My 4G61 powered 1947 Dodge Truck complete build

[biglady112]

I am a little sad I cannot continue my land speed project. I think ultimately my heart was bigger than my wallet. While I can afford the sport, it does take away from more important things and life and is just going to take a lot of time and money I just don't think I have the desire for anymore. I love the car and racing, but I just can't wait a few more years before I get to enjoy it. That and I am ready to take the next step in my life, what ever that may be.

So to replace it, I am going to take on another car I have always been super interested in. A RAT ROD.

So here is the new truck I brought home. A 1947 Dodge 1/2 ton. The motor is coming out tonight.

The plan is to stuff all the race car parts into this truck. With a automatic chevy transmission.

Motor is out. And most of harness has been addressed or removed. Still a little more work there.

Well, I decided to ditch the wood dash and make shift head liner they built. As well as pretty much rip out the entire interior. I am almost done with the interior. Should have that done tonight. Just a few more wires and the fuel tank and I can start sorting out what I want to do with the body.

Found TONS of mouse poop. Not cool. This truck must have sat for ever. Maybe that is why it is in good shape.

Here are some pics. Including the motor going in.

 

[biglady112]

I was able to work on the truck friday and today. I patched about a million holes in the truck. HOLY CRAP. I am sick of welding and grinding. But for the most part I am happy. Some of the small holes I just filled in and ground them down. The larger ones or a cluster of holes I put some patches over. I did not intend for it to look pro, just something to seal up everything. I made it as smooth as I could around each weld. Some of them came out nice, some needed the grinder. I completely sealed off the firewall, the holes for the various hood ornaments the truck has had, the air intake on the cowl, as well as the rivet holes for the fire rope that was used to seal the hood. While I was at it I also patched the gas cap filler hole.

It is not a professional job, but the metal was all free and it does not look terrible. I could have sealed it all from the inside but there is a lot of work to be done to removed 87lbs of wood glue from the inside from one of the previous owners.

I am not sure if I am going to seal off the lower part of the firewall and the floor yet, or wait until the transmission goes in. I may have to do some cutting for the trannsmission and will certainly have to make some holes for shifter.

But I am close to the next step. I picked up a sand blaster, so I am going to remove the front end and blast all the parts. I should be able to knock out all of the cab with it mounted. I am just unsure if I want to tackle any of the frame yet, but it might be smart to blast what I can with parts off. I am also planning on doing the bed. I need to remove all the wood first though.

Here are the newest pictures.

I started preparing the cab for its next phase. EEEWWWW. There was definitely mice living in this truck. I found two dead ones. I also vacuumed the cab to see hoe much glue and carpet padding were left. Crap. I need to go and get some supplies to get this stuff out before I finish welding the cab and definitely before I sand blast it.

 

[biglady112]

I have been busy. Both with work and this build. Just have not had anything really to post up. I spent a lot of time getting the fire wall sealed up. But I made a lot of progress yesterday on the bed. On thursday and friday I spend the day tearing the bed off the truck. What a clutser #### they had with the way they rigged up the wood in the bed. It had five 4x4 wood posts width wise as the supports. And two more 2x4's thrown in for good measure. Then 5/8" plywood thrown on top of that that was rotten. And then those hideous planks of 2x6. It caused some really good pitting and oxidation on the bottom of all the bedsides. Another few years and it would have rotted through. Looks like I caught it in time.

I spent saturday morning mapping out my next step. I have decided I am going coilover suspension on all four corners. I also set out to shorten the bed seems how the tailgate was welded on on the lower part with some ugly angle iron. And some or the ornamental trim had been cut off of the passenger side of the bed. Enough that is was worthless now. And it was spot welded in from the factory, and I highl doubt I could find more. So I ended up cutting some off the front and rear of the bed. I went from 6' 6" to 4' 10". So I lopped one foot ten inches off the bed. I still have to patch some holes for where the fenders bolted on, then do some final welding of the bedsides as well as a little grinding. Then when I get further on the frame and suspension I will mount the bed, brace it and mount a sheet metal floor in it.

