'62 Unibody Still Plugging Along

[unibody madness]

Awesome, good to see the progress

[grump]

Looks like you're doing a great job of keeping your mind occupied. Nice work.

[LM14]

Burning up the credit card the last few days. No pictures but more parts ordered!

For the '32 I just ordered a Hughes Performance "Street Rod" torque converter. 2000 RPM, 10.5" bolt circle, 26 spline case fill C4. Should have it Tuesday. Once we have that we can hook the engine and tranny together and they will be ready to drop in the frame when it comes home from paint. Speaking of paint, I picked up all the rearend parts and most of the front axle pieces Thursday. Rearend is together from hub to bub and ready to go. Waiting on the front rotors to finish up the front suspension.

For the uni, I ordered a QA1 front coilover conversion kit. The kits consist of a single adjustable aluminum body shock and a conical 550#/" spring that replaces the stock spring and shock in the stock location. Did some measuring at ride height and decided on this one:

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/QA1-1968 ... y=72146712

That should put the shock in the middle of it's stroke at ride height (which is now adjustable with this setup). Spring is the same ID as the stock Dakota spring (hopefully.... it's really close..... May have to do a little grinding on the upper spring seat to gain a 1/16" or so).

Also ordered these lower mounting plates made for tubular control arms:

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Tubular- ... 43193.html

These give me the proper spacing for the lower tie bar mount. These will be spliced into the stock Dakota control arms to strengthen the lower mounting area and convert to the proper bolt pattern for that mount. Not a lot of fab work to get what should be a nice, adjustable system on the front end. Will be able to tune the ride height and rebound on the shocks. An old racing theory is that you can tune compression with springs and rebound with shocks, it does work.

Ordered a set of thrust washers for the lower spring mount, too. Should make height adjustments easier.

Already have single adjustable QA1 coilovers for the rear 4 bar setup. Had good luck with QA1 stuff and actually did a little R&D work with them on our race cars when the company was very young. Nice stuff and really good to deal with. Also have a couple friends that can do custom rebuilds and custom re-valving if we need it. Helps to keep those old racing connections.

Stay tuned, hopefully we touch the truck some next week!
SPark

[LM14]

Coilovers showed up Friday! Think these should work fine to replace the stock springs and shocks and give me adjustability for ride height and shock stiffness. Also several spring rates to choose from. Made an "educated" guess of 550#/" to start with. Can go up or down from there once we see how these work.

[LM14]

I'm back on my build! Basically sharing it on FB since I can't direct post pictures on this site. I'm not going to be held hostage again like photo bucket has done, ruining so many great threads across the internet.

I'm trying to post daily in "Unibody Union" on Facebook.

So far I've got the truck completely stripped out and cleaned out (Since buying the truck several years ago I've never seen the complete bed floor until last week). I've removed the back of the cab and am working on drilling out the remaining spot welds to put the "new" big window cab section back in.

Wish we could direct post pictures here, I think using a 3rd party to post pictures is what will hurt this site more than anything. JMO,
SPark

[grump]

Hey Steve, it's good to see you're getting busy on your truck, I've been wondering how you were doing.
Lack of direct photo posting does probably hurt the site, but the participation just isn't here anymore and that's too bad. Look up members who used to be very active on here and it's surprising how long it's been since they've been on here, unless they aren't logging in. I've learned so much on this site from members who have vast amounts of knowledge about our trucks.
Keep up the work on your truck Steve.

[LM14]

Got the big window section in. Went well. Pretty much snapped into place once everything was cleaned up. All welded in and ground down. Looks great. Ready to move to the crooked engine stand on the right side!

Posted a lot of pictures of the whole process in the "Unibody Union' group on Facebook. Wish we could direct post here!

SPark

[LM14]

30 days back into the build!

Big window section completed.
Doors adjusted in the door jambs, gapped and material added where needed to get everything to line up correctly.
Stripped the paint from the outside of the doors and the roof.
Glass out.
Radio speaker hole filled.
Radio hole filled in the dash (royal mess made by PO)
Truck completely stripped inside.
Modified the stock column drop by cutting it off and adapting a Borgeson 4" column drop.

Next up is fixing the right side engine stand then it goes to blast.

SPark

[grump]

Dang Steve you've been busy. Way to go.

