Well, it was pretty obvious that a COE from the 1950's wasn't designed with the idea of a big block under the cab and raising it a couple feet just wasn't the look I was going for. So, the only place I could put it was behind the cab. But the problem with that is it cut into the length of deck I could put on knowing I needed a minimum of 16 feet to be able to have a functioning car hauler. Also, I wanted to build a roll back deck instead of a ramp truck or a beaver tail. Regardless that is the only place that worked for the engine. The good news was the frame on a P-30 is parallel channels and the original mounts worked great, so I didn't have to fab anything new just shift them further back and drill and bolt them up. I used a laser to shoot center line to verify the alignment.
That done the next step was creating enough length to the frame that I could get a roll back on it. I felt needed 2/3's of the deck to be forward of the rear axle and the pivot for the roll back to be aft of that. After another conversation with our in-house engineer (good thing he's a car guy) he assured me that moving the axel back on the frame with minor reinforcement it would be structurally sound.
After drilling out all the rivets in the leaf spring mounts and the sway bars, I hooked up the crane to pick up the rear of the truck and rolled the axel back about 3 feet. And with the help of the laser again I checked the alignment and made sure everything was square. Then I drilled and bolted it back to the frame.
That complete it was time to build a mock-up of the roll back to check my math and design. It was pretty rudimentary, but it was enough to know the concept worked.
Last edited by COCOE; 10/11/20231:12 AM. Reason: to add photos
