1964 C10 Project - Part III

This is when things get interesting. Everybody knows that - at some point - the wheels are going to fall off the project's plan (pun intended) and the project is going to run wild. There's no better, or more likely, place for this to happen than at Brent's shop. Before too long, I had the truck completely blown apart, I was modifying the frame for air suspension and I had a 2000 Silverado to serve as a drivetrain donor. 

Believe it or not, when designing a suspension setup, one of the first things you need to do is select wheels. One would think wheels is one of the last decisions to be made but in some cases, that's wrong. In my case, I knew I needed to narrow the rear axle from the 2000 Silverado. But how much? The only way to know that is to know how wide the wheels' width and backspacing. I spent several weeks searching and selecting the wheels and when found the Rocket Racing Attack wheels, I knew they were the ones. I bought 18" x 12" for the rear and 18" x 9" for the front.

Armed with the wheels' specs, I bought 4" narrowed axle shafts from Moser Engineering and Brent taught me how to properly narrow and axle housing to keep it straight. I made custom air bag cups for the lower control arms and essentially custom made the front suspension.

Rather that C or Z the rear frame section, Brent talked me into cutting it off and custom making the entire back-half. I bought bending dies for 2" square tubing for Brent's JD Squared bender and a crapload of 2" square pipe with 1/4" wall thickness. If you're thinking that bending 2" 1/4" wall square tube is a challenge, you would be correct! We even broke one of the bender's arms!

One of my greatest memories was when we had the new frame sections mounted, which 'ran wild' rearward, I wasn't sure who to cut the frames to the proper length so Brent clamped the chopsaw to the frame and went to town!

Once all of the various mounts and crossmembers were fabricated, I got to play with the mocked-up air system and then mount the LM7 from the donor truck (but not before adding a Sloppy Stage 2 camshaft and LS3 springs).

This allowed me to mock-up the air suspension management rack, the cab, a box side and front fender to make sure everything was physically where it needs to be. Then I got a blow it apart again, have the frame sandblasted, paint it and do a final reassembly of the chassis.

Brent had been diagnosed with small cell carcinoma in 2019 and by this time (summer of 2021), his health was starting to fail and I felt my presence at the shop was not helping matters. After a brotherly blow-out one evening, it became clear that after almost 3 years, I had worn out my welcome and decided to put Ol Blu together the best I could and take it home.

At home, I was able to finish the brake lines and a few other miscellaneous items.