[LM14]

Removed all the wiper assembly, filled the holes and replaced a short section of cowl vent on each side with normal cowl vent. Nice uniform cowl vent from one side to the other with no wiper dents.

Also cut out the problematic right side engine tower and started over. Now things sit level, the 8V air cleaner sits parallel to the pinch weld on the firewall. Came out nice.

My '32 is coming out of paint Monday or Tuesday (supposedly) so I don't want to make a big mess right now. Will bring it home for a couple days and assemble it for upholstery (doors, trunk lid, dash, header panel, taillights and license plate light all have to be in place for upholstery). Once it's at upholstery I have 4 to 5 weeks to continue work on the unibody. Plan to pull the engine tranny, get the tranny to a builder, start the engine rebuild, finish weld the front suspension (Industrial Chassis) and get the 4 bar in the rear. A lot of work in one month!

Check out Unibody Union on Face Book or my FB page for updates with pictures.

SPark

[LM14]

Quick update!

Got a lot done on the unibody in the last couple of months. Made a custom gas tank that holds 32.5 gallons. Smoothed the whole dash, created a new gauge insert from engine turned stainless steel, polished aluminum and had the surround chromed. Modified and mounted a 1969 AMC Rebel center seat/arm rest by widening it to fit the gap between the seats better. Filled the firewall. Gutted the doors. Bead blasted and painted a bunch of smaller parts as they came off so they will be ready to go back on. Converted to a dual master cylinder and started routing brake lines. Finished the steering column install by shortening the Borgeson mount a half inch to gain a little more leg room. Patched a little rust and stripped more body to bare metal. Worked out the choke and throttle linkage to run the backwards carbs on the 1963 factory 8V setup. The truck is coming around nicely.

The '32 has been at upholstery since the first week of February. It's almost done and will be coming home any day. Once it's home it will be final assembly for it and I'll get to drive it whenever I want.

If you want to see unibody pictures, there are several on my '32 build thread starting on page 18 on the HAMB.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... 21/page-18

SPark

[SteveCanup]

Following....this is a great build thread. I just found it....

[wannauni6163]

Hey Steve,
Photo Bucket has not done a service to any of us, unfortunately - but that's business I guess.
Too bad this site is losing out on your updates and related photo's of the same.
I have been stalking your unibody build with enthusiastic curiosity as I have a reust free '63 unibody in storage that I just haven't decided which suspension choice to go with and which powertrain to use.
I like the look and design of the I.C. front suspension setup but now I understand that they are NOT fabricating those suspension crossmembers any longer???
I guess they didn't get a steady flow of sales to make that product viable any longer.
I guess I was just too slow to decide but I always hoped you would have had yours completed and driveable to get your perspective on the I.C. with some road miles under it.

Sorry your health took a turn on you. Life throws those curve balls at us and we have to adjust to new realities as we continue to chug along our chosen path.
I hope everything is on the mend and you are doing much better, despite the current Corona Virus Pandemic realities of today....

Please keep up your Unibody progress and post your results.
I will have to check Unibody Union for update photo's.

Best of luck & be safe,
Pete Schlay

[Zax63]

Hey Steve,
Photo Bucket has not done a service to any of us, unfortunately - but that's business I guess.
Too bad this site is losing out on your updates and related photo's of the same.
I have been stalking your unibody build with enthusiastic curiosity as I have a reust free '63 unibody in storage that I just haven't decided which suspension choice to go with and which powertrain to use.
I like the look and design of the I.C. front suspension setup but now I understand that they are NOT fabricating those suspension crossmembers any longer???
I guess they didn't get a steady flow of sales to make that product viable any longer.
I guess I was just too slow to decide but I always hoped you would have had yours completed and driveable to get your perspective on the I.C. with some road miles under it.

Sorry your health took a turn on you. Life throws those curve balls at us and we have to adjust to new realities as we continue to chug along our chosen path.
I hope everything is on the mend and you are doing much better, despite the current Corona Virus Pandemic realities of today....

Please keep up your Unibody progress and post your results.
I will have to check Unibody Union for update photo's.


Best of luck & be safe,
Pete Schlay

I heard recently that Industrial Chassis found a buyer and will start to make the kits again in the future.