Whew, its been a while

Well, its been almost 2 months since my last post.  And since then I sold the small stuff on eBay and took the rest to the scrapyard.  KIDDING!  We have been nose deep in moving and remodeling a house so no time for fun on the old truck.  However, with the move and the new house came a, wait for it, wait for it, new shop!  Thats right!  After waiting for many years, patiently I may add, I now have a 40x30 smooth concrete floor shop, complete with roll up doors, lights, electricity, insulation, the works.  Yeah I'm a little excited.  It also has a 30x55 covered area to the back as well as a 15' side cover for my truck.  Finally have a place to park my truck (daily driver) out of the weather.  So now with that done, and almost all of our possessions for the house no longer residing in boxes across the shop/garage/living room, I will be adding some plywood to protect the insulation, organizing, and getting ready to get down to business!

Although I must add that there was a slight bit of work done in the process.  Since I last posted, I was able to acquire a rear end that after some searching and wild goose chasing was able to locate.  Since back when, tooling was expensive, especially foundry forms, stuff didn't change.  Particularly housings.  They just changed/improved/modified the guts.  So, from 1946 until 1972, all Chevrolet 3/4t & 1 tons used the exact same housing.  I know right, the days of "if it works, leave it alone" are over (no EPA back then!).  So after some research, I found that the 3rd member is also the same, sans internals.  But it is a drop in unit.

My truck came stock with a 5.14:1 rear end gear ratio.  Great for pulling loads or a house off the foundation.  Not good for driving over 40, especially with a 216 motor.  Some 3/4 tons came with 4.56:1s, but....a select few of the last rear ends to use said housing were installed with a HO52 model 4.10:1!  Even fewer were installed in 3/4 ton suburbans from 67-72 which sported a 3.90:1 rear.  I figured that I had better actually hunt for something attainable.  So...a 67-72 chevy 3/4 ton which came sporting a factory V8 and factory auto and a coil sprung rear was said to have possessed a factory 4.10:1 rear end.  And I was pretty sure that I found the one that I need in the very town that I work in.  He said he bought the truck, a 3/4 ton cheyenne super, with a big block v8 and auto.  All original truck, sans title.  Alas, another one gets parted.  But yay for me.  Got it home, cracked open the cover, can't tell much, started counting teeth on the ring - 41.  lets hope for a 10 tooth pinion.  Well, cannot see the pinion from the rear cover.  Drop the pig on out, its coming out one way or the other.  I mean worst case scenario, I missed the 4.10, but the alternative for that truck was a 4.56.  Still faster than a 5.14!  Dropping the pig did not gain any access to the pinion, but allowed for very close inspection of the ring gear.  And, wait for it, right there among presumably a part number and date of manufacture, was, 10:41.  Step back and process.  Now sometimes it takes us Aggies a minute.  The number of teeth on the ring gear divided by the number of teeth on the pinion gear give you the gear ratio.  Flip those numbers and divide 41 by 10.  Oh man!  4.10:1.  I found my jewel.  No freight, and fairly reasonably priced I might add.

So now the pig is out of the rear end, wrapped in oily rags, staged up with all the parts for the rebuild in the new shop.  Getting started again is my major motivation to get the house buttoned up so that I can start on the shop (a promise I made to my dear loving wife who agreed to let me have the shop)