The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Completed Journals 1957 Chevy 3100 - Chop Top project "Death Trap"

I have sort of inherited a project, my Brother in Law purchased a 57' 3100 with a 4" Chop on the roof , well I guess I get to do all the repairs. So some background on the truck. He found it on line and bought it after just a short test drive, I had asked him to wait a day so I could be there to help look it over that didn't happen. I am in no way claiming to be the resident expert on Task Force Trucks but I do know what is safe and is not.

The "Good, the Bad and the Ugly" are all represented in this build.

The Good:

• The paint is a pearl white, not to bad from even close up. The engine is a worn, smogged out 350 with a Holley, mild cam and an HEI distributor

The Bad:

• The chassis is a mess of welded up parts, an early Camaro sub frame from a gen 3 or 4 Corvette rear

The Ugly:

• Just opening the hood would have told me I didn't want this truck. The HEI is so tight against the fire wall that the cap was cracked. The carb was leaking, the wiring is a rats nest and the pulleys don't line up. All that before I looked under the frame. The front springs have 4 or 5 twist locks at raise them up, the brake lines are only mounted at the calipers and master cylinder. The transmission cross member is a piece of steel water pipe, the fuel line is several different pieces and not mounted either. The rear trailing arms have flat washers stacked to use as bushings, the rear leaf spring contacts the passenger side rear wheel. The bed is not even setting on the mounts. All of this can be seen just by looking under the truck, not even on the lift yet.

While I'm one of the first people to say I don't mind a Hot Rod truck I do at least what them to be safe. So as I expected he had already laid his money down (I don't want to say how much, just that it was north of 20K) the guy who sold it to him said "It's yours now so have fun".

I was elected to drive it home. The first thing I noticed is it had no brakes, NONE... filling the master cylinder helped.. a little. The worst is that when you hit a bump it changed lanes, not drifted but honestly changed lanes. It had a nasty vibration, anything even close to 40 MPH would rattle your teeth. We made it the 40 miles to his house just before it rained, good thing to because it has no wipers. There are many issues with the fit of the doors and windows as the chop was done by someone who had no idea of what they were doing, but all that won't kill you.

So I made it to his house and survived to see another day.

A few days later the truck was taken to my house for me to work on the issues. These are a few more pictures of some of the stuff I found.

Yikes...

20 K....OUCH.

Yikes.

I could only imagine the chop if they did work like that on a frame where welding is so much easier.

Yikes.

You got your work cut out for you. Make it safe then back to your ‘59 and make sure your BIL gets his hands dirty!

Well it's kind of a barter system between him and me. Ill get something done from him down the line. The 57 just needs to be road worthy and then it's back to my truck. This is not supposed to be a complete build.
I gave him a parts lst today for stuff that is needed to get the brakes straightened out and the engine running right.

Looks like the person should have paid your brother-in-law to haul the truck off hiis property.
Harold

I really didn't want for the "Death Trap" to take away from working on my own 59' so I dove into the brake system for a start. After the truck was on the lift (man I love my lift) and I made a thorough examination, most of the lines are decent, the master cylinder is junk, the brake hoses are dry rotted and the brake light switch leaks. I pulled the master cylinder off and found more issues (surprise) the pedal assembly was just barely making contact. I proceeded to remove the pedal assembly and have a look.

On the drive home I had thought the distance between the gas and brake pedal was not nearly enough and the pedal was too high from the floor. I had thought to move the brake pedal over a bit while having the assembly out. I torn the assembly down and cut the arm bushing down by 1/2 inch and replaced the bolt and bushings for a tighter fit. This moved the pedal over but still not quite enough, it did however take a lot of the slop and movement out of the pedal arm. I mocked up a vacuum booster I had let from the 59' and made a pattern to drill the mounting holes in the firewall, I will add a backing plate to the inside as there was nothing to support the assembly before. I have a duel master cylinder, again left from the 59', that I will add once it's all bolted together. I will need to add a link to the pedal arm to give me some more room to adjust the travel, it's a little to close to the firewall.

I made a parts list for my BIL , a 4 wheel disc proportioning valve, a couple of 2 Lbs residual pressure valves (overkill maybe but it will give a firmer pedal), new brake hoses and a dozen brake line clamps. Once all the parts come in I can work on the reset of the brakes.

I finally got the booster and master cylinder mounted. I fabbed up a backing plate inside the firewall to add some more strength to the mount. The proportioning valve is from Summit, it is set up for 4 wheel disc

I still need to address the lines and add the new hoses and mounting clips. A couple more pics for now.

