Thread: Low-budget/T-Bucket Pickup

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When I had my Track-T, it seemed like I couldn't leave the house without getting wet. In 2018 I got wet every time I drove it from mid-March until early October. I would leave the house when there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I would be soaked before I got home. When I was trying to sell it, I would park it in the front yard with a sign on it and in 20 minutes or so it would be raining! Because of that, the '32 I'm building changed from a roadster to a 3-window coupe when I ordered the body...

We got dumped on the other day too with Rita, but now I feel blessed cuz we had a roof over our head lol.

When driving the Cobra in the rain it's alright if you're driving into the rain, as it goes over the top of your head.
Different story if you're driving with the weather; you get wetter than a wet thing in water.
But even when driving into the rain it tracks around the edge of the windscreen, down your leg, and fills your boot.
I remember driving through the Awakino Gorge in rain some years back, stopped to gas up at Otorohonga, got out of the car on the forecourt, took my boot off, and poured the water out.
The forecourt attendant took one look at this unsmiling long-haired leather-clad hot-rodder, clapped her hand over her mouth, and headed for the back of the shop with her shoulders shaking.
The lengths I go to to amuse people.

I just went back and reread your whole thread.
You've done a bloody magnificent job in building this.
Sir: I salute you.

(So...how did the budget finally look?)

Don’t get me wrong, this thing is an absolute blast to drive when the weather is suitable! I may just build a foldable, vinyl top for it to make it a bit more comfortable during the Florida summers.

My daily driver is a 1995 Camaro convertible. I’ve driven that in some pretty heavy rain with the top down. As long as you are going over 30 MPH, the rain pretty much flies over your head, you barely get any on you. With the flat T windshield, the rain just kind of buffets around and blasts you in the face, I would almost need a helmet or some goggles to be able to see where I’m going.

Johnboy - Thanks for the compliment. I kind of lost track of the budget towards the end, but I think I came in right around $6000. I’ve got about 1500 miles on it now, and I’m loving every minute of it. It’s been virtually trouble free, just a couple little tweaks here and there. The home made shifter had a tendency to pop out of gear, and into neutral, when hitting bumps. I added a small spring from the hardware store to the shift linkage to solve that problem. I also removed one leaf from both the front and the rear leaf springs. I had to drill a new shackle mounting hole in the bat wings, and re arch the rear spring to get the ride height back up where it belongs. That made a big improvement in how it drives. I do have to go over speed bumps fairly slowly to make sure the oil pan does not hit.

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Here is the tailgate I built for it. When you fold it down, it is plenty strong enough to sit on it. It also keeps the groceries from sliding out on the way home from the store!


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I love the box! Your kinda advertising for some harassment advertising that it's powered by a Chevy

My thought exactly, I understand why people use the old Chevy 350 tried and true Engine for custom builds due to price and the abundance of aftermarket parts available. Yet I like a ford engine in a Ford, call me wierd, but it's more of a bragging right to actually have a Ford in your ford for it's rare to find one at your average car show!

My brother-in-law has a 350 Buick laying around. I would love to put that in something just because nobody does.

Or a 283! Friend had a turbo 283 in a vega, nice combo

Well, there are many reasons for putting a particular engine in any build. If you like a Ford in a Ford, Mopar in a Mopar, or GM in a GM, that's fine and it may seem logical. However, consider this: it was the small block Chevy that finally supplanted the venerable old flathead Ford back in the late '50s. I know because I was there. The flathead was as common then as the Chevy is now. Just look at any of the old hot rod and custom magazines from back then. Yes, there were Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Chrysler Hemi engines in use back then, but they never got the foothold of the Chevy because of their size and weight. When Rod & Custom Magazine put a 265 Chevy in the "Dream Truck" in October of 1954, hot rodders across the country took note. It was small, relatively lightweight (compared to the others), and easy to work on. It fit in that '50 Chevy truck without needing to move the steering box or make firewall modifications. Even more notable, a bone stock 265 with 4-barrel carb put out 215 horsepower; it took hundreds of dollars of parts and machine work to get that kind of power out of a flathead Ford. It wasn't long before the Chevy found its way into sprint car racing, too . Punch the '57 and newer 283 block out a full 1/8th inch, add fuel injection, and you have 301 cubic inches of screaming 400 plus horsepower at 7000 rpm (still the dominant engine in sprint car racing, but now 410 cu. in. and 800 hp). The flathead with its 3-bearing crankshaft may self-destruct at anything over 5000 rpm. The handwriting was on the wall - if you wanted reliable performance forget the obsolete old flathead with its tendency to overheat and crack valve seats. Spend all that speed parts and machine work money on a modern small block Chevy. The rest, as they say, is history. The small block Chevy blew the old flathead "out of the water" which makes the Chevy the most traditional hot rod engine after the flathead.

