The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 59 gmc slammin

I have a 59 gmc long bed 100 and i want to lower it in the most traditional way posible but as extrem as posible 8+. Does any one have any good resources, or suggestions

Go find a rice rocket and mess it up! Sell the GMC to somebody who respects old iron and won't screw around with it!
Jerry

"Go find a rice rocket and mess it up! Sell the GMC to somebody who respects old iron and won't screw around with it!"

Respect??? Telling someone something like that certainly doesn't gain much respect on your part. It's his truck and he can do what ever he wants to with it. Light'n up! I'd rather see a 59 GMC become a hotrod than go to the crusher. Attitude's like that can ruin the hobby.

rsg2506 read his sig that should tell yah.
Hey gmckustom How much do you have to spend. Getting 8+ gets a little expensive.
You could send your axle out to Mor Drop and have them drop it 2-3 inches 510-261-1888 last # i had for them. Flip the rear to the other side of the springs in the rear. Remove a few leafs and put it on bags. That should get you 5-6 inches. Section the frame will put it really in the weeds but lots of fab work. If your not good with a welder,its going to be expensive.

I respect everybodys opinion, altho I don't always agree with it.

In this case, i'm not sure which is worse, sending your truck to the crusher, or spending money to make it look like it just rolled out of one.

At the end of the day, it's dudes truck, and he can do with it what he wants.. there are plenty of people who dig vehicles "slammed".. maybe TOO many.

Seems like everytime I see an old truck (or ANY truck for that matter) it's "slammed" and painted some sort of dayglow color, with the top chopped and deep dish rims and a 350 under the hood.

Some of us collect old trucks because we think they just look cool.. others are into old trucks not only because they look cool, but because they're timeless classics, and feel there is a certian degree of reverence and respect due them.. to chop them up or "slam them" would be akin to someone putting a dress on whatever diety you may subscribe to.

The great thing about a public forum, is that everyone can express their personal views and opinions.. and they won't always parallel your own.

Imagine how boring a place this would be if we all agreed?

"in the most traditional way possible" :confused:
prolly HRL's reacting to the fact that "slammin as extreme as possible" has no relation to any 'tradition', nor to a website dedicated to being "a place to hang out and learn stuff from the "Tribal Elders", where our common bond in this brotherhood of the skinned knuckle is our love for old iron"

imagine how boring a place this would be if all our trucks looked like rice-rocket billet-mobiles, draggin their bumpers on every little ripple in the road!

Bill

Thats exactly the reason I don't go to car shows anymore!

Row after row of hot pink nancy-fied trucks so low to the ground, they get stuck on bubble gum wrappers.

Having to look at another cool old truck with suicide doors, backwards tilting hoods, lowered to the ground, or with a chopped top makes me wanna chuck.

I wish they'd get into hot rodding old school busses and leave the old iron workhorses alone.

LOL Sorta why i have both. I do drive the rodded one a lot more. I tend to go see the craftmanship at a rod run. Cant get into the restore only shows. Not a dig on trucks. I wont go to a Vette show or anything people think you have to have ever nut an bolt correct. Good thing we dont have matching #s on these ole irons.
School busses they are doing along with fire trucks. Now thats not something i would even bother too look at.
Diff strokes diff folks.
Imagine if ever 50 1/2 ton had a 216 and was green with a side mount. Yikes LOL

"Having to look at another cool old truck with suicide doors, backwards tilting hoods, lowered to the ground, or with a chopped top makes me wanna chuck."

I feel the same way about restored antiques. All that work to recreate something a bunch of clock punchers made 50 years ago. The only difference is..they got paid for it.

350, check
chop it, check
drop it to the minimum height, check
...
...

I gotta agree with Red, he put it the best.

oh, and by the way. the other day, I was fishing, driving home, and just above a fenceline, I saw an old schoolbus? It was bare metal, not really a lot of rust. Assuming a fence is 6 ft. high, I'd say this was about 9-10 ft. tall. The rear of it looked just like an early 50's suburban, but flatter on the sides. Very interesting, I might go take a look, just cause it'd be fun to check out.

Wow, talk about a hijacked thread.
To go that far down you will need a "C" notch in the back. I think the only way you can go that low in the front is an IFS with dropped spindles or air bags. Slam it dude!