Craig, what size is that booster? Looks like a double diaphragm unit, what diameter. My road trip convinced me that I need a bigger booster. I will be interested in learning how it works out for you.

Mark

Mark, the booster is for a 1980's Corvette, it was a left over from my brake system on the 59'. I decided to use a hydrobooster on the 59' as my cam doesn't produce enough vacuum. The vacuum booster was a pretty easy install, I made a template to avoid cutting the firewall any more than it had been already. As I said I added a backing plate inside the firewall to add more strength to the area.

These are a couple of boosters I was considering on using, both are small enough to not overcrowd the engine compartment.

Speedway 7” Booster

Speedway 8” Booster

I finally did some research of the front frame clip and the Corvette rear suspension. I near as I can place it the front subframe is a 2nd generation Camaro, 70-72, the upper control arms and ball joints cross over to those years along with the disc brakes. The Corvette rear is from and 80-82, the aluminum cross member and leaf spring mount fit that era Vett, the trailing arms and bushings are unique to this set up.

Knowing what I have to start with helps a great deal, it doesn't help with how it was installed. I am finished running the front brake lines and am working on the rear. For safety sake I am replacing all the hoses and brake lines as I go, most of the hoses were too dry rotted to consider reusing anyway. At least once I'm done I know it will stop.

I have replaced the HEI with a RTR (ready to run) distributor from Summit along with plugs and wires. I had it running but just couldn't get the timing anywhere close to where it should be. To get it to start and run the timing at the crank showed 35 degrees advanced, I have since opted to replace the timing chain. I will also be adding a Holley Sniper EFI as my BIL is insisting on going away from the carb. This will be my first venture into the stand alone EFI so it will no doubt come with a learning curve.

I finished the running the brake lines. I mounted the rear line over the differential rather than under like it was when we got it. All the lines have been secured with retainers and have residual pressure valves front and rear. I still need to mont the pedal assembly and bleed the system.

I have this week off and decided to tackle some of the problems on the Death Trap. I mounted the transmission crossmember and changed the motor mounts. I used a 2 inch drop crossmember from CPP, to get the correct u-joint angle I had to add a couple of shims. The engine angle wound up being 7 degrees, I was trying to get it closer to 4 or 5 but was limited by the drop in the front clip. The driveshaft is centered and both transmission and rear differential are at the same angle.

Wow! Your BIL is lucky to have you around! Big difference and it looks professional!

PS. I see your getting good use of that lift!

It would be better use if it had my truck on it.

I have been trying to devote a few minutes each evening to getting something on this project. I finished bending up the transmission cooler lines and getting them installed. A lot of that was time consuming as I would need to work around the Camaro front clip and the 57's radiator core support. Either way that is completed.

I have also been working out the fuel lines for the EFI. The system requires a feed and return line, the return is supposed to connect back to the tank. The tank is a Mustang type with the sending unit mounted in the lower portion of the front, there is no provision for a return line. Holley recommends mounting the return in the top of the tank with a tube running to the bottom. There is no hole large enough to get a wrench through let alone my hand.

the work around I came up with is to feed the return line back to the feed line. I used a tee fitting installed just prior to the first filter and before the fuel pump. I routed the return line along the feed line to the front inside the passenger side frame rail. From there the fuel lines must transition the the back of the firewall and up to the throttle body. I haven't worked out the transition as yet, it must cross over the transmission bellhousing and up from there.

Most of this is trial and error, bend and fit, so it has taken some time to get this far. had this been my project solely I would have managed all of this prior to mounting the cab and bed.

I have finally finished the Sniper EFI conversion. The kit from Holley is complete with everything you will need to install the EFI and wire and program the system. I had to fight all of the s#@t work the had been done to the truck from PO's, you can tell that this truck has changed hand more than a few times, nothing seems to be consistent.

I had clearance problems from the start, the fuel lines had to routed around the corvette rear, the exhaust and transmission. Running the feed and return line up the back of the firewall was a bear, it was tight and the firewall had been hacked up previously. The throttle body simply bolts in place as would a 4 barrel, is is prewired with a TPS, IAC, MAS and temp sensor. Adding the O2 sensor to the exhaust was painless as Holley supplies a threaded plate, gasket and band clamps. I had to resort to using hose clamps as the supplied bands were to large for the exhaust tubes. I added a Lokar bracket and throttle cable kit designed to work with the Sniper EFI, that was money well spent.

