1955 Dodge Pickup Rat Rod Build.

Ok, here we go with some more build progress.

Build weekend 5. By this time the truck is pretty much buttoned up. We are just finishing minor things, getting it plumbed, getting it wired, things like that.

Weekend 5 started with the test fitting of the custom made smoothies I had welded up. For those of you that remember what I was driving back in 2006-2007 I had a Scion xB with custom made steelies that were 0 offset. Well the same shop built these wheels.....

The whees are smoothies. Smoothies are steel wheels with no holes. The front wheels are 15x8 and 0mm offset. The rear wheels are 15x10 and were welded up with only 2.5" of backspacing putting the offset at about -60mm if I am doing the math in my head right. So here are some photos of the rear wheels......

Those are the rear tires in the background. 295/50's


A bill can't even reach the lip the long way.


One more angle looking down at them.


After this test fit the wheels were prepped, and painted with House of Kolors Chocolate Brown.

Here I am starting on a battery tray. The original battery location was in the frame under the cab floor. Now that I am using a different frame the access door didn't line up where I could put the battery, so I am moving it to the engine bay.

I decided to make the tray out of expanded steel. Here is the sheet cut the shape I want it. I will bend the sides and the front lip up, you can kinda see the lines.


Here are my friends bench bleeding the new master cylinder. We did this to make sure it was full and bled before we hooked the system up to it so we knew for sure there was no air in the master.


Battery tray formed.


Reinforcement for battery try test fit, and battery test fit.


Reinforcement welded in.


Bryan working under the hood. Those extension cords are actually my trucks wiring. No cheaper way to run multiple wires to run lights and what not than an extension cord.


New driveshaft ready to go in.


Nick in the cab doing the wiring. There is the battery tray and battery installed.


Adding the fluids, preparing for the test start!


Lunch is over, I'll post more from the 5th build weekend later. In the next post you will see test run videos.

 

Build weekend 5 part 2.

One half of the exhaust on this rig. The dual exhaust makes a 45 degree bend out of the headers and then goes straight back through a cherry bomb, and then makes a 90 degree bend to come out under the running board in front of the rear tire.


I made tail light brackets out of small sheets of expanded metal and then welded them to the rear upright on the tailgate. I had to use two lights on each side because the old 50's era turn signal switch I am using doesn't override brake lights like single tail light cars. Oh well.


Another view of the tail lights. They are wired so all four are on as tail lights when the headlights are on, the bottoms are the brake lights and the tops are turn signals.


Better view of the battery tray I made.


Those turn signals are new. I had these cool old rusted out bulb buckets there, but these trailer turn signals fit right in the holes, so I went with them. See even though this truck wasn't even originally wired for turn signals, I wanted to make it safe for the roads today by adding some.


Added coolant. Just about time for ignition.


More exhaust work. No clamps here, I welded it all up.


Bryan did the dirty welding because I was scurred.


And...... IT STARTED RIGHT UP!
[video]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctruss53/8423100752/[/video]

Topping off the ATF while I get the camera working.
[video]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctruss53/8422006561/[/video]

Trying to get a feel for how it's running before the initial test run. We took the exhaust off for this since it wasn't hung yet.
[video]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctruss53/8422011285/[/video]

Off it goes on the test run with no exhaust. It kept stalling only because it was cold and we didn't have the choke hooked up yet.
[video]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctruss53/8422014563/[/img]

 

Now the photo coverage gets kinda slim. The jobs left were so petty that I didn't bother to take photos. Here is a list of what I did this past weekend to really finish er up.

The shifter broke because the B&M shifter is some weird alloy and the weld didn't stick. So I jambed the shifter handle I made into a small 1x1 square tube, welded it in, and then cut a slot in the bottom end of the square tube so it would slide over the flat shifter stub and I bolted it on.

then I made a battery hold down strap for the tray you saw in the previous post. I got creative with it and designed a hold down that hooks to the battery tray and bolts to the firewall so you have to go inside the truck to unbolt the battery. Yeah the hood and the truck don't lock, but this little inconvienence may help deter a battery theft.

My friend Nick FINALLY finished up the wiring.

I took some camper tape and made a gasket for the cowl vent at the base of the windshield. I made it operational again so I wanted to be sure it would be semi sealed when it's closed.

And then we finally took the truck outside for a shake down run yesterday.

The truck drives so smooth and straight. I mean it seriously rides down the road better than my 4Runner. It has TONS of grunt, but it has a VERY low gear in the rear end. I am seriously doing like 3000 RPM at 55 MPH..... lol The advantage to this is any time at any speed I can punch the throttle and it goes!

I did a burnout in front of a bar in Willow River that had a bunch of people out front because there was a snowmobile race that just finished up, so what do you do next.... drink. We pulled up to the stop sign next to the bar, I left foot braked it and then stepped on the gas. The rear tires, 295's, spun right up and soon were smoking. Then I let go of the brake and took off. Man that was fun.

Up the road on the way back to the shop though there was this moment where the truck bogged down almost like it was out of gas and then it took right off again. Shortly after that there was a terrible vibration.

We pulled over and checked the engine out, figuring there was something wrong with a pulley or the harmonic balancer. The engine is still running awesome. Then I smell what can only be described as a huge steaming pot of onions. Bryan immediately knew what it was. Something was wrong with the rear end and the gear lub was literally boiling out of it through the front seal.

So we limped it back to the shop at what must have been maybe 20 MPH. I didn't bother to open up the rear end, but my search for a replacement has begun.