I look at the old trucks alot deeper than something "a bunch of clock punchers made 50 years ago" so I guess thats where rsg2506 and I disagree.

I look at the old trucks as a piece of history, as a symbol of pride in a long gone era, lost in todays "i want it now" disposable culture.

Park your new Escalade in a cow pasture and see how much material you have left to rod in 30 years.

These timeless classics built with the sweat and pride of our fathers and grandfathers.. this is their legacy, our own history we can touch and feel with our hands that folks are chopping up and painting hot pink.

ZZ Top is playing the county fair circuit, Chevrolet isn't making the Z-28 anymore, and the mullet hairstyle is dead as fried chicken.

Let the 80's go, man.

Fumblin46,
You make some good points. I respect that you feel old trucks are a symbol of pride and a new Escalade will "never" share the same romance of an old truck but lowering vehicles and chopping tops goes much farther back than the 80's! People have been hot rodding and chopping tops since the 40's and I'm doing the same thing in 2005. Just as someone maybe preserving a truck a bunch of clock punchers made, I'm preserving the skill and techniques that have been handed down for many generations. Hopefully, I can pass it on to my own son someday. I like having something I think looks cool and I “really” like the challenge of building them. Personally, I could care less if anyone else likes my truck but I can’t figure out why someone would “really” care enough to tell someone to sell their truck because they don’t like what he is doing with it. Perhaps they should sell their truck and follow ZZ Top on the country fair circuit and “LET IT GO”.

-Rich

He he he This is allways fun. But in the end us restorer guys are just savin old trucks so our grand kids can rod them later LOL
In the end its yours so you do as you please.
Rich the guy down the street has a nice 55 1st chevy he rodded in 56 with a 265 so it has been going on a long time. He loves it and it is part of our towns history.
It would be a bad deal if that truck would to be brought back. Lots of smiles when it comes through town. And some tall stories to go with those stories.

DJ,
The restore vs hotrod thing has been going on for years. It's a fun debate that can't be won. Like Fumblin46 said "Imagine how boring a place this would be if we all agreed?"
He's 100% right on that one..(even if he is a restorer guy) LOL

-Rich

By the way...gmccustom..I think you posted the question twice on the forum. I answered it on the other thread. I don't want to you to think I totally hijacked your thread.

If he has to ask how to do it then he probably has no clue as what would be a safe way to do the mod. His profile says he is a hot rod fabricator but that remains to be seen.

My $0.02 would be to fix everything else on the truck to make it safe and reliable then you should have enough experience and knowledge to know what to do next.

Hotrod is correct to be steamed. It is threads like this that has doomed the Hotrodders site to dreamers and schemers.

and the babytrkr looks over my shoulder as I scroll thru this, and says "hahaha, you old farts get pretty rambunctious when ya can't get out and drive yer trucks!"

and she knows what it's all about - drivin an old truck! if somebody wants to make one 'cooler' than original, let'em fly at it, and when he's drivin it you can say 'geez, why'd he do that!?', but just remember, many wind up sellin a never finished dream cheap, so there'll always be a good supply of parts for the rest of us!

Bill

Back in the "old days" the trucks we now call "vintage" were just old trucks to be had cheap. In the late 50's and early 60's that '51 3100 was just a 10 or 15 year old beater truck.. and that '39 Chevy coupe was just something sitting behind Warshils Gas Station that he'd let you have if you swept his parking lot every evening after school for a month.

I can appreciate a persons need to tinker, to take something and make it new, to take an exsisting vehicle and make it all your own.

In my younger (and less sane) days, i've been known to stuff 350's in Chevettes, even put a 350 in a Fiaro! (boy that thing would SCOOT!)

I've chopped up a Fjord rear end to sit under the back of an s-10 so the bed didnt have to get tubbed out when the Mickey Tompsons got bolted on, and i've felt the front end rise when you put the hammer down on that fresh rebuilt 454 cramed under the hood of that same s-10.

I'm also guilty of ripping out more than one of those crappy 260 V8's out of '79 Olds Cutlasses and replacing them with (gasp) 350R's yanked out of 60's 4 doors (punched, balanced, bluprinted, before going in their new homes, of course!)

Indeed history will look back on my wanton butchering of what one day may become "classics" with a furrowed brow, much the same way as I morn the lost classics of yesteryear today.

For every "traditionalist" who scours the internet for NOS parts to make their '46 original, there are a dozen others waiting in the wings, torch in hand, images of chopped tops and blown V8's dancing in their minds.

Looking across a sea of "rodded" trucks at the local cruse in, i've come to appreciate more and more the simple elegance and majestic beauty that is my old primered '50.. amidst the chopped tops, ill-fitted glass, and bucket seat "improvements", beyond the roar of straight pipes and V8's, I hear the soft rattle of the Inline 6 babbits that have gone before, and I am saddened.

To hell with the whales and baby seals.. SAVE THE OLD IRON!!

Here's my take on this:

1) How many times have you looked at an old original truck, and saw the original 235? A LOT! How often did you think "Gee, I wouldn't buy that unless a guy put a 350 in it?" Not often, I'll bet. The quirks that these trucks have from the factory are part of the charm of the truck. Most agree that there is SOME value in "originality."

2) Now how many times have you seen a truck (or car) that someone rodded -- usually on eBay -- and thought "Now why in hell did he do the grill that way?" "What the heck was he thinking about when he did that to the doors?" That's the major downside of rodding, I think. Eventually these vehicles get sold, and they get sold for about nothing because people don't agree on what they SHOULD have done.

Ten years ago, when I first got my current truck, I mailed (neither of us had email at the time) Bob Adler ( Adler\'s Antique Autos ) . Now Bob has forgotten more about the AD trucks then most of us will ever know. I had asked about dropping in a 350/350 combo and Bob said,

"I have found that most people want to modify their trucks because they think the original system was inferior. I've been a student of Chev. Advance Design trucks for 25 years, and the more I learn about these early trucks, the more elegant they become. You are but a brief custodian of a more permanent industrial artifact. Consider your stewardship carefully; do nothing irreversible. Leave something for the next generation."

I love AD trucks and everything old and Chevy, including Fomoco street rods with Chevy power, but, if it's mine, I'll put a Toyota roof on it if that's what I want to do to MY truck. Purist need not come to my shop, and I'm a craftsman not a butcher.

When I first read this topic before anybody replied I said to myself "boy, this is gonna get off topic" ...It's your truck you do what you want. I like what Jeff said about don't do anything to irreversable. Also what DJ said, "us original guys are just saving them so our grandkids can rod them later". True true. You have to go all the way or not at all, you lose to much money by not finishing you dreams. Do what you want. To lower it 8 inches or so, $ and lotsa time.

Thats beautiful, man.

Yea I like it to

Hey i have both but dont give rats butt about purists. I do it because i can. Would have no problem rodding a perfect original 48 and have.They are not rare or scarce yet so keep building em the way you want. As far as price you will never recover on a resto but most rodded stuff is bringing big money at this time.
I also have a real problem with a restoration thats being tossed at me as original when all the floors and cab corners are replaced. Most of the glass.The rear end gears replaced so you can drive. New oak bed floor.Base coat clear coat paint a lot nicer than the original ever was. Guess what your a rodder you did the same mods to your truck,just you did it in the name of purist. Its still a rebuilt truck just using diff parts. Think about it LOL Hey this site has about 150 active members so thats a lot of trucks running around.
As far as the next generation,old farts like us are scaring them away with comments like sell your truck and buy a rice burner LOL This is allways good fun when i can bring both my trucks to a show and play one against the other than tell the guy i own both LOL

Cool truck! 54?

Seems like every time I see a classic truck at a show, it's lowered, with big ole ghetto-fabulous rims on it, with the door handles "shaved".

In fact, i'd say 8 out of every 10 AD trucks i've seen in "real life" are of the "slammed & shaved" variety.

It's almost like they do this to these trucks totally automatic.. like the humane society nutering pets as soon as they come in the door.

As I walk down the rows of trucks at a show..

Slam & Shave
Slam & Shave.. chop
Slam & Shave
Slam & Shave
Slam & Shave.. chop

So it seems to me that if you didnt want to drive the same thing "everybody else is driving" you'd leave them stock.

If you absolutely MUST butcher a classic truck, at least do something different. The ole "slam and shave" routine is just about as old as the truck is.

