Thanks everyone for the big welcome. Nice to have a great response from across the USA. I guess I should show you Project 53 in which is my mistress according to my wife....Thank God for an understanding wife But like I told her Yes I am on a first name basis with the Fed Ex guy and the UPS Guy but you always know where I am. They even put my boxes inside the gate out of sight when I am not home which I am sure they do for most people but they enjoy looking at the project to. I even took the UPS guy up the street for a short ride in the truck.
So as usual the truck body was purchased off Craig's list (No chassis came with it) as the guy whom I got it from was going to try and fit it on a corvette chassis. Only later did he confess that the pieces of the truck bed forward of the rear fenders got hauled to the scrap place and got chewed up in the big grinder 2 days before I could convince him to just tell me where he hauled the cut out pieces to. So he ruined a good 65 year old truck bed sides. These bed sides are factory 9 feet 1 inch. Yes you heard me right Dodge was the first to build a 9 foot bed and the truck was labeled a "Job Rated" truck which was only available in a 3/4 ton and 1 ton chassis. The truck chassis was the end of the era for the military power wagon and the power wagon chassis was used up for this Job Rated truck line. It was still considered a "B" series truck but the 1/2 ton model was pilothouse truck and the 3/4 ton & 1 ton was a "Job Rated truck" which was a 126 inch wheel base.
Project 53 sits on a 1991- 1/2 ton which came out form under a club cab long bed truck. I shortened it 7.25 inches in my shop to get the 126 inch wheelbase for Project 53. The old chassis already had a 318- 727 (Electronic) trans in it which I used for mach up. This worked excellent and in my favor in a big way. I purchased the chassis from a next door neighbor grandson whom scavenged the gas truck body off this gas truck for a diesel project. as he had no idea there was a great set of closed chamber swirl port heads and a pre magnum roller cam block in that truck chassis that I gave 300 bucks for. He just saw it as a eye sore. I saw it as other wise......
Project 53 has a 87 roller cam 318, a set of 302 casting closed chamber heads, Comp Cam (idle to 5500), roller lifters, Edelbrock performer intake, Edelbrock 1404 carb, Hedman headers, Keith black pistons, seal power rings etc..... built for a good road cruiser which is connected to a Torque flight 6...... 999 lock up torque converter trans with a factory 3.55 posi rear end. Painless wiring harness, Vintage air, lots and Lots of junk yard parts seats are out of a 05 Dodge Dart, Some of the pieces used in the build came off of cars I could not even identify in this 250 acre old junk yard here up the road in Texas. This gold mine has over 5000 cars and counting in it. Yes gold mine. Enough for now take a look and chime in I am always open to suggestion as I am an ex race car crew chief and car owner as we ran a asphalt stock car back in the 90s. There is not much that I haven't modified and made better and even screwed up things trying to improve them LOL..... We all have been there on that one. Thanks again for the welcome ......
Gary
