Thread: A Different Hot Rod

Tweet

Brent was cool enough to start this new topic, so I'll play.

I have a "Two" pretty new project in the works myself. Now I am not nearly as good as documenting my builds as Brent is but here's some of both of them.

The first project is a truck that I really didn't even know existed until a few months ago. I was surfin over on E-Bay and saw this truck and thought it was the coolest thing I ever did see.





I tried to buy this truck, however the guys asking price of $35,000 was just a little steep for me. So I went on a search to find one to build my way.

Turns out the truck was a international KB 6, old Time over the road truck. I found one in Tennessee only 145 miles from me. It was a true Barn Find setting right were the farmer parked it 8 years before.



Took a lot of doing to get it those 145 miles and dragging this thing through Chattanooga on a 18 foot car hauler is a trip I will never forget, or hopefully repeat. Got it home and started making plans for the build. Here setting outside the shop I realized just how big this dang thing really was. I had to cut 6 1/2 feet off of it just to get it into the shop.





RS

What a neat find..So you are going to build it same/similar to the black one??

Once I did get it inside the shop I had to come to some kind of decision as to what I wanted this truck to be and to do. I have had this idea for a long time of building a 4X4 Hot Rod based on a big truck but making it size wise a little more user friendly, not as big as the rig it "Was" but bigger than shall we say "Normal" what ever normal is. I had a Big Block powered Blazer that I had bought some time ago just in case I came up with such a project. I orginal intended to use the Blazer chassis and just do a body swap, but this KB was too big for that. So I am going to use the KB chassis modified a lot, but converted with the Blazer 4X4 components.

Heres the BBC and tranny and transfer case. There going to set right there on that stand until I get around to detailing them.





Got it apart to some degree, got that "HUGE" six outta there and the tranny both of them together must have weighed at least 1,500 to 2,000 lbs. The rear end which was a two speed dually weighed a ton with tires and wheels. No wonder it was so hard to drag home.





Big Old Six left a heck of a hole.

Roland

Gotcha..A real monster mud plugger...and little ol lady scarer..

Well that KB project was rolling along just fine and dandy, that is until my Dentist appointment. I had traded months ago for a 1949 Ford F-1 pickup. It was 351W powered with a C4 tranny.





Very pretty truck new interior, and the motor and tranny was supposed to be fresh. Got to drive it about 60 miles or so when the C4 just destroyed itself. Since I didn't have a clue on how to build that thing I took it to a tranny shop to have the work done. When the got it apart it was obvious that no body had touched it sense it left Ford. That was strike one.

It seems that no matter were I tried to go in that truck something broke. I redid the wiring in the back as the tail lights didn't work. Had to rebuild the brakes. It had a Mustang II suspension ( Previous Owner said it was fresh as well) Broke a ball joint onj the next little ride. Then the carb took a dump replaced it with an Edelbrock 600 and to tell the truth it never ran so good. For the first time it had very crisp throttle response and just ran like a Hot Rod should. So I drove it to the Dentist, coming home and about a mile or less from the house it stumbled a little bit. Nothing worse than that just a stumble. Only one stop sign between me and the shop bit it was running so bad I didn't even stop and about a hundred yards from the house she just quit. I managed to limpo it into the garage and just left it alone for awhile. I had another couple of Hot Rods to drive and I thought I would just let it set for the winter.

It must have been a week or two before I went out to the garage and low and behold all of the oil was in one really big puddle on the floor. Pushed it into the shop and got it raised up and the block was vented and I mean a pretty good size hole, about the size of a Baseball. Another smaller hole in the oil pan as well. Scratch one Ford Windsor block, and damn I just had installed a new set of Edelbrock aluminum heads on the thing too. Funny thing is it never did make any noise that I heard, I was returning from the Dentist and so my mind as small as it is may have had other things to think about, but a hole that size should have made some kind of noise Dentist or not.

So the KB got put on hold for this engine swap, and I decided to swap a real engine into it this time. It sure didn't seem to want another Ford motor. So this time its getting an Early Hemi.



Hers the little Windsor right before it came out.



And another really big empty hole to fill....



Neighbor Kid helping me put the Hemi in to fill that hole....



RS

Well the Hemi got settled into that big old hole, that turned out not to be so big after all. I fabbed up mounts for it and the 700R4 Tranny I had behind it.



Swap went really good, and was pretty straight forward. But once again this little Ford reached up and bit me.

If you look at a couple of those pictures you can see the wiring harness laying to the side.



Also note that every single wire with the exception of the four that I replaced earlier are all one color BROWN. I mean every wire both under the hood and under the dash and each and every circuit, the intire wiring harness is made from one color wire. Oh Goody so I get to replace the harness as well. I wouldn't have it any other way, but that guy I swapped with had better hope and pray we never attend the same show.....

Roland

Love those old KB trucks, there's a guy about 50 miles from me that is running around in one of those. Stopped at a gas station one day visiting a friend & I heard this low groan of a diesel & turned around & seen a bright red International KB truck like yours drive by w/a 30ft box trailer behind it..
ALL Brown wires..lol reminds me of the larger later model International Trucks, they used all black wires w/writing on them about 2 inches from each end. Real fun tracing those down when they all have been cut a foot back & the parts are missing makes for a longgggg day..joe

Both really neat projects Roland! Sounds like somebody got a heck of a deal on a roll of brown wire, huh????

Heh,only a hemi can show you just how small a hole really is...Good luck with the rest of it..It can only improve......cant it??

I pulled a SBC with 350 Turbo out of my 49 Chevy pick up, a Viper V-10 sitting in it now, its about like pounding a square peg into a round hole, sure made that BIG HOLE look WAY too small!

Very COOL Hot Rod Truck

You get it running yet?

Yea George I did get it up and running. The dang thing fought me every step of the way too. The one thing I really didn't like was the 700R4. I hear a lot of folks talking about how they love this tranny, for me you couldn't give me another one of the things. So after the truck was on the road for a very short period it is now in the shop on the lift getting a Borg/Warner 4 speed conversion.

Not the most simple thing in the world due to the Hemi as parts are not at each and every parts store, but doable if you use Hot Heads and there vast amount of stuff. It should be on the road once again on Wednesday after I drive down to Birmingham for the new and longer drive shaft. Thanks for asking!

Roland

Glad you getting it worked out, looks good, I never liked 700r's but some people do. I am still going along with mine slowley

Them old school flames fit the truck too.