Day 2

Written by Jon Roberts  |  Category: 48 Ratrod
 |  Hits: 4834  | Monday, 10 February 2014 13:56

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Day 2 was a Sunday.  I attend church in the morning and evening so I work (play) about 4 hours.  It started with pulling the cab off the original chassis.  I removed all the bolts, the steering column, the fuel tank, the pedals, the parking brake lever and then lifted it with my tractor snaking it over the shifter. 

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I set the cab down on the frame to get an idea of what would be needed to get it channeled as much as was needed to get the look I wanted.  As you can see from the picture it needed to drop alot... it turned out to be a 6 inch channel.  Keep in mind I will be chopping the top also so the overall height will be much lower.

 

Now that I had an idea of the drop I wanted the floor was cut out to allow the body to drop.  The 6 inch drop also required a cut out in the rear of the cab for the frame rails to nestle into.  All of this was accomplished using the plasma cutter and the sawzall (reciprocating saw)

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This brought the body down the 6 inches I wanted and allowed the necessary clearance to use some factory rubber body isolation mounts from a 70s ford truck.  Notice how the lower body line is now below the rear axle centerline as opposed to above as it was in the earlier picture.  I set the hood in place and slid the body forward a couple of inches till it looked 'right' with the front wheel vertically.  That was it for Day 2.