I also spent time two weeks ago getting all the nasty glue out of the cab. What a pain in the ass.

I also finished everything but the large orignal hole in the cab floor until I get the transmission placement sorted out. And I may also channel the floor to lower the can on the frame, so no sense in welding metal in just to cut it right out.

I did find two small cracks in the frame, but they should be easily repairable, and they were parallel with each other on each side of the frame. The frame is "bent", but I think there is some serious suspension issues. That and the right front frame rail is bent towards the left side a little. The right front of the frame is 1/4" higher than the left. And at the rear of the truck it is 1" higher than the left rear. When I get everything torn down I will correct all issues then.

Before I figured out how much I wanted to shorten the bed, I envisioned what the rear of the frame is going to look like with the suspension and how short I wanted to make it. After some rough measuring, I am also going to be shortening the rear of the frame 23-24". I also will be taking 5-7" off the front of the frame. One to correct the bent section, and two to tuck the frame back in the grill and patch the factory holes on either side of the grill for a smooth finish.

So been busy and have some pictures for you guys. Coming along nicely. While I was at it I took time to clean the motor going in the truck very well. I also pulled the oil pan to inspect the bottom end. Looked perfect in there. End played was spot on at .0055" on the crank. I also started modifying the oil pan to match the oil pan I made for the spare long block. I seran wrapped the motor as well because I will be sand blasting the truck some time soon.

Oh, when I was tearing down the bed, I found another dead mouse. I did not take a picture, but I can certainly say that three mice in my truck make it a TRUE rat rod.

 

[biglady112]

Well it is starting to look like a rat rod. I spent last night finishing off the seams of the bed. As well as the 10 holes from the fender bolts. I spent tonight removing all of the rear suspension. It took a little fighting, but for the most part it was not too bad. But I set the rear frame on jack stands to get an idea of where I would like it to sit. I may end up C notching the frame to get it even lower, but it is pretty close to what I am looking for. I am going to try and tackle the front end the next few days and get the panels off and suspension off.

I also plan to order a set of four coil overs for the entire truck.

Does anyone have any recommendations for spring rates for this thing front and rear?

Made it a little further tonight. Got the entire front suspension off. I am still on the fence about keeping some sort of running board, but my dad is trying to get me to keep some sort of running board. I will experiment this coming week with ideas and looks as what is on there is some old crappy wood anyway.

I still have to notch the bed and set it down on the frame. The goal is to get it even with the lower part of the cab. I have to also notch it for the rear axle. It certainly will not be a true bed, and may not have a floor at this point. It may only have a top with a hinge on it and some louvers. But that is a little way out.

And the more time goes on, the more I am back into the idea of running both sides of the hood. Maybe brace and weld them together and have them on a hinge the lifts forward. I like the grill standing by itself, but I love the sleeper look. And hiding my high strung turbo 4 cylinder is something that is starting to appeal to me more.

I need to either pick up or borrow a torch so I can shorten the frame and notch the frame. I plan on lowering the truck down about another 3" and I think I will have the look I am going for. I don't think I will need to channel the floor of the truck and bring the cab down anymore. I was suprised just how low I could get it by lowering the suspension alone. I mean its looks pretty good to me so far. It was a true monster truck before.

Hopefully if money is freed up a little more, I can get the suspension next week. And if things go well some time next month I would like to order the adapter for the motor and transmission and try and find a TH400 locally. I hope to have the truck mocked up late may or early june. Once that is done things will fly. The wiring won't take any time to modify from how it was in the race car. I still think I can have everything the way I want by the end of the summer and driving this thing around. Sucks as I won't have a ton of time before our winter weather arrives, but colorado is good to us most days in the city, so maybe this winter I can get all the bugs worked out and be enjoying this thing in full by spring.

