CHASSIS FINISHED

With the frame now painted in 2K satin black it was another long round trip and a trailer rental to fetch it back to London. I'd bought a 3.25 ratio Ford big bearing 9" axle from a bloke up near Santa Pod. He'd fetched around 20 of them back back from the US East coast so I had a lot to choose from at £125 each. I found the old 3.55 ratio a bit revvy with the old 327 so I though the 3.25 would be about right with the 383, an overdrive box was out of my budget. I was so busy looking at axle ratios that I stupidly didn't notice that the gear case was too far offset on the width of the axle! I had to get this altered by Zane over at www.zannetec.com. He did a fine job at a much lower price that some other well known UK chassis works including two new Strange axle shafts. I used a couple of ratchet straps to pull the axle to the correct spring height to get the pinion angle right.

I'd sprayed the box sections with Dinitrol, I was in such a mess with this stuff that I didn't take any pictures. The headers had plenty of clearance at the steering box.

I had no end of trouble getting the exhaust to fit, this all had to come off again several times when the body went on. Another case of parts supposedly made for a 57 Chevy that must have been tailored on a completely different car.

Everything sorted for now. It was so good bolting clean shiny stuff together fo a change.

Time to take it all back to the paint shop, by now I'd sold the Chevy Tahoe and bought a Dodge Magnum Hemi. This was a lot more fun to drive but didn't have a tow bar so Scottie took it back up North for me. Great service, he looked after my pride and joy as if it was his own. It was great to see it rolling back on it's wheels. These are wider repro steels that clear disc brakes that have the dimples to hold the original hub caps. This is the stock look I was after.

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