Misc Stuff (part 2)
A couple items I'll mention, one being the under hood components could or will get moved around or repositioned during the final assembly, everything in that regard I have done so far is what I'd call a rough mock up, it doesn't mean that that is the final position everything will be in the end.
What I am trying to do with the mock up under the hood is to not only find a good location for the parts but to look at it astatically also, there are things like the windshield washer tank that I'm not happy with....will it work? of course, but it will probably get moved to another location in the end.
Doing this type of swap you have to find a place for everything, and some things like the horns that will get reused will find themselves (there are 4 of them on the RM) in a totally different location then they were on the RM simply because there isn't room on the slick in the same location ( they were mounted two per side in the inner fender well), they will find a new home in front of the radiator support or under it behind the bumper. Of course the wiring will have to be extended to reach these new locations.
The steering column is in a good position for driver reach and the angle of the steering shaft (intermediate shaft) is almost perfect to line up with the shaft going to the steering box, the column does stick out a little further under the dash which reveals a portion of the column that was covered by the RM dash, I'll have to make a trim collar to cover that area so it doesn't look out of place.
The 9 hole steering wheel and 3" adapter that was on the '62 fits the column nicely and puts the steering wheel in a good location (pretty close to where the original slick wheel was) so all of that will work out fine with a very limited amount of BS.
The wife did decide on wheel and tires, they are ordered and suppose to arrive today, if that happens then I can get them mounted on Friday and we can see what they are going to look like over the weekend. We sold her Kia this week so we are down to just the '62 and the '95 GMC pickup (and of course the Camaro, it won't see the streets again till spring), it's not really putting pressure on getting her truck done faster, but does make spending the money on wheels and tires easier to do.
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I'm a little surprised at the differences in the cab between the '62 and the '65, what I'm talking about is the amount of leg room, the '65 seems to have much more distance from the seat to the toe board giving you more area, The '65 is more comfortable for me with the stock slick seat where in the '62 I'm a much tighter fit driving..... what a difference Ford made by just lowering the floor a few inches and getting rid of the steps inside the cab.
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I'm leaning more and more towards saying that the RM is my chassis of choice (between it and the CV), I think in a lot of ways it is a easier, cheaper, better to build off of, but of course it is all in what your trying to achieve or accomplish. Just the fact that things like the steering column are reusable, that's a saved expense that is making a big difference, just the steering column alone will save between $200 -$700 (depending on what you bought) on this build, that translates into either money saved or money that can be used in other areas if you're doing this on a budget like we are.
Like I've said before the fuel tank being between the frame rails is also a plus depending on your point of view, on the CV after the body was removed the fuel tank was still mounted to the rear portion of the trunk floor but only at the top so it had to have a brace made to tie that to the frame so the tank was supported from the bottom also. Then that area of the old trunk floor can be seen from under the truck (from the rear, following the vehicle) once the bed is put on and had to be painted black to hide it. Of course all of this is change able depending on what you are willing to do all the way up to just replacing the CV fuel tank and adding a tank under the bed.
There is also very little of the CV stuff from the interior like the column that IMHO can be reused in the swap, yeah the brake pedal and gas pedal assemblies can but so can those from the RM, I've already went over the power train and I guess it again is a Ford vs Chevy thing, the 4.6L in the CV is a "mod motor" with over head cams (OHC), while the 5.7L in the RM is a standard cam in block push rod motor (OHV) that GM has made for over 50 years, both are proven very reliable. If you wanted more performance I'd have to look at it from a cost per HP ratio and I think the 5.7L would be cheaper per HP then the 4.6L but of course the RM could get a LS swap or the CV could get a Coyote swap and then it really starts to get interesting cost-wise.
For a daily driver I can get over the RM having inferior rear suspension and brakes (WATTS & rear disks) compared to the CV P71, both have trailer towing capacities very close to 2ooo pounds, both chassis are pretty well a wash both being so similar that the differences frame-wise don't even need to be mentioned because neither have advantages over the other.
If you used a civilian CV that wasn't a P71 you would have the same anti theft stuff to deal with (PATS vs VATS), CV P71's are plentiful in just about every place you live, prices are all over the map but there are still a lot of deals to be had if you look and wait.
Neither require a lot of fabrication skills to transplant the slick body on them, everything is pretty straight forward and easy neither has any real advantage over the other in that respect, although the rear frame rails on the CV are lower than the RMs in relation to the rest of the frame which does make a difference if you were building a unibody on that chassis....but for a cab and bed the RM rear frame rails I don't think will be a issue. (I'll know more on that next week after I mount the bed)
If you want a lowered stance and are using a cab from a '61 - '63 both frames will give you that look like our '62 has without any modifications to the donor suspension, but if you're using a '64 - '66 cab you can't get that stance without doing suspension mods of some sort on either chassis, those cabs without the inner step won't sit down around the frame rails as low and while they do cover the frame rails as you can see looking at the '65 front wheel openings it looks like a stock slick and will have to have the coil springs cut or drop spindles installed to lower the front end, I'm probably going to cut the coil springs on the '65 (1 coil) which should lower the front end by 2"....we'll see.
The cooling system on the CV is better laid out having the surge tank mounted above the radiator, the RMs remote surge tank is big and holds a lot of coolant, the CV had a single large electric fan while the RM is a dual fan unit, I'll have to wire the RM fans together so both run since the smaller fan was set to run with the AC on only but that is a easy task to either break out that circuit and use another temp switch to turn it on or just wire the two together if the amperage load isn't too high for the relay.
Both radiator packages mounted easy by cutting the lower support from the donor vehicle and welding it to the slicks core support, the CV P71 has a EOC (engine oil cooler) in the lower radiator hose that is heavy and does require mounting to support the weight, the RM has a double transmission cooler (one in each radiator tank) since it had a towing package but no EOC, the CV had a trans cooler and PS cooler combo unit that mounts in front of the radiator and is air cooling only. So the CV being a P71 has a much more robust cooling system, it has more areas to fail also, the CV also has VAPS which is variable rate power steering which while not a problem does add stiffness to the steering turning from a dead stop since it used inputs from the CV steering column that is no longer there.
All in all the RM is a simpler platform with less systems and wiring to deal with if you chose to use the interior wiring harness like we do, the CV has many more modules and wiring, some of it can be removed others cannot and if you start to take too much of the CV harness/circuits out it would get to the point quickly where just eliminating all of it and using a stand-alone aftermarket harness would be a better option just for the simplicity of installing the wiring.
Of course there are varying levels of the GM B body cars that the RM is part of that family, some had air ride, some had 4 wheel disk brakes, and rear sway bars, like any model there are lots of different options that a vehicle could be built with so your donor may be different along with your experiences in using it in a swap.
Again it's all in what your trying to achieve and how much you want to have invested, time-wise and money-wise, we are trying to do this at the lowest cost while making it a safe vehicle to drive that is dependable, we are not trying to restore a slick or trying to make a show truck, both of these trucks are daily drivers nothing more, nothing less. The more donor source parts we can reuse the cheaper the build becomes, we have standards and limits, we don't want it to be or look cobbled together although to a lot of purest folk I'm sure anything less than a totally restored slick would look that way but we are not trying to please anyone or offend anyone, we are just doing our own thing to the best of our abilities.
I'm still on the fence till I drive the RM and see how it handles, and rides, but like I said above I'm leaning in that direction especially if I was using a 61-63 slick to build...we'll see...lol
Jon