Made good progress the past two days. But it took nearly one day per side. I frenched/hacked in each headlight and got them off the top of the fenders and placed in the front of the fenders. Came out ok for my first time I guess. I know given some time and the right project I can do damn good, but this will be fine for the old rat rod get up. I also had to do a fair amount of rust repair to both head lights. Sure was hidden well under all the bondo and body filler.

I also borrowed a cutting torch and plan on tackling the frame and getting all the ready for the suspension. As well as notching it to lower it another 2-3 inches. I am also going to modify and notch the bed so set it down over the frame and rear axle. After that I plan on ordering at least the rear coil overs late this week or early next. I may just wait until next week until after the bills are due. Even though there is only the rent left.

But trucking right along. I hope this thing will be running some time in late july or august. We will see. Would be sweet to have it done for my birthday.

 

[biglady112]

I did get a little work done the last two weeks. But not much. We adopted a dog then had to return him for being aggressive with our other dogs. Then we got a puppy this past weekend and have been busy all week with her. But here we go.

I have the frame where I want it and the truck sitting how I want it. It is sitting low enough in the front to rub the front tires pretty bad. So in order for me to retain this height I need to figure something out. But for now it should be close to this.

I bought some 1"x1" square tubing the other day. I am going to start bracing up the inside of the cab this weekend. And maybe by monday I will have some progress to show for it. I am going to start chopping the top first thing in the morning.

But this is the general idea of what it is going to look like.

No turning back now.

Well I only have the passenger door left to do for the top chop. Will likely take all day like the driver's door. But we finally have the actual look of how this is going to be. It is far from perfect or pretty. But it all is pretty solid and I feel confident I won't have any issues with the top. It is not an easy project that is for sure. A lot of time and thought involved. But I am enjoying it.

Once I finish the other door things are going to speed up a lot. I finished all the last holes that needed patched as well. Once I finish the door I am going to pull the cab off and most of the front and. I am going to try to leave the grill so I can work on mocking up the radiator while I am boxing in the frame. I hope to spend all of next week getting the frame ready. After that, I hope to order the suspension next week. Then after that get the 4-link done.

Well here she is.

 

[biglady112]

Well I have been making progress. Just not sharing that is all.

I finished chopping the passenger door. That ended up being very difficult. That side of the truck was definetely crushed at one point and it got the door real bad. That and I had to try and rig something up to make the door seal as the cab's previous repair job was horrible. So I no longer have the recess all the way around the door on the passenger side. I didn't anyway with the crap job that was done. The top of the door on the inside came out real thin(crushed looking). I also had to extend the doorway down a little as well, all that so it would seal somewhat.

I also blocked off the two holes in the grill where the frame rails ran through there from the factory. To give the front end a smoother look. I finished welding the panels and last two holes in the cab floor. I still have the large factory hole, but I am going to wait until the transmission is mocked up at least before I build the transmission tunnel. While I was pulling the front body panels off I was repairing any cracks I found in the metal as well. While taking it all apart I found that the front bracket that was riveted to the frame for the grill and grill frame had broke. I ended up welding that all back on and welded the rivets as well. I removed the bracket that was used to support that as well as all the bolts seems how it was welded now.

I also removed the "factory" master cylinder as I am going to likely do to a race car floor mouned setup. I also removed the factory brake pedal. And if I find a good solution, I may go to an aftermarket throttle cable and pedal as well. There are plenty of little things that I have done, but these are the biggest. I am ready to start working on the frame and only have the cab and steering to remove. I could not get the steering today as it is going to need some heat to get apart. Then the cab will come off easy as it is just four mounts. Moving right along.

I have not ordered any parts as I paid off my fiance's christmas gift. It was a high dollar custom Levian ring. Threw down $2400 for that. Would have been nice to put in the truck, but now only having one monthly bill for debt besides rent sure is nice. I also got a refinance on my personal that was 10% less interest, so now I can focus on paying that off way faster. When that is done I will have WAY more money to play with.

Once the cab is off I will buy the metal so I can start boxing in the frame. I may also sand blast the front end and paint it so that is out of the way. That should be able to be done. I may wait on paint until I at least get the motor mocked in.

