1972 Chevy 4wd Longhorn Project: Never Ending Changes

[72-c20]

Ryan, do you know the person who has the yellow/white 67-72 just east of Center Ave. in Mithellville? I just happened to notice it today....

[FRENCHBLUE72]

subscribed very cool...

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by roger0080

Those are some damn nice heavy duty jack stands there. Are they home made?

They come in handy a lot. I believe they were made by Grey back in the 80's.

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by 72-c20

Ryan, do you know the person who has the yellow/white 67-72 just east of Center Ave. in Mithellville? I just happened to notice it today....

Is it sitting behind a garage? I don't know him but Mathew has tried to buy the truck before. It is kind of foe sale, but it has to be dry and the guy has a crap ton of stuff in the back of it too.

[Dieselwrencher]

I got my hood done for now.

[dammitmitchell]

that sir is a nice hood

[Dieselwrencher]

Thanks.

[Dieselwrencher]

No real progress today. I started putting the trim on the RH fender so I could put it on. Here is a picture of my reconditioned hood springs.

[Dieselwrencher]

I finally got the front clip sitting on it. Man I think it looks better than I thought it would. I might have to stick a 60 under it and put the front tires on it to get a real ride heighth.





It might be a few weeks before I can really work on it again. I have to finish up our shop that we are putting up and then I have some customer trucks to work on. We'll just have to see how it goes.

[Dieselwrencher]

I did make some head way on this thing this weekend. It is being kind of a pain however. I had to remove the front crossmember ans build a new one. Now I have the engine sitting where I want it and need to build engine mounts and an engine crossmember. I had to remove the exhaust manifold and turbo because the turbo outlet was in my broken heater housing. LOL While I was removing the manifold, 5 of the 12 bolts broke. Great more work.

[Dieselwrencher]

Ok some more progress pics. I had to remove the stock front crossmember because I would have had to remove too much from it to get the engine in there and decided it would make it too weak.



The engine is sitting where I need it to get the trans to line up with the driveline.



I finally got my plasma cutter back from the Snap-on guy and it has never worked this good. I think it was junk when I got it! It cuts really nice now. The operator could use some practice though!

[Dieselwrencher]

I brought my Dana 60 front inside to thaw out too.

[Dieselwrencher]

I had to build new engine mounts because I didn't like where the stock brackets would have placed the engine crossmember. Now hoprfully tomorrow I can start on the engine crossmember. I will be using 4" c channel for the sides and 2"x4" 1/4" square tubing for the center. I am going to make this bolt in the frame rails with some channel as well. I think that will be plenty strong.

[Dieselwrencher]

I also traded my 6" front springs for some 4" ones so I shouldn't have a problem hauling my gooseneck now. Once I get the engine and trans in then I will flip it around in the shop and remove the box. I still have to change the 2wd hangers for 4wd ones.

[Dieselwrencher]

Well this morning I started building the RH side of the engine crossmember.




I had to cut out a portion of the frame where it was recessed for the old control arms so my inner plate would sit flush in the frame rail. I have cut a piece out and will weld it back in tomorrow.

[BLACK AND BLUE 67-72]

Looks great so far!! Excellent job!!

[lovnthe70]

man this thing is bad !!!!!!! you have some patience and creativity. cant wait to see it on the road.

[Dieselwrencher]

Thanks man!

[Dieselwrencher]

More work going on. I got all the mouse house floor mat out as well as the nasty glove box. Man it was bad! I removed the steering column and glove box door to get ready for my van tilt and cheyenne super glove box door.

[y5mgisi]

Man that just looks like fun!

[Dieselwrencher]

It has its days.

[Dieselwrencher]

Well, I finally drug the ol Longhorn out of the weeds and got some progess made on it. I was hoping to have it driveable under its own power to the All Truck Nats in KC last weekend, but it didn't happen though. But, I did still take it there, and we had a great time.

I drug the truck in the shop on Saturday the 3rd of September, and the truck show was the weekend of Friday the 10th-12th. So I didn't give myself a lot of time. Ok here we go.

Once I got my mind made up on working on the truck again, I started to gather parts up for the truck. The engine I originally had in this is going in my 76 since I want to sell it and keep the Longhorn. So I drug out an engine of my brother's that needed work. It is a 1990 5.9 that came from a Case Magnum tractor. It was VE rotary pumped, and the head was off of it. My dad rebuilt a head for me, and my brother tore the engine down to start the p-pump swap. His engine has very large air mixture bowls so that will help with allowing a big injector and some big timing without killing the head gasket. Then I started measuring to see how my ford D60 front was going to fit. Well, it flat out wouldn't without a lot of modifying the the chevy chassis. The ford D60 is 5" wider than the chevy D60. I know the 79 D60 will fit, but I sold the only one of those I had this spring. Seeing how I was on the hunt for a coupler for my NP205, I called up one of my buddies and purchased a D60, auto trans and a NP205 all from a 92 dodge cummins truck.

[Dieselwrencher]

I sat the engine short block in the frame and found all of my previous cross member pieces, and began to finish it. Once I got it finished, I welded up the holes in the frame from the 2wd cross member. I used some scrap steel and made some plugs to make it easier to fill in. I both welded the cross member in place and bolted it in just in case. I'm sure this truck will see some abuse in its life.




As you can see in the first pic, I ran into another problem when putting the dodge D60 in my chevy. I had a RH top cast mount from my chevy D60, but the inner bolt holes that go into the housing are different from the chevy and the dodge. So I started to build one because I knew the guy I got the dodge axle from more than likely didn't have the right one. I will have to finish that piece later. I also had issues finding my nuts for my u-bolts. Imagine that huh?

[Dieselwrencher]

Once I got the engine put back together and painted, I stuck it in and then hung the transmission on it. I decided to go with a 47rh which has overdrive and lock up. I want this truck to get great mileage and be easy for the wife to drive.

[Dieselwrencher]

Next thing was getting the rear suspension figured out. I went out and fought off the dang wasps and cut the front spring hangers from my blazer chassis. I ended up not using the rear leaf spring hangers from the K5 blazer because the longhorn ones were an inch taller. I ended up finally being able to use some brand new leaf springs I had laying around for years. They were about an inch shorter not installed but ended up being only 1/2" shorter once installed.

My next problem was trying to mount the front hanger lower support brackets to the longhorn frame. On the K5 the frame is flat at the front spring hanger and on my longhorn it is angled, so I will have to modify them sometime. I ended up retaining the chevy D60 for now but have plans to install a dodge D80 soon.