Rebuilding the SWB chassis

Major teardown is finally complete! Now I can start putting her back together. It began from the ground up starting with the new chassis. The old long bed chassis was carried out of the garage and placed on the side of the house. This made a huge amount of room in the garage.

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

Next I placed the new short bed frame in the center of the garage and started reassembling the suspension. I started with the rear by adding several new components. All from my Early Classic Enterprises 4/6 drop kit. It drops the truck 4" in the front and 6" in the rear. I added shock mount relocators and relocated the track bar to the right trailing arm.

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

I then bolted the crossmember onto the short frame. It was a perfect fit! Everything lined up nicely.

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

Next I replaced the upper and lower control arm shafts and ball joints. This by far was the hardest part of the suspension rebuild. It was kinda like that move "A Christmas Story". Remember the dad fighting with the furnace, cussing and yelling? That was me! With the shafts in place I could begin reassembling the front suspension. The old spindles were replaced with ECE 2 1/2" drop spindles. I used ECE 1 1/2" drop springs, all new grade 8 nuts and bolts, new brake rotors and calipers. When I finally got it all togther, I stepped back, lit up a cigar and admired my little masterpiece :)

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

Passenger Side:

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

A little elbow grease goes a long way!

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

Drivers sideview:

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

Slideshow of photos. The old rear cover looks out of place. It gets replaced later :)

Clean and Paint

Now it was time for the real fun. Cleaning years of grease and dirt off the suspension components. I used an electric drill, several stripping pads and wire wheels to clean up the rear differential and front control arms. It was a messy job and took a few hours over. Afer cleaning, I wiped everything down with thinnner then painted the parts with POR15. Here is a photo of the control arms after cleanup and paint. The old shafts were later replaced.

From SWB Chassis Rebuild

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Front Suspension Removal

Now that the motor and transmission have been removed, I started stripping down the old LWB chassis. Before I did anything, I took photos detailing the layout. All 53 photos can be seen here.
I started by removing the brake/fuel lines and emergency brake cable. I then went to work on the front crossmember. An engine hoist was used to support the chassis while the crossmember was unbolted from the frame. A floor jack was used to support the crossmember. I did my best to keep it from slipping off the jack. It eventually did but caused no harm.

From Front suspension removal

With the crossmember was separated from the frame, I started dismantling the front suspension. This posed a problem. Front coil springs are under high tension and can be very dangerous if not removed correctly. Typically the motor and transmission provide enough weight to allow compressing the spring with a floor jack positioned beneath the control arm. With no motor and tranny, I had no weight to compress the spring. After asking questions online I decided to cut the springs with a cutting wheel. It was a little scary cutting thru that first spring. When it finally broke it did so with a very loud, POP! Scared the crap out of me!

From Front suspension removal

Eventually I got everything loose then dismantled the rear suspension which way easier than the front. Here are photos: