1979 Chevy SWB 4x4 Chicken Truck build

[HAZARDOUSDUTY]

Well here is my new project build for my girl friend. It's a long story about why it's being called the chicken truck it will be her mudding truck. I've actually pulled my 74 Nova project out of the garage so I could start on this truck. I bought the orange and white truck in the pics for just the drive train and the cab, I have everything else for the truck already either new or from another parts truck.

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Notice the 70's look in this cab, orange flame headliner and the orange flames on the door's. I was suprised it didn't have orange shag carpet in it, lol

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These next pic's are of the old frame that was on this truck, I was going to use the frame from it until I noticed something weird on the back axle and the cab and bed didn't line up like they should be. I will post some pics of what I'm talking about on the axle and see what you all think. The back axle had it looked like 3 or 4 inch spacer blocks under the axle for lift but then on the passenger side it had an additional 2 inch of extra metal. The only thing I was thinking was that maybe the frame was tweaked or something so instead of using it I had an extra frame that I was saving for a project so I opted with using it. The only thing I had to do was clean it up and add a new axle hanger for the back on it. So me and the GF got to work on it. Now mind you she is all for helping out on it because she want's to learn. So we wire wheeled it all down, sprayed some rust converter on it and primed and painted it. Also fixed some cab mounts and went ahead and welded on a steering box frame support on it.

[bake74]

     That is a great start to the build, what year will the truck end up when you are done ?

[HAZARDOUSDUTY]

More pics of the frame and steering box frame support, also in the last pick you can see what I was talking about with the extra 2 inches of metal between the axle and the other lift block. The extra block was only on the passenger side.

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Bake74, it will still be a 79, I was planning on rebuilding a SWB awhile back for showing and I had purchased alot of new parts for that purpose but lost interest in it, plus I had bought my 74 Nova that I started working on. I've got all new sheet metal for this project, basically the only thing I needed from this orange truck was the 79 cab and the drive train everything else I had new for it.

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Going today to pick up a cherry picker and trans jack so I can pull the engine and trans tomorrow. Soon as I get them pulled then I'll pull the axles and get the cab off that frame and start cleaning the engine and axles for paint before I put them all on the other frame. I know some of you are probably wondering why paint all that if it's going to be a mudding truck? Well I just figure since I've got the opprutunity to do it now I might as well then I guess i'm so used to building this stuff for show I can't get it out of my head that this truck won't be for show, lol

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The truck also had air conditioning at one time but alot of the parts were missing so I've decided to go with redneck air conditioning for the new truck. I followed I believe it was firefighters build on his truck when he did the ac to non ac work on his truck so here are some picks of me doing the same thing.

[bake74]

     Nice, funny thing, besides my 74 k10 step side that I am building now, the only other car I always wanted to build and haven't yet is a older nova.  I have considered the 74 nova for awhile, though I might see when the time comes if I can not go a little older say back to a 64 or 63.  I will have to see what is available at the time and how they look.

[HAZARDOUSDUTY]

Yeah Bake74 I've alway's liked the look of the Nova's, I got mine thru a trade a guy on craigslist was looking to trade this nova for a jeep wrangler and I had one at the time so we traded. He had used the nova as a bracket racer so the engine in it was already built plus posi truck in the rear. The only bad part about it was he tore everything out of it to make it light weight for racing. Well of course me being me I am building it back as a show car but keeping all the high performance stuff on it so when I want to smoke the tired I can, lol. I just wish I had done more research on this nova. It's a 74 hatchback and believe me they are hard to find parts for. They only built the 73-74 hatchback in that style they changed in 75 so parts for the interior and other things are hard to come by but I was able to get everything I needed. Any year before 73-74 are easy to get parts for there are plenty of after market company's out there that make parts for earlier years.

[HAZARDOUSDUTY]

Ok, so update on the chicken truck build. It's been awhile since i've been able to do anything to it but here are some pics

[bake74]

     AH, progress is always good.