Well I finally got around to taking a picture of the painted frame. It has been sitting in my garage for over six months collecting dust and other debris. During that time we had one of the worst winters in a while. It wasn't the snowiest or the coldest, it was just nasty. We also put an addition on our house and that took every free moment I had. I put the last picture from the previous page on this one so you can see the comparison. I didn't intend for the angle to be so close, I guess I tend to take the same pictures of things. I sent the frame out to a local industrial metal fabrication shop. They have a sand blaster and paint booth that would fit a small ship. They made quick work of the frame and had it back in no time. One big problem. The frame got more than a few chips on it's return trip to my house. The frame was loaded on a truck, but the tie downs that held it on dug into the new paint. The shop handed me a can of paint and said I could use it to touch it up. I wasn't very happy. They weren't to interested in my problem. In hind sight I chose a shop where my project was more in the way than anything else. I should have recognized this but didn't. I have been able to touch up the paint fairly well. None of this will show once the sheet metal is back on.

Stripped down ready to go.

 
The freshly painted frame.

I bought my springs from Durant  Enterprises (949) 673-5625. They supply places like Jim Carter, CPP and others. According to Mr. Durant, he is the only one making these springs. I will also be converting to tube shocks, which I also got from Durant Enterprises. These are Doetsch-Tech. shocks and are shorter than the shocks that come with the standard conversion kit. The total conversion will include a CPP six lug disc brake conversion and sway bars as well. For now it just seems good to be putting parts back on the truck instead of taking them off. Here is a link to a good tech article on straight axle upgrades. I found this after I decided to keep my straight axle. Hopefully it helps someone else. More to come.

I plan on really making this truck's suspension as modern as I can while retaining the original style straight axle. When I started I thought an IFS would be beyond my talents. Of course that has changed with bolt in models available now. So after the springs comes replacing the lever type shocks for tube shocks. This kit came from Jim Carter's and is meant for 1947 - 1954 trucks. As mentioned above I replace the kit's shocks for better ones. The kit does work for earlier trucks, but the template they provide to locate the upper shock mount took some playing with to find the correct location. The length was good, but the shape of the frame is different, so I had to fold it a little to use it with the 1940's frame. Also the 1940 frame is not as tall and so I had to change the angle just slightly to make it work. Take a close look at the picture, the angle of the shock lines up great with the lower mount, so I believe this is a great fit. If you want to try this on your early Chevy and want to see my template I can make a copy and mail it to you. One future issue is the inner fender sheet metal will have to be altered to get around the new upper shock mount. That was not something I really wanted to do. I am trying to keep things very stock in case someone wanted to return it to stock someday. Hmmmm!

Pretty sweet I think!

One big problem I ran into was how to connect the old steering with the new axle. The old 1940 steering box's pitman arm used the ball and socket connection and the newer 1955 steering arm uses a modern large diameter tie rod end. My solution was to buy a tie rod tapered reamer from Gary Forney - (XKUT) on ebay. I needed this to cut the taper on my pitman arm to replace the old ball. This allows me to keep my complete steering box and pitman arm original and to cut the taper to fit a modern tie rod end. Then I ordered a tie rod tube and one large tie rod and and one small tie rod end from this web site I found on a jeep or bronco rock climber web site. I suggest you check this site out. It has some great stuff on it if you are making components from scratch or you are a dirt track\stock car builder.

Last bit on the front end is the sway bar. This is a sway bar sold by Classic Performance Products. It is designed for the 47 - 54 Advanced Design era trucks. The frame for the early trucks and the later trucks is similar but not the same. This sway bar is designed to work off the front sprint plate bolts and mount under the front cross member. The problem with that on my truck was that stuck the sway bar way ahead of the cross member and nothing to mount the front of the sway bar to. Well just move it to the back of the spring plate and that will center the bar under the cross member. The issue I ran into was the back mounting holes is slightly farther apart than the front ones. The frame is tapered at the front. I played around with the bar and ended up just mounting without modifications. The spacing was only slightly off and I believe it will work just fine after talking to a couple of racing buddies. I will end up painting it some stupid color that will make it look foolish on a 1940 truck.    

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