The problem again wasn't the EFI but the truck, the area behind the EFI is crammed with vacuum lines and wiring. Adding the EFI wiring to this just compounded the mess. Once I had everything in place it was easy to program up, select a few options on the display and you're ready to run. The one complaint I have with the Holley system is the fuel pump, it's LOUD, I MEAN LOUD. It's mounted at the rear of the truck (the tank is under the bed) on isolators and you can still hear it over the engine and exhaust.

So you want to know "Would you use the setup again"? Well "NO", not without some prior planning that didn't happen on this build. Adding this type of system requires clearance and proper layout. As for the truck it fired right up , adjust the idle screw to match the setting you programmed into the display and you are done, the EFI does all the rest. It's responsive and runs great at any speed, of course take into consideration all of the other things I have fixed of the engine.

Nice work Craig. Your BIL is extremely lucky to have you arround!

On one of my race cars with EFI and a fuel cell we used a low pressure pump to a fuel filter canister, pumped high pressure out and ran the return back to that canister, something like a Canton with a alum housing and drop in filter

My BIL is complaining that I take to long on these projects. I told him if he would buy a piece of "Sh%t" every time it wouldn't be that involved. He has threatened to hang a sign on my shop "Sloth Garage". I wonder if he would like flames on his 57'

Hand him a itemized bill!

SHE"S BACK.... well Death Trap has developed two problems. First the it starts and runs great but after 5 or 10 miles it staggers and falls flat, the fuel pump growls as if it's starving for fuel. Eventually it dies and doesn't seem to prime enough fuel to start. The second is the brakes, they stop but not what you would expect from something with 4 wheel discs and a vacuum booster.

The first problem needs the most attention. I followed the Holley instructions but had to modify the fuel pump mounting as it needs to be located below the level of the fuel tank. On this project that just wasn't going to happen as the fuel tank is the at the lowest point. I mounted the fuel pump as low and as close to the tank as possible, it would seem that this is just not close or low enough to allow for constant flow to the pump. I scratched my head a little and decided to add a small lift pump to supply fuel from the tank to the EFI pump. This did take care of the fuel supply issue but didn't help the staggering or dying.

I originally ran the fuel return line back to the fuel supply line prior to and fuel pump, my thinking was that if it returned before the pump it would be much the same as returning to the tank. My thinking was wrong! I tested the connection by running the return line to a gas can to see if it may any difference , it did. The return line carries around 3 gallons of fuel back to the tank in just 5 minutes of run time at engine idle. Knowing this makes the decision to not run the return line to the tank stick out as the DUMB move for the day.

The problem was and is that this style tank has no provisions for adding a return line. The tank is a stock Mustang design with the pickup tube and sending unit mounted low in the front with only a 2.5-3 in hole for access, the only other opening is for the fuel filler neck. The solution I came up with is to run the return line into the filler neck. I drilled the hole for the bung style fitting and attached it inside the filler neck. I will run the return line to this point and add a vent line as well.

I still need to bend up the return line and and remount the tank, I'm pretty confident the this setup will resolve the fuel problem. I'll post more pics as I finish up the tank. As for the brakes, well I have ordered a Power Brake bleeder from Jeg's ( I read a few threads about it in the Drivetrain forum) and play with the brake booster rod adjustment.

Working on these old truck can be quite humbling at times, they just show us we are not as smart as we think we are. Thanks for following.

TuT, I'm not saying a word. Progress is progress, most of the time!!!

I spent this evening sorting out my fuel pump issue. I had dropped the tank the other day and ran the return line into the filler neck, I also run a vent line I to the filler neck hose. I eventually ran a new return line, routing it along the frame rail.

I primed the systems and had no leaks, I ran it for 20 or 30 minutes with no sign of my problem from before. I took it to our county line and back a out 25 miles, so I'll call this problem done.

While I was working under the rear I cleaned up some of the wiring to the taillights. When I dropped the tank a rats nest of wire and household wire nuts fell out, something else to fix.

So as most of you may have figured out by now this project just can to a screeching halt. My BIL has a history of get DEEP into a project and then letting it go, this was no exception. I spent endless hours trying to make this project safe and streetable only to have a Rollback show up and haul it away. I did contact the new owner and updated him on all the issues I had encountered, along with all the modifications I had done. His plans were to swap the chassis out and update the drivetrain, he was leaning towards an LS.

Death Trap was replaced with a '68 Mustang, so go figure. I drew the line at that, he will need to look elsewhere for someone to complete that project.