Gas, tires, oil.

In case you don’t know, turducken is a dish where you stuff a turkey with a duck, stuffed with a chicken. The rather unprepossesing vehicle below is an IHC Loadstar 1700 moving van that I bought at auction for a couple hundred bucks about 10 years ago.

But it’s what’s inside that is interesting.

My chopped ‘52 chevy pickup, which itself contains another International Harvester: a 1962 Cub Cadet.

And a ton of GTO parts.

I’ve previously shown the cuts I made to chop the top on my ‘52 chevy pickup and the welds in the back. I was able to lower the rear of the cab straight down, then the choice is either lengthen the roof or slant the window posts. I decided to slant the window posts, if you stretch the roof you can fill the gap with sheet metal, but you also have to stretch the top rail of the door. The best way is to find some junk doors and cut out a section, or you could convert the doors so they don’t have metal rim around the window.

I tried heating the posts with a torch in order to bend them, but there was too much internal structure that couldn’t be heated. I ended up just notching them and using lots mig wire. You can also see the new smoothy firewall. I used 12 ga. sheet metal for the firewall, it helped stiffen it so it doesn’t flex from the brake pedal force (stock the master cylinder was under the floor).

Previously I showed the cuts I made chopping the top on my ‘52 chevy pickup. This pic shows the weld on the back of the cab. I cut along the seam at the bottom, since the back of the cab is nearly vertical I just cheated the corner. You can see the vertical cuts in the 1″ band under the weld. I just made the cuts with a abrasive blade on a hand grinder and bumped it in till it lined up.

I cut through the window so it would still be centered top to bottom. Next time I’ll show the doors and the new firewall.

I have previously shown how I put together a new drivetrain for my ‘52 chevy pickup: a new frame made out of 2″x4″ rectangular tubing, front suspension from a ‘79 formula 400 firebird (with disc brakes and a 1 3/8″ swaybar), a 9″ ford rear from ‘76 Lincoln Continental (also with disc brakes) and it was powered by a built 455 pontiac and 400 turbo trans.

This combination yielded amazing performance, but in spite of lowering the truck about 6″, it was still taller than my boss’s dodge dakota. So how did it go from a daily driver to a 10 year project? Listen and learn.
Eventually the trans started making a whining noise, I think this was because it wasn’t downshifting at stops, but the 455 had so much torque that I didn’t notice. I decided to take the cab off to remove the trans (I had had bad experiences pulling transmissions from underneath). While it was off, I decided to replace the floor; the PO had patched some holes with sheet metal from old appliances. Plus he had cut through the main floor brace to install a floor shifter. This went nicely and I decided to replace the firewall also, both to smooth it and to use heavier metal. The firewall was not made hold the brake master cylinder and would “oil can” when the brakes were used. Then one fatefull day, the cab sitting on the shop floor, I started gauging how hard it would be to chop the top. It started as just some lines with a grease pencil.

As you can see, I took the plunge. The back of the cab was almost vertical; it could be lowered straight down. Next time I’ll show the cuts and how it went back together.

Here’s an overhead shot of the frame with the engine, trans and rear installed.

The engine is a ‘76 455 Pontiac with a Crane Fireball cam and 6H heads. I ended up using a sheet of 3/8″ diamond plate in the in the pickkup bed floor for some weight, otherwise I just couldn’t get traction. Unfortunatly I don’t have any pics of the frame with the x-member installed. I made it out of 1x2x1/8″ tubing, maybe I’ll photoshop it into a pic for illustrative purposes. Next, a new firewall, floor and a chopped top.

Here’s a pic showing some more progress on the frame.

On the right, you can see some of the boxing of the joint between the frame and sub-frame. It’s hard to see, but I only welded on the side and edge of the frame rail. Never weld on the top or bottom flange of a frame! If I were to weld all the way around (at the back of the boxing), it would be no better than just butt welding (think about it).
Same goes for the transmission cross member mounts, I only welded them on the sides, not across the bottom of the frame. The trans cross member is a stock one from a nova.
The rear axle is a 9″ ford with disc brakes from a ~’77 Lincoln. It had a four link, I just torched off the brackets and welded on the spring perches from 1/2 ton chevy pickup rear. The rear springs also came from a middle ’70s chevy pickup.

After the frame rails were finished I welded in a cross member over the kickup. I then tacked a light piece of angle between the rails in the front to hold them at the correct distance. I propped the rear frame and the subframe up on blocks at the ride height. Both needed to be trimmed, I found the spot on the subframe where the rear frame had the closest match and torched it off. I determined how long the rear frame would have to be to have the correct wheelbase and cut it off. I then slid them together as seen below.

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Here is a pic of my ‘52 Chevy pickup with a Firebird subframe and custom rectangular tubing rear frame. Today I’ll show the construction of the main frame rails. I wanted to subframe the truck but didn’t want to use the old rear frame (very flexible). I simply took some measurements and copied the old frame with 2″x4″x.125″ rectangular tubing (later I added an x-member made from 1″x2″x.125″ tubing, but that will be another post).

I roughly copied the kickup over the rear axle with 45 degree angles. To make a 45, cut each piece with 22.5. Below I show the pieces for one rail and the other rail tacked.

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