That's a really nice look'n truck! Do you know if he used the correct color oil filter???? LOL

By the way..

..how the hell do you open the doors if you "shave" the door handles off?

The ole "Dukes Of Hazzard" routine?

Custom jobs are like art,you can look at them for a long time to check out the features.But after awhile,they all look the same to me.Remember the custom cars in the 50's some pretty wild stuff.Today,almost all of then look very bizarre and dated.Will the current custom trends look that way in 20 years?
Squeaky clean restored trucks don't get my interest either,I like middle ground,maybe lowered a litte,some dirt,a few dings,wear marks on the finish from the tail gate chains,wider rims with no hubcaps,tach hose clamped to the steering column,that kind of thing.

Fumblin46,
If your so dead set against hotrods and the so called "butchering"..why do you go to car shows where 8 out 10 AD trucks are "slammed" and "shaved"?
If I don't like something, I tend to avoid it. I'm sure they have shows for just restored vehicles. Or do you secretly want something that's cool??????

No, a buddy of mine had a 94 Silverado w/shaved doors. You leave the window down & open it from the inside handle because the remote electric solenoids quit working about 3 months after installation. His truck also had a string hanging down on pass side for emer opening. Or you can put buttons on the back of the cab like one truck I saw, then when you go thru driveways & the frame flexes the bed would pop the door buttons! That truck also had the tampon string out the pass door. Cool!!!! Brian

I only go to truck shows now when I get an upset stomach, and could use a good puke.

Actually, I quit going to car shows for just that reason. Seeing the same vehicle over and over and over again gets mighty stale.

I probably wouldn't be so turned off by it if it weren't that it seems like everybody is doing it.

Chip Foose was mentioned earlier in a post, and let me say, that dude is a true artist when it comes to his mods and rods, he's not content to simply slam and shave and call it cool.

So while I may disagree with the butchering of old iron, at least that guy breaks some new ground and does something new and fresh with it.. I can respect that, and yes.. from time to time, even admire it (altho I wouldn't ever do that to my bolts)

I'd like to see the rod community move up the line a bit.. to lay off the AD's and start taking the blow torch to the 60's and 70's trucks.

I think that we are all [censored] in the wind with this discussion. Every person has his or her own tastes and it is not respectful to degrade them because of their tastes are different from yours. Perhaps we can constructively show alternatives to their ideas. I would be close minded somebody else's idea if they flamed me before they showed me their idea.

As far as my truck is concerned, it was all stock when I bought it. It had 3 dead coyotes laying around and under it. Apparently they didn't like the stock look either. Or maybe they died trying to defend their tastes in trucks?

Phil

Good call, Phil.

These types of discussions have always gone on and have NEVER changed anyone's mind.

Just keep it civilized and fun and let's not get personal.

I like driving my Truck. If Joe Schmoe lowers his, or jacks it up a good 6 feet, good on 'em; I bet he likes driving it too, no matter what you or I think.

I agree, lots of $$$ and lots of time for 8", up or down.

on the rear you can use lowering blocks because the rear is inside the springs on the front to lower it a little remove some spring but the best way is to remove the axel send it in for defferent spindles

Slammed...
Jacked...
Shaved...
Chromed up...
Shiny...
Dull...
235-6...
350 SBC...
Scratched...
Dented...
Even Wrecked...

They are our "Bolts" and we LOVE 'EM...

Why can't we all just get along?

Now for my reply...

It ain't gonna be easy, cheap, or conventional But if its what you want

SLAM IT

TooMany2count....Sweet and very cool. I'm getting ready to go to my club meeting in the prostreet, slammed, fat tired Chevy II and your picture put a smile on my face. Very cool.

I like a custom truck...but stock trucks get points too. As it was stated..its your truck do what you like. My truck, my 64, Its got dings, dents, bondo, metal, rust, paint, primer, mud, sand, dead bugs and tons of other stuff on it! And I love it! People drive by me and look down on me. Other people drive by me and give me thumbs up. I love it. Not everybody will like your truck, some will...most importantly it matters that you like it. hehe this is way off topic....toomany2count, that truck looks great...I love trucks that are in the stages...not perfect, not finished. my 2 cents.
AC