The Stovebolt Site Forums Welcome! Welcome Centre Do It Yourself (DITY) Gallery 1946 Chevy 1/2-ton Shortbed .. "Not a Fast Build"

I haven't posted for a while. A month ago we had our first child. Shop time has gotten scarce all of a sudden... Nonetheless I have made a little progress. I disassembled the '59 rear axle I picked up for this project and the '46 rear axle still under the truck to see what my options were for converting the truck to open rear and Bendix brakes. Here's what I learned:

1) The axle spines and bearing sizes are the same. I could use the '59 open diff in the '46 housing with the '46 axles. This would, however, leave me with Huck brakes.

2) The brake backing plates are not the same bolt pattern. They are also not sufficiently different to leave room for an adapter plate, so swapping the '59 brakes onto the '46 housing is not gonna happen.

3) The '59 axle tubes are larger, so I can't put the '59 axle under the truck using the '46 mounts.

4) None of this matters because it turns out the gears in the '59 axle are too pitted to use, and the input bearing is frozen. At least it was cheap...

So I'm looking for a different rear axle. I want to keep the 6-lug, and I want it to be narrow enough to be close to stock track width. After scratching my head a bit I realized that my Colorado (my daily driver) is a 6-lug. A bit of measuring confirms that the track width is very close to the '46 (the 4x4 Colorado, the 2wd is 2" narrower). As an added bonus, most of them are 3.73's and they're already spring-under-axle so I think I can rework the existing mounts slightly and run them on the '46 springs. I'm on the hunt for a suitably cheap Colorado axle now.

In the mean time, here are a few of the other goodies I've been collecting for the truck:

These are the new front fenders. Both are GM steel. One is nearly NOS, the other is very very nice. It has a small rust spot at the rear where the fender meets the running board. I think I can patch it with a piece of one of the old fenders.

This is the flatbed that's going on the truck. I believe it's a factory GM flatbed from a 3/4 ton truck, late 50's or early 60's. It bolts together out of pieces of beaded channel. I need to shorten it about 18" and narrow it about a foot, but that's pretty simple since it bolts together.

That's all for now. In another month or two when I'm back to getting some sleep I'll probably have more to report.