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Old July 17th, 2015, 03:48 AM
PLYONS11 PLYONS11 is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Westfield IN
Truck: 1963 1500 Long Bed Fleet
Age: 40
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Default Re: 3/4 to 1/2 ton Conversion

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1960HDGMC View Post
Hey PLYONS, What year model is your granddads truck? If it is 1960 thru 1962, it will have torsion bars instead of coil springs up front. The coil spring front ends started in 1963 and ran thru 1966. This is a GMC 2WD I am assuming? There are a lot of guys on hear that can help you with the swap. If you have torsion bars up front, please save them for me. I need a pair for my truck. In fact, carefully remove everything, as somebody on here can use every bit you save. This old iron is getting harder and harder to find in driver condition. So you got a nice chance to help get some other trucks up and rolling too. Good luck with your project, and keep us posted, GM

Sorry, I totally forgot to include that info! It's a '63 with coil springs up front. It had leafs in rear, but I converted to coils. If I had a torsion bar set up id love to give u the parts! Thus far the only thing I has tossed were the leaf springs, shackles, and mounts. They were all in pretty rough shape and honestly I dont know who would want to buy those leafs from me anyway. They are the largest and heaviest leafs I have ever seen. So big that I wonder if grandpa had upgraded them for hauling grain wagons and such. I'm a fairly strong guy and it took all I had to lift them into the recycle bin!

I do still have the rear x-member and the Dana 60 tho. Not sure if those would be of any use to anyone on here and I'm not sure that this vintage/2wd Dana 60 would be of any value to anyone outside of the early 60's truck community. I'll prolly just post the d60 on Craig's list and see if I get any bites.

I'll post some photos of my build in the days to come. As of right now I'm concentrating on getting it back in moving condition. I am relocating to Birmingham soon and the Delos company will only transport it if it runs and drives. I don't plan on tackling the front end until I get settled in B'ham but I want to start the research now. I thought I had everything figured out before I started the rear end swap but I quickly learned I didn't do enough research. If anyone else is doing the same swap I am now a wealth of knowledge on the hurdles that will need to be overcome on the rear end. The biggest PITA was the 2 piece drive shaft/carrier bearing.
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