 

[biglady112]

Well I have good and bad news. I will not be able to use the frame my truck came on. The good news is I get to make my own frame.

I borrowed a torch again so I could start straightening the frame and getting all the dents out of it. I was making ok progress but noticed the passenger side was in bad shape and was twisted pretty good. I few good wacks and it was starting to come back. Well I went on the other things and got the front frame rails as good as I could. I spent a good hour and a half to two hours messing with it before I heated up the steering to remove it.

I then got on to removing the cab off the frame. That went well and I had to manhandle the thing to get it off the frame by myself. Well I got it off and it was clear right away I had a problem. I just sat back and looked at it for a good 45 minutes trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Then it came clear. Make my own frame. I see plenty of guys on the rat rod forums do it. And now that I can weld I don't see why I can't. I weighed all my options and looked around to see what I would run into for problems.

All that I could see was "relocating" the steering, making a mount for the front clip, and swapping the cab mounts over. Maybe a few other small things, but the steering was the largest obstacle I could see. I am willing to go for it though.

I also will be able to get the truck super low like I wanted now as well. I will be Z'ing the frame, just not sure how much yet. I also took some pictures of my almost complete 9 quart oil pan. I just have to make a small splash guard for it. This matches the one we made last year for my back up motor.

I took some measurements and plan on picking up some square box tubing this week.

 

[biglady112]

A little progress. I finished both frame rails on the truck. It is 2x4x3/16". I have the cab mounts done on one frame rail. I still need to finish the other and get a few cross members done so I can bring the frame back home. I was slammed at work last week so I coul donly get so much done.

But I also got some new toys today. Some QA1 coilovers for the truck. 450lbs for the front, 200lbs for the rear.

Well it was getting real late last night. So I just cut as many plates as I could. I still need to cut some more and bring them home and tack them on. I am going to be tacking on a lof of metal the next two weeks before I take the frame back down for the final welding. A lot of details to be had, but I am getting there.

I brought the frame rails home last night. I mounted them tonight under the cab and put them nearly the height they are suppose to be off the ground. I still have some tweaking to do on the back of the cab with a hammer, but this is what most of the truck is going to look like. The bed will be raised a total of two inches from where it currently is sitting. But almost what she is going to look like with the new frame now. Less than 4" of ground clearence.

Also a small glimpse of it next to my fiances saturn.

 

[biglady112]

Well it's sort of a roller now. I did mess up a little. As I was taking pictures I was curious as to why I was having a little trouble with the steering earlier. So I took the steering linkage off to count the turns lock to lock. I counted 4 3/4 turns. And I had the damn steering box all the way turned left to begin with. No wonder. And I forgot to also center my axle on my front fenders. Where it ended up will probably work, but won't work without ruining my fenders. That and it would just stretch the wheel base too far. And somewhere along the lines I must have wrote my notes down wrong when I was making brackets for the suspension. I am short what I want for clearence 1.5 inches in the rear where the brackets weld to the axle. The front came out dead nuts, but the rear is low all the way across. Makes sense as all the brackets where the same size.

So it is a good thing everything only has two small tack welds in place now that I can stand back and look and see what is wrong. I have to move the front axle back actually 7.5 inches. And the rear frame needs to go up 1.5 inches from where it is.

But overall, this is what the truck is going to look like. The trucks' cab is going to have just over 2.5" of ground clearence on the front and 3.5" ground clearence on the rear. Low indeed. Here are the shots.

My other goal this week is to get the steel cut and tacked in to box in the suspension brackets completely. I also want to get my four link made and installed for both the front and rear axles. Still a lot of work to go. But after this frame is done, it is going to come together fast I hope. I also centered the steering box tonight before I went to bed.

I also tacked in the plates to help strengthen the suspension as well. I still need to cut some metal as well to close the few joints at the 45* angles on the frame. Essentually just covering those holes.

No new work to report as I have not got down to cut some more brackets.

