I'll give you some background on what I am looking to do first:

Basicly I am making a 4 door-tandom rear axle-61 chevy truck to tow show cars with. Its going to be done in a hot rod style setup. Since I have not even seen a origional 4 door around here I have decided to make my own. I have most everything I need already other than the final engine/tranny and another set of doors.

Well I was out at a friends saw mill (he is a logger) last night picking up a ford truck hood and knowtised a Big 60-63 2 ton???? sitting in the weeds. After talking a bit he says I can have it for free and even says he will deliver it to my shop for me. The cab apears to be the same as the light duty trucks except for the firewall. Witch for me doesn't matter because I would have to push the firewall back anyway to fit the 500caddy engine I am planning on using.

Then he tells me it has a realy strong/good running engine in it. He doesn't know what it is but he drove it to that spot before they pulled the 2 speed rear end (8 years ago) and said it ran better than any of their other trucks of that vintage. It also has a 5 speed tranny behind it. I look at it (at night) and think its a SBV8 with funny valve covers. Well after looking at www.6066gmctrucks.org I am now convenced that it is one of the big V6's.

Here is a pic from the site showing a very similer truck.
[img]http://www.6066gmctrucks.org/gmc-id/60-61-hood-3500.jpg[/img]

So my first question is do you think that the cab is roughly the same dimension in the rear as a 1/2-1 ton trucks? I don't care about the fenders, short hood, or firewall area being different. But I like the very clean cab, grear doors, windshield with no cracks and extra firewall room this body has. I know that probubly the final verdict will come down to me with a tape measure but I figured I would ask and see if you all think I would be able to graft a light-truck cab on the back of this one.

The second question is what is your opinion of the big V6 engines for use in a tow rig? My origional plan was to find a 70-71 500caddy engine and build it to the 400-500 lbft of torque range (basicly just better than stock)...then add a NOS kit to boost the power when I wanted to play around. Do you think these big V6's could perform the same as the big caddy? Anyone play around with NOS on them?

Are those 5 speed trannys sincronized in the upper gears? I know the Low gear is not going to be but I would prefer the upper gears to be. I would rather use a manual for this project than the th400 that comes behind a Caddy motor...a heavy 5 speed would be great.

Thanks
ROB