'52 Suburban swamp to sweet!

[bigdog9191999]

alright here is a quickie build thread of a buddies truck. I helped my dad fish this thing out of the woods/swamp and bring it to his house a few miles away. a family friend owns a wrecker service that both me and my father drive for on occasion, so after a failed attempt to drag it out with dads 300 international we borrowed the wrecker to drag it on/off the trailer.

denny the guy building the truck has had lots of race car experience and does some body work and other fab things. he confessed later on that once we got it to his place and he literally flipped a coin on if he was gonna fix or scrap. and you can tell what came. so here we go!!



here it is back in the trees. we brought the tractor and cut the path to get to it.

stripped down and got much of the body off... the chassis to the left is what it would eventually end up on , it is a 85ish 2wd chevy pickup the length had to be modified to match the wheelbase

 

[bigdog9191999]

this is the original frame still, but you can see how much body just isn't there.

sitting roughly on the new chassis

from inside on the new chassis

a 427 truck motor that was going to be the power plant for it.

 

[bigdog9191999]

the floor from the box of my dads former 87 4x4 that will eventually be the floor in the back

some other spare sheet metal

getting some new parts on the old chassis.

and the powerplant that will eventually end up in there, is something that came with a 3rd gen trans am deal he also did.

 

[bigdog9191999]

just more bodywork and progress. although slow

 

[bigdog9191999]

 

[bigdog9191999]

 

[bigdog9191999]

and this is where it is currently .

 

[OR VietVet]

Very nice indeed and decent progress, life goes on ya know. I could not see the horned hood ornament in any of the "in the trees" pics, so I assuming it was inside or a spare laying around the shop. I can see the mount holes in the later pics but cannot make them out in the early pics. It would have been nice to put an LS motor in this thing but still fun with the other. What trans will he do and rear diff?

 

[bigdog9191999]

i know i have some more pics from the build, just not easy finding them on my phone. but i will just post them randomly as i find some.

 

[bigdog9191999]

Very nice indeed and decent progress, life goes on ya know. I could not see the horned hood ornament in any of the "in the trees" pics, so I assuming it was inside or a spare laying around the shop. I can see the mount holes in the later pics but cannot make them out in the early pics. It would have been nice to put an LS motor in this thing but still fun with the other. What trans will he do and rear diff?

i think the hood ornament is something he had there and maybe even just glued on for the fun of it. he didnt want all the electronics just a nice and simple. currently has a th400 and a 12bolt chevy rear with about a 3.40 gear if i remember.

 

[OR VietVet]

More meat on that pinion will help with that gear and engine combo. Hard to beat the old TH400 trans.

When I lived in KC, Mo. I had a few Harley buddies that were waiting on me at our favorite bar that one of them owned, "Outlaw Inn". We did not have wet t-shirt nights but did have table dance competitions. Ahhhh, good times!

Anyway, they were waiting on me and I got to within about a mile of the bar and was at a stop light. All of a sudden I hear tires squeal and get slammed in the back of the bike. I was first in line at the stop so my bike went forward and then fell over. The whole rear caved in. I was hit so hard that the goggles I was wearing, bar in Kansas and at that time no helmet law, flew backwards off my head and actually landed on the ground behind the lady's car. Her excuse was she dropped her cig and was searching the floor when she hit me. I was knocked off the bike of course and hit ******* the asphalt. Head was fine, 3 ribs broke and my right collar bone and a couple scrapes. They wanted to load me in the ambulance and take off and I said that I was not leaving till my buddies came and got my bike. I had already called them thru the emergency vehicles there. About 20 minutes later the funniest thing I ever saw from the sidelines like that was the same body style Suburban in this thread, not sure of the year, came rolling down from the way I was headed and they saw the bike and did a wide sweep to the right and then a hard turn left to complete a U-turn and then back up to the bike on the ground. I swear, just like Keystone Cops, the back doors swung open and while the engine was still running and the driver in the seat, 5 guys popped out the back doors, loaded the bike and tied it down and checked to see if I was ok and away they went to unload at the driver's home. Two of the cops came up to me and were laughing and said they had never ever seen anything like that before.

Then I was off to the hospital in the ambulance. Got there and I had an OH SHIT! moment as I remembered that I was supposed to be out that night with my girlfriend. I made up an excuse to her to get out of it so I could meet my buds. She then decided to take her shift that she had swapped to someone else as a nurse at, you guessed it, the same hospital. She always worked the emergency room. I was brought in and she took care of me and I got the EVIL EYE for about an hour because I could not even lie to her again because the cops ratted me out. I was fixed up and on drugs and she gave me her keys and said to drive to her home and wait for her to get home. I said, YES DEAR, RIGHT AWAY DEAR, ANYTHING YOU SAY DEAR! She was not mad when she got home and nursed me back to health. We talked about the totaled bike and she said that she would go with me to pick out the new insurance bike and then the hammer came down. She said in no uncertain terms that the new bike would have a padded ***** bar, no matter what I thought about the way they made the bike look. See above capitalized statement.

I saw this truck in this thread and man the memories came flooding back. Denise, the only blond girlfriend I ever had. My favorite t-shirt she wore said, "Let Go Of My Ears, I Know What I Am Doing". Yes, she sure did.

 

[bigdog9191999]

thats one heck of a story, and being a fellow rider that is one thing i am always leary of, is that fool that just dont watch and runs you over.

 

[bigdog9191999]

Some more random pics of the build in basic order. I just couldn't find them when I grabbed the first set.

 

[bigdog9191999]

 

[bigdog9191999]

 

[OR VietVet]

The first pic of the new set sure show the left rear door as a challenge to anyone. Did you have a source for any parts that you did not custom make?

 

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

LOVE this. Pure Hot Rodding FUN!

Nice work!

 

[bigdog9191999]

have to clarify, this is not my work! is all the older guy with glasses, that is standing in the pics he is in.

i do believe he had a door to skin or pair of doors that was at least better and used some skin off the original. but yes, most of the work was had fabbed

 

[Sparksalot]

Seriously cool.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Pretty awesome work there. I'd love to know the back story on the truck? Know anything about it? How the hell did it wind up in the swamp? Luckily it didn't collapse onto itself while you were pulling it out.