Ironically, the Y-block Ford was introduced a full year ahead of the Chevy, but didn't catch on as quickly. The Y-block was produced for only about 8 years, the small block Chevy for about 50 years. The Y-block Ford was replaced by the modern small-block Ford. The original small Ford started at a diminutive 221 cubic inches, then went to 260, then 289, and finally 302 (The 351 Windsor is a different casting). The 221 and early 260 have a different bell housing bolt pattern than the later ones. All Chevy V-8s, small block or big block, from 1955 up have the same bell housing bolt pattern (not LS engines). There are at least 18 different water pumps to fit the small Ford. Chevy has two - long pump or short pump.

Engine choice is a matter of personal preference. Sometimes cost or availability (or both) are considerations, sometimes it's the builder's familiarity with a particular brand or model. In my case I use Chevys because I raced them for years and I know how to assemble them. Also, I like to look at all of the different engines I see in hot rods and I prefer to see something that doesn't necessarily "belong"; to me it shows ingenuity. I love to see a big block Ford or a Hemi in a GM product. I once put a 350 Chevy in a Volvo 780GL sedan! What a sleeper...

I have often thought the LS motor is to small block Chevys as to what the small block Chevys were to the flat head Fords. Of course the flat head Fords were long before my time but it seems like it is commonplace to replace everything with an LS anymore because of efficiency of the motor. It seems as though Ford's Coyote engine and the Dodge Hemi cannot quite grab the popularity of the LS. Even with all that being said, I'm actually pretty excited to have a Dodge motor in my 48 Dodge pickup, not because I'm a purest, mainly because I've never had a non-Hemi Dodge engine before.

Good info Jim appreciate the history of rodding too. If I had to start over on my 48 Ford knowing what I have learned here over the last decade or so, I would have bought a engineered rolling chassis, and put a 302(5lt) ford in. Would have been a much better choice than keeping the heavy weight 460 in there plus a manual transmission and not the c6 auto. That being said I'm still happy that I did what I did, because it gave me the opportunity to meet this group of folks like you and Mike and Dave and I told you so miss him!

A little personal history - About 30 years ago I bought a 1979 Ford pickup from a farmer which had a blown up engine. I put a a Chevy 350 in it, and had “Powered by Chevrolet” lettered on the tailgate. It was my daily driver for about five years. That truck was the source of many conversations, debates, and good natured ribbing. People would pull up next to me at stops lights and say “That’s the best Ford ever!” or “That’s a terrible thing to do!”. That’s why I wanted to do it again with this truck.

I actually considered putting a flathead Ford engine in this thing, but when I checked into the prices of those things today, I quickly changed my mind. Like Jim, I’m super familiar with small block Chevys, because I raced them for many years. And I came across a really good deal on one, so that settled that. I would have gladly used something “unusual” like an Oldsmobile, or Ford or whatever if I had stumbled across a good deal on one.

From what I’ve seen, It seems like LS engines are definitely the way of the future, but it seems like aftermarket parts for them are still a bit pricy. I’m guessing that will change a lot over the next ten years, as the aftermarket manufacturers start competing more for that market.

I’m a little surprised that the oval track racers have not really started switching over to LS engines yet. It seems to me that it’s time for them to start doing that.

In my opinion, it's a matter of time before the LS engine becomes the dominant choice. As old dinosaurs like me die off and the younger folks who understand all the electronics involved replace us, the LS will supplant the old small block. It's lighter, stronger, and capable of more power. Hot Rod Magazine did a series of builds on some LS engines a while back and the results were astounding. The last one I read, if I remember correctly, they took the LS out of a junkyard pickup truck that had over 100,000 miles on it. They tore it down, re-gapped the rings and put it back together. They changed the camshaft and added twin turbochargers. The first run on the dyno, with mild settings of ignition and cam timing and moderate boost from the turbos, was over 600 hp. They said at those settings that engine would have lived another 80 to 100K miles, but... The object of the project was to see how far they could push it. They kept boosting all the parameters and settings - finally, at something over 1400 hp, it scattered its guts all over the dyno room! A stock bottom end that can stand that kind of punishment is hard to argue with...

Yep, it's hard to argue with that motor. I belong to a Trans am club, and a guy and there has a 150k ish 5.3 that he has 497 HP at the wheels, That's with 150 HP shot of nitrous but still impressive that a motor like that can take it.