But I did pick this little gem up today for $75. TH400. Oh yea.

 

[biglady112]

i certainly have not forgot about this project. After I spent a small fortune on the suspension, I took some time off to let my wallet heal. That and with race season here we were busy with the race car. Oh, and I decided to turbocharge my N/A Eagle Summit.

But I finished a few more things. I got all my brackets welded on the frame. Or at least tacked on. I got the suspension hung on there. I also cut and fit all my gussets for the frame. I also welded in a bar for the rear suspension for support. I tacked in the gussets for the suspension brackets as well. I still have a few more to weld on, but I want to get the inside as well as the outside of the brackets for the suspension before I put the inside covers on. I got the steering mounted as well, even though it works opposite of how it is suppose to. I mocked it up and thought all was good. The way it slides on the steering box, it starts out 180* from where it needs to be. I am sure we can figure it out, just have to modify the arm from the king pin to be shorter and a different angle.

But today I spent a little time and got the front four link tacked in place. After I do some more welding on my other car so I can be done with that, I plan on finishing the rear four link tonight or tomorrow. Then I plan on trailering the chassis down to my friends and using a nicer and more powerful welder to finish the chassis off before I bring it home to mount the engine and transmission in it. But I am super excited that this thing is almost a complete roller. That means all down hill from there.

I am starting to lean towards no paint on this thing. If I do paint it, it will be a light green. But that will help speed up the process and keep some cost down. Starting to look like something now. I can't wait.

I ended up moving all the front bars and lengthening two of the front bars for the suspension. I found out that is it cast steel and accepts a weld very well. I originally had welded two of the four link brackets to the rear pumpkin. I talked to a friend and he advised me to seriously rethink moving them to the axle tubes. I went out there with a hammer and whacked the brackets and they broke off with no effort. They did not penetrate at all. So I moved them over and the rear end is super solid. I am very happy with the way that came out.

I am going to have to install at least one if not two steering stablizers for the front end. I moved the bars and welded them a few times to see if I could make it stiff like the rear. It just wasn't getting any better. So I moved them back how I originally liked them and came to that conclusion. There is just enough slop there to probably annoy me going down the road. I put everything in the air and verified that it was indeed the steering.

The next step is to take the chassis to a friends to use the big boy welder and finish the chassis off. As well as get the motor and transmission mounted in the truck. After that, it is really going to come together. The hard work is past now. It truly is downhill from here. Just a matter of how much time and when I dedicate time to work on it, but the major parts are all done. Woohoo.

 

[NWHTanK]

Kewl build!!

 

[Gizmo63T]

I'm following your build on 4g61t.org and this is just amazing!!

 

[99gst_racer]

Excellent build! Keep up the good work!

 

[phantommaggot]

this thread made my day!

awesome work

 

[biglady112]

I have been working a ton lately on the truck. The chassis welding is finished. The suspension is all done. And the bed is mounted. I hope to have the motor mounted soon. I still need a transmission adapter and will likely pick one up from a friend, I just need some more cash. But I hope things really start picking up now. Still a bunch of money to spend, but it is looking like something now.

 

[DSM_PWR]

Great build!

Cant wait to see how it turns out

 

[ALBurgundy]

In for updates. I like where this build is headed.

 

[biglady112]

Been busy with a few other projects. But a little closer now.

 

[sypherzero]

Very impressive! I really can't wait to see how this turns out.

 

[cnordelo]

I am sure you really pissed some redneck off in west vriginia

Can't wait for the end product.

 

[illegal99si]

Awesome build in for updates.

 

[95eclipser]

wow great build

 

[biglady112]

Thanks everyone. I am sure you guys will love how the motor turns out. It is coming over from my Colt with some nice upgrades. Way high tech for what the rat rods are usually done with.

 

[FastJetta]

love it man. sweet idea and love the motor truck combo instead of a little 350 or something normal.

gonna be a sweet ride for sure.

 

[crash89]

Love the custom frame rails and new stance!! I cant wait to see how this turns out!