Welcome, David! and congratulations on your new purchase...
I've recently been thinking about the safety of driving oletrucks with
stock suspension and brakes. Personally, I've put almost 200k miles on
various big-block powered oletrucks with stock drum brakes, and never
ran into anyone! One of the trucks was a 66, which has "modern" coil
spring suspension, but the others have leaf springs and straight axles.
So, I'd guess that you can safely drive an AD truck with a 350 and stock
suspension. You just have to realize that the truck will not steer,
stop, and handle like a new car....so, drive carefully, leave room in
front of you to stop, and keep your eyes open!
The only real problem with a 350 powered AD is fitting the steering and
exhaust in at the same time, usually you need to offset the engine to
the right a bit, and massage the manifold, plus move the steering box to
the left about a half inch. It will work, it's been done before, there
are many of these old trucks on the road set up this way.
You can swap in disk brakes relatively easily, using a kit from a place
like Engineered Components Inc, and then add a rearend from a Camaro or
similar car. If you are patient, you should be able to find the parts
you need for a reasonable price. If you find a junk car to buy as an
organ donor, don't be tempted to use parts that aren't quite right for
the truck...for example, if you buy a full size Chevy from the 70s for
the engine and tranny, don't try to use the rearend from it, as it's too
wide and the wrong bolt pattern. Also, think ahead about what you'll
use the truck for, if you are going to be on the highway a lot, try to
find a rearend with a gear ratio around 3.0 to 3.36 at most. If you
build an engine, you will want to be carefull about the camshaft
selection, etc. Go ahead and ask questions when the time comes, you'll
get lots of advice! :)
Jim
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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