3+3 - L18/465/203/205/Rockwells

I bought this truck in December of '09 and drove it home and tooled around my family's farm for a couple of months when I was home from school.



I bought the truck with the intentions of throwing a pair of Rockwell axles under it, so when the carb started leaking pretty badly, it was time to tear it down.







Yes it had tractor tires on the back. They were cheap, fit the wheels that came with the truck, and made it so the truck didn't get stuck in wet grass. I never left the farm with them on as the truck never had insurance put on it.

My grandpa passed away 2 years ago, so once the thrill of crawling around in the dirt wore off, I cleaned out his truck shelter and drug the truck over there so I could work on concrete.









Once I got set up with the concrete, I pulled all of the stock suspension off and sliced the rockers off in preparation for the sliders. There was a lot of rot in the rockers, so I had to make some pretty substantial cuts, and will probably just cut the entire floor out.









This is what was in the rockers, and that is indeed a baby rattle and plastic spoon.



I've been prowling for parts on craigslist and various forums since I got the truck, and so far I have amassed almost all of the "major" parts I need except for a set of axles.

The engine is an 8.1L from a '04 2500HD



Transmission is a 2WD SM465



I've managed to collect 4 different transfercases so far; 2 Ford 205's for the 32 spline front outputs (one will be sold), a GM 203, and a Ford Divorced 203 rangebox.







I'm not sure if I'm going to set the rockwells up for driver or passenger drop, hence the plethora of New Process parts.

Some H1 wheels (generic picture).



88-91 hydraulic bellhousing



This is pretty much where I am now. I need to buy a sheet of 3/16th steel so I can get the sliders mounted up, and then buy patch panels to bring the cab back down to the 2 x 6 tube.

 

Awesome build, this is gonna be a good one! Where are you planning on sourcing the rocks? What are your plans for tires? You gonna dovetail it front & rear like everyone seems to do to these trucks or are you gonna try to keep the body straight? You gathered up some good goodies there!

 

Thanks!

I'll either buy just a set of axles, or if I can find an entire deuce for cheap enough, I will just buy an entire truck, pull the axles, and scrap/sell the rest. As for tires, the current plan is to run 44" Boggers, but I would buy some 47" LTB's if I came across a good deal. I live on the coastal plain of Georgia, so mud and trails are pretty much all that there is. I'm hoping to keep the body looking somewhat stockish, aside from enlarging the fender wells since I don't plan on lifting the truck very much.

The sliders are set up to be the door sills also, so I had to cut the bottom ~1" off of the doors and weld them back together.

 

This has me intrigued. I think you'll still need at least 8" lift with heavy cutting on the fenders. It will be interesting to see one on rocks that the lift isn't measured in feet! I've seen a lot of people working more on limiting up travel and concentrating more on droop/lowered CoG. Oh and hey, you can get IROKs in 49" and Boggers in 54" now...just thought I'd throw that out there for ya lol. Were you gonna run the 203 as a stacker or what? You'll need some pretty low gears of you don't.

 

It will probably be somewhere around 8" of lift, but I wont know for sure until I get an axle to throw under there to check for clearances. I'll be running either a Ford 203 / GM 205 or GM 203 / Ford 205 depending on how I set the axles up. The divorced input from the Ford rangebox will swap into the GM case. The Rockwells have 6.72 gears in them, which means that 60 MPH will need ~3100 RPM, so I'll actually be geared a little too deep in my opinion, but Ouverson Eng. is the only company that offers alternate ratios for the rockwell and they are $1000 per gear set. If I find a used AA Ranger Torque Splitter I'm going to put it on to lower the RPMs to ~2250 at 60 MPH. (I doubt the truck will spend very much time going that fast though.)

 

About time you posted

I like this

 

Thanks.

Haha, when I say leaking, I mean more fuel was coming out of the carburateur than was going in it.

 

That happened to me once!

Engine bay erupted in flames!

 

Welcome to the site buddy, great build here, thanks for sharing.

 

Looks like it's gonna be a beast man! Keep the pics coming & the work going!

 

Passenger side front slider/body mount is bolted to the frame.





The bottom will be plated and drilled/tapped for bolts to hold on the passenger side skid plate. I need to finish the other 2 and then weld the slider to them, then weld the body to the slider, which will be a chore.

 

My understanding is that the 88-91's had the slave on the passenger side like the 88-98's, but I'm not %100 sure on that. Maybe someone with more info could shed some light on it.