So the shake down run broke the only part on the truck that was still original. That axle was opened up and the gear lube was changed, but we never really checked to see if it was in good shape or anything. And now boom!

Oh well. I'll find another axle for about $100, swap my brakes over to it and bolt it in and I will be on the road.

 

Oh yeah, here is a photo of the finished product.



The smoothie wheels got their chocolate brown House of Kolors paint, and some baby moons. This photo was also after I cleaned the truck with Rat Wax. Yes, I literally cleaned the truck.

Here is a video of me demonstrating the Rat Wax.
[video]http://youtu.be/iLF_rtoSDTA[/video]


Oh yeah, I never mentioned the gas tank. Yeah, that keg in the Rat Wax video.... thats my gas tank. I know, I'm a bad ass. lol

 

Wheels look dope.

 

Such an awesome looking trunk.

Did you find another axle?

 

Yeah, I'm picking up the replacement axle on my way up to the shop tomorrow (3/8/13). I should have it changed out that same night. Saturday I will take it for another shakedown run to see if anything else comes loose.

Also this weekend I will add seat belts even though the truck doesn't need to have them.

Oh, and I am adding hooks so I can run a car seat if I want too. I have a 2.5 almost 3 year old daughter I would like to ride along from time to time.

 

truck not trunk

 

Damn I thought you were correcting me so I read my post like 5 times trying to find where I typed trunk instead of truck.

You were talking to the post before mine.

 

Well, last weekend I swapped out the rear end. I had to get new u-bolts because I had to torch the old ones to get the busted rear end out. The new (to me) rear end went in without a hitch.

On the next shakedown run the truck sputtered and died. The battery went dead. Turns out the alternator wasn't charging the battery.

I took out the alternator and had it tested at the parts store and it tested fine. WTF????

Turns out the alternator I put in the truck was a 3 wire alternator. My buddy wired my truck to use a 1 wire alternator. So I bought the right unit, installed it, and BOOM! Truck ran perfect, and the guage read 14V.

Here is a video from the test drive after it was fixed.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vocJbm7SuYs[/video]

 

sweet.

should be fun all summer.

 

...How did I just find this?!?!?! Finally some more old school metal has made it here! Totally digging the look man!

 

Thanks!

I'm bringing it home from the shop this weekend (3/23-3/24).

And I'll have it at the April opener of C&C.

 

I haven't posted in here in a long ass time. So let me update everyone on what has happened to this truck since the spring of 2013.......

During the summer of 2013, the first season I had it on the road, I had nothing but problems.

First, the carburetor clogged. I'm sure the engine sat around long enough there was some crud in there or the jets were varnished. So to fix this I grabbed an old skool Weiland 4 barrel intake, and an Edelbrock Performer carburetor.

Shortly after this problem was fixed, I had an issue with glowing, headers. Turns out my distributors vacuum advance had quit working so the engine was staying at 8 degrees BTDC instead of advancing to 30-34 degrees BTDC at higher rpms like it should have. So my headers were going into meltdown, and I over heated the motor a few times. To fix this I put in an MSD billet distributor.

And then I killed it.

In the fall of 2013 I decided to race a new Camaro from a stoplight. The small block 400 that I had already weakened with the previous issues I had, spun a rod bearing.

 

Fast forward to spring of 2014.

I swapped out the blown 400 with a small block 350. I got the engine from a friend that pulled it out of a 1971 C-10 pickup he was hot rodding. He was going to put it into a Nova, but saw that I needed an engine more, so he gave me a deal on it.

The engine swap went smoothly since all the parts I wanted to keep off of the 400 were interchangable.

I drove the truck all summer with only minor issues. The headers get hot enough that I always burn one particular spark plug wire. I have had to switch that out like 3 times now. And I had to swap out the fuel filter twice already as well. I guess there was more crap in that keg I used as a gas tank then I thought.

This summer I drove the truck to work, to shows, and most recently I drove it to St Louis, MO and back.

The St Louis, MO trip went well. 1200 miles, 80 gallons of gas, 5 quarts of oil, and 2 quarts of ATF. lol

 

Great to hear and update. Have you tried heat wrap for the spark plug wire? I know we wrapped that crap out of everything in the Miata because of the heat the 13B produces.

But it sounds like the Truck is moving around well either way

 

I want to wrap the headers instead I think. I have another problem with heat coming up through the floor.

The interior is bare metal and you can feel the heat through your shoes if you drive the truck on the highway all day.

 

Love seeing this truck random places we go.

I'm assuming you store this for the winter? Hopefully stored in a way that allows you some work time on it while it snows outside

 

I am building a teardrop camper, so the garage is tied up with that.

The truck sits in my backyard during the winter.

I look forward to driving it again next spring.

 

I let this thread go for too long again......

So the truck was in storage over the winter.

In early February I used my tax return to rebuild the 400 small block that I ruined in 2013. I used Mora Motorworks in Mora, MN. This guy knows American V8's like the back of his hand. He builds race engines for many of the regions circle track race teams. He also built all 3 of the Rat Rod Magazine Tour Rat engines. The 2011 Tour Rat has 12000 miles on it. Even more reason to use this guy.

So I brought him my 400 small block and put him to work.

Right away he spotted a problem with my engine. The heads didn't match. Somewhere along the line, someone put a 350 head on one side of this 400. They bolt on, the combustion chambers are similar, and the coolant passages line up, but the 400 heads have a steam hole that the 350 heads do not have.

In my posts below I'll copy over some of the posts from another forum that cover the engine build and installation......