3/4 Ton Long to Short & Static Drop Square One

[kitsbeach]

I just got this truck back on the road after shortening and dropping it, thought I'd post a few pictures of the build.

As I found it:




Today short test drive:

[kitsbeach]

A couple more before and after:

[shambles]

Looks great. What static drop did you use? I'd like a nice driver drop.

[kitsbeach]

I call her Square One because as soon as I bought it I accidentally ended up with another that I call Square Two:



Square Two is actually a nicer truck but they are both great low mileage trucks with great patina and very little rust.

[kitsbeach]

Square One (I believe) was some kind of work truck up in the Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, four or so hours north of Vancouver where I am now.

She's got the bumps and bruises of a yard truck but lots of obvious maintenance. Everything is greased up and running nice. Nicer now that I've cleaned the heck out of it and gone over everything.

[kitsbeach]

Ripped the landscape bed off:





That was actually hard work. I was told the truck had a service truck bed on it but the guy threw it in the dump so that he could build this and landscape his yard.

Gone now anyway...

[kitsbeach]

The first thing I did was backdate the grille to the 73-74 style to get the vibe I wanted:

Before:



Old grille off and orange marker lights added:



This truck is a 1980 so there was a little change to where the 1973 lower grille bar attaches. I just cut the tabs of the lower grille bar and used some trim tape to install it (pic doesn't show it that well):

[kitsbeach]

Before and after grille backdate:

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by shambles

Looks great. What static drop did you use? I'd like a nice driver drop.

It's 2 1/2" drop spindles and 3" lowering springs in the front, and just a flip kit in the back but it now has 1/2 ton leaf springs in the back because short beds have 52" springs and long beds have 56" springs and I wanted stock back bumper brackets.

It also has the 16" wheels so it sits a bit different than a 1/2 ton truck would. I kind of like it. Looks short and tough. The front is about a 1/2 inch higher than the back, which I'm also happy with but it may settle.

The 3/4 ton springs up front are a bit bouncy, I may go to 1/2 ton front springs, but I think it would end up a bit lower.

No rubbing at all, its very practical.

Tires are 225/75R16 so pretty skinny

[kitsbeach]

Not many people drop and shorten a 3/4 ton but it had very little rust and great patina so I couldn't help myself I had to grab it.

I probably could have done a 1/2 ton conversion all round, but this is what I did.

[kitsbeach]

I did a bit of googling and talking to people this time about the frame cuts and fish plates (I've shortened my '67 too).

I like the thoughts shown in this picture:



Also the idea of the fish plate welds going different directions than the stressors, like this example:



So what I settled on this time was rounded ends on my fish plates so that the welds would be in different angles to the stressors, and also not to weld the plates continuously (used skip welds), so the plates actually have ability to flex.

I got quite a bit of advice on this from pro welders.

[kitsbeach]

BUT...I also knew that the chance of me getting the zigzag cuts perfect would be near impossible.

The zigzag cuts are the most popular on this site and all over the internet, but that means 6 different cuts ON EACH SIDE. Getting them to match up perfectly would be difficult.

So I settled on nice big strong fishplates, with a good design, along with straight cut frame cuts.



Basically wrong on the frame cuts and best on the fish plates.

[kitsbeach]

For the frame cuts I picked somewhere that would leave room for the fish plate to extend past the cut a lot without running into a spring hanger.

My location was a bit close to the cab, which made it a little hard to work in there later, but it was okay. I re-drilled the cab crossmember holes through the fishplate (trying to find a picture of that).

Anyway here are the cuts:





I removed 14" from the middle and later will remove 5 3/4' from the rear (more on that later).

[kitsbeach]

And here she is cut:

[kitsbeach]

By the way these jack stands are actually RV jacks, which made it easy to adjust the height precisely.

[kitsbeach]

Here's my fish plate mock up, all done with a grinder:











That metal is from the 14" piece of the frame that I removed.

[kitsbeach]

Bolted the fish plate in place using cab crossmember bolts and some more bolts later (no pics tho):

[kitsbeach]

Just realized I have no pictures of the actual frame welding and grinding but here are a couple of the left side fish plate skip welded in place:

[kitsbeach]

[kitsbeach]

Here she is moving again after the frame weld:



All the dirt you see is actually from all the cutting and grinding that went on. My garage will never be the same.!

[shambles]

Originally Posted by kitsbeach

It's 2 1/2" drop spindles and 3" lowering springs in the front, and just a flip kit in the back but it now has 1/2 ton leaf springs in the back because short beds have 52" springs and long beds have 56" springs and I wanted stock back bumper brackets.

It also has the 16" wheels so it sits a bit different than a 1/2 ton truck would. I kind of like it. Looks short and tough. The front is about a 1/2 inch higher than the back, which I'm also happy with but it may settle.

The 3/4 ton springs up front are a bit bouncy, I may go to 1/2 ton front springs, but I think it would end up a bit lower.

No rubbing at all, its pretty practical.

Tires are 225/75R16 so pretty skinny

Cool, Thanks for the info. I've been thinking about the 5/7 or possibly 4/6 drop.

[Shifty One]

Following!

[kitsbeach]

Some of these pictures are out of order but I swapped in a Saginaw 3-speed manual in place of the (I think) SM465 "bull low" 4-speed.

Adjusted Hurst shifter on the bench beforehand:



Dropped this old hunk out myself, probably wasn't the wisest idea because it was heavy and almost killed me:



Compared input shafts and I didn't need a new clutch disc (yay.!).



Side to side comparison of length and shifter position:

[kitsbeach]

Lifted new trans in (with some help). Its always a bit of a wrestle then finally it pops in.

I had to cut a hole for the new shifter location and unfortunately cut it a little too far back. I'll have to patch it up when I do my floor coverings.

Hate wrecking the nice floors and high hump.

[kitsbeach]