I forgot to respond to this Greg. It doesn't look like it will work with the Lincoln machine. Thanks for the offer though Buddy! :thumbsup:

Dang dumb red machines!

:lol:

More Parts!
 

We are still trying to get as much done under the dash as we can before we weld the new firewall on. Next up is the steering column and mount for the brake pedal. After a lot of measuring, what iffing, we got the bracket built. I decided that I wanted to incorporated the pedal mount anf steering column mount into one piece that could be fixed to the cowl area. This is the area that the factory bracket was fastened too. Here is what we cam up with. A couple more gussets on the pedal mount and I'll get the bracket welded in. Here it is so far.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-09-09_958.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-08-48_347.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-09-19_637.jpg

As always comments good or bad are welcome. :lateral:

Nothing bad here on my part to say....looking good. I like the idea too. Keep up the good work. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

1 Step Back!
 

So before we do anymore work to the cab, I want to get it back on the chassis to make sure everything we have done so far works. I also want to make sure the cab is held in place on the chassis before we fit and weld the firewall in. There were a few things we wanted to do before we put the cab back on the chassis. One of the main things was to fix a missed assumption we made when building the chassis. We set the front drive shaft loop height thinking we were going to use a 3" drive shaft and making some assumptions for rear end travel. Well, it turns out after talking to Denny's drive shaft, we need a 3.5" shaft because of the length and power output. That combined with the wrong guess as to rear u-joint placement and you have an interference with the drive shaft and front drive shaft loop. Here is a close up of how it looked.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/IMG_1280.jpg

You can see it is an integral part of the X-bracing in the chassis. After some head scratching we came up with a plan to fix the issue. First it called for grabbing the plasma cutter and sawzall and getting the bulk of the original loop out. Then we wondered how to get the rest of the bars cleaned up. Here is what we came up with. The trusty tubing notcher!

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-28-47_659.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...1-28-56_77.jpg

It really worked better than we had hoped. Check it out.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-38-04_827.jpg

Then we made some sleeves to fit in the stubs to align the new loop. After that we cut and fit the new loop. Overall we added 2 1/2" to make sure we had enough room. There may be a trans change coming and the new one will be slightly shorter.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...6-04-36_24.jpg

Some welding and grinding and you would never know we made the error, well except for me telling you here. Oh well, it's all part of the process!

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-04-18_739.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-59-06_942.jpg

Next up is putting the cab back on the chassis and then putting the engine and trans back in. Just to make sure everything clears! Better safe than sorry. After that we go for the firewall! Thanks for looking!

Better to find out sooner then later. It looks like you made a nice fix.

Thanks Wayne! Yeah, when we built the chassis we had some things still up in the air. This was one of the areas I was concerned about. All is well now. Waiting to see some update pics of your ride. :thumbsup:

Moving On
 

Let's see where were we? Well the cab is now back on the chassis and the new drive shaft loop fits nice. The driveshaft will now fit as well. All good things! Now that the cab is bolted back on the chassis it is time to continue with the fitting of the firewall. Well, until you get side tracked. More on that in a minute. We set the engine in the chassis to verify that all the work we did on the trans tunnel was correct. It was, however we decided we wanted more room around the bell housing. So we added some pieces to make some room. All in all it didn't take anything away from the interior and it will be much easier to work on the drive train. Here is what we did.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-44-40_713.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-44-13_313.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-43-38_760.jpg

Once this was complete I went ahead and welded in the steering column/brake pedal mount. I coated the cowl area with Eastwood's Por-15 product before welding it in. Here it is.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-33-41_876.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-32-37_246.jpg

Now here is where we got side tracked a bit. As we were taking the motor in and out, we realized we hated our original design for the motor mounts on the chassis. If you look in the back ground in the first and second second pictures above you will see what they looked like. They didn't fit the LS engine as well as we would like since they were put in with the Big Block. They were also tight to the oil pan rail of the LS. You can see the notches we were contemplating. (Looks Like A Mistake Too) They also made us stand the engine and trans up at a severe angle to get the assembly in place. Are you getting where I'm going here? We need to get this truck done, we are running out of cut off wheels! :willy: Out they came and a new design was developed. Check it out:

Old Vs. New
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-56-10_353.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-57-45_673.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-56-30_354.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-56-41_570.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...-58-44_540.jpg

These will allow the engine to slide back between the mounts. Previously the kick outs on the Champ Pan required us to go over and in the set the engine and trans. in. I think these look much better in general. The other thing this allowed us to do was lower the front of the engine 3/4". We couldn't do that with the rack and Big Block. I know it was the so called 2 steps forward one step back, but we will be better off in the end. Once we get the mounts stitched in, we will be off the side-track and back to getting that fire wall put in for good! Thanks for looking and sorry for the long post, but it is progress! :woot:

Hey, those are nice mounts. Any chance of getting the template?

What kind of pan is that? Kevco, autokraft, or something else? How do you like it?

Just out of curiosity, how come you did not lower the engine any more?

I'm not sure the template would help much. It is just a piece of poster board. This was kind of a free form project. If we still have it, I can scan it and email it. But, as I said there was a ton of work and fitting after the concept was worked out on paper.

The pan is a Champ Pan. It looks like a great pan, but have not run it yet obviously. This is the pan Wegner Automotive chose for the engine.. I trust them completely, they have years of experience building LS engines for NASCAR touring series cars.

Lowering it anymore would put the pan on the rack. No more room! :lol:

Thanks for the kind words and checking out the project! :cheers: