When building a car over a period of time, some days will stand out above the others, and among the best is when the new body arrives in your driveway. After KIT CAR decided what type of kit it would like to build and showcase to its readers (a '41 Willys pickup from Active Power), the work began like an old steam engine getting started. It slowly chugged and spurted to life and, once the project got rolling along, things began to pick up speed.
KIT CAR debuted this buildup in its Jan. '06 issue, with subsequent articles showing what the Chevy S-10 chassis looked like when we got it and what we had to do to strip it and clean it. The last part of prepping the chassis is to remove the chassis mounts from the former cab that would otherwise prevent the new Willys cab and bed from being dropped onto the chassis.
Three areas need to be addressed for this to happen, and the first two are highlighted in this chapter (the third will be featured in the September issue). The S-10 chassis has several points where the stock Chevy cab and bed mount--two forward cab mounts, and two rear cab mounts that double as forward bed mounts, too. Additionally, the chassis' front horns must be clearanced, but we'll show that information in the next installment of build-up articles, as the cab and bed can be mounted without doing that work.
Active Power designed its stout steel bed to drop right onto the S-10 chassis without any modifications, so the following set of photographs illustrates where the old cab mounts were located and how they were removed. Some folks may opt to lop off what isn't needed and leave the remnants of the old mounts on the chassis, but we didn't want any evidence of the former mounts left behind, so we did a little extra work to clean up the chassis as we went along.
This was one of those days...
This was one of those days you always remember: when you get your body delivered! The cab, stuffed with the dash and a pair of fenders, arrived loose and off its pallet, but no damage otherwise. The steel bed for the project truck was on the second pallet, and it contained the rest of the body parts.
Three areas need to be clearanced...
Three areas need to be clearanced before the body or bed can go on the chassis. The first is the mount that does double duty as the rear cab mount as well as the forward bed mount. We cut off the section above the top of the chassis with a Sawzall type of tool.
What's left of the factory...
What's left of the factory mount is the area that was welded to the chassis to satisfy all federal regulations--in other words, it was really welded on there, and it wasn't going to come off easily!
The best method I found to...
The best method I found to remove the mount was to use an impact hammer to get between the frame rail and the mount to peel it off.
It worked pretty well, but...
It worked pretty well, but you have to be careful not to turn the impact hammer's blade into the chassis, or you'll punch a hole in it as if you were using a big can opener (which, in reality, you are!).
Using a small cut-off wheel,...
Using a small cut-off wheel, I continued to remove the rough edges of the mount leftover from the impact hammer.
This was a recent find at...
This was a recent find at my favorite hardware supply store. It's a 4-inch flap disc that bolts onto my handheld grinder, but they also come in Roloc mounts, too. The 4-inch disc comes in different grits (60, 80, 120, etc.), and some of the other diameters (I've seen up to 7-inch) can be found with 24- and 36-grit grades. They have a beveled edge (about 20 degrees) so they can get into corners a little easier than a flat sanding disc.
The flap disc makes short...
The flap disc makes short work of the little steel nubs that were still sticking up off the chassis. I've never used any other kind of tool that could work as fast at cutting down large amounts of metal than this.
Even though I'm wearing protective...
Even though I'm wearing protective glasses (having already been to the hospital once to remove metal shavings imbedded in my eye), these types of glasses aren't enough sometimes. I've also opted to carry around a clear full mask, the kind you use when working on a lathe, for even more safety.
When you're done with the...
When you're done with the rear mount area, the chassis should look something like this. There are a few small gouges I can fill before everything gets primed and painted, but that'll happen sometime in the future when I'm ready to do the final assembly on the truck.
The original forward cab mount...
The original forward cab mount looks like this before cutting...
... and after being shaved...
... and after being shaved you'd never know it was ever there.
It's starting to look interesting!...
It's starting to look interesting! I've already spent a lot of time walking around the parts and trying to figure out what I should start on first. The gears are definitely turning!