 hardware. Should be plenty strong.
- Suspension will be Rocky Mountain Parabolics.
- For the interior I'm looking at the front and rear seat from a JK Wrangler. This is to be my family truck so high back seating and modern belts are a priority. Now I just need to bide my time for someone to wreck one of those 4 door jeeps. Like a vulture I can wait. I'll be putting a Tuffy console in between the two front seats. An alternative rear seat arrangement (I know I will not have more than two kids even if it involves a nasty accident with a bench vice to make sure.) would be to use four Bestop Trailmax pro seats (two front & two rear) and then have a console in the center on both rows. I'll see what is available when I get that far.
- Finally, as I said this is to be a family camping/exploration truck, I want to put on a set of Pangolin rock sliders which will greatly increase the side impact protection.
The area open to debate on my spec is the axles. For some odd reason I would like front and rear Slaisburies. The problem is getting them to Phoenix as I need someone with a container going trans Atlantic. THe other, most likely much cheaper option, is to go the Toyota axle route, either a full swap or some falvour of Series Trek set up. Brakes will remain an open item as well until I make an axle choice. I will, however, be putting in SIII based dual circuit, servo assited hydraulics.
As I am a desert dweller I will save some money and go against the current convention of galvanised chassis and bulkhead. It's just not necessary. POR15 on the outside and Waxoyl on the inside will be fine.
The finshed truck should maintain the overall appearance of the classis NADA wagon but have considerably modernised and strengthened systems for reliability.
The other area open to conosideration is the paint. Original sage green or marine blue. That's my wife's choice.
I'd say I'll take plenty of pictures but my garage is not a healthy environment for a digital camera.
Cheers
Gregor
