Been working on tearing the front end off Joey and starting the body and frame work on him. Still have quite a ways to go, but its progress Enjoy

 

It will be a good feeling and motivator the day you put a fresh coat of paint on that first cleaned up/repaired part and mount it on the truck. Is that your dragster?

 

No one can say you are afraid of a big project! What are your plans for it?

 

AX: It will be a good feeling when I'm able to start painting can't wait. Yes, that is my dragster, I co-own it with my brother.

WillyB: Thanks for the compliment! I am planning to put the 6.9L/C6 (in the background of one of the pics) in him, as well as a DANA 70 I've got sitting on the floor in the back of the garage. The body will stay pretty much stock and I'm going to keep the solid front axle. Will probably upgrade to power brakes and steering. It is going to pull the dragster to/from races and be a daily driver.

 

My brother also has a bracket dragster similar to yours. He built a trailer that tilts for loading so you don't need ramps a mile long. My panel will be the tow vehcle for our enclosed car trailer.

 

Daniel -

You are certainly a braver man than I. Your truck looks to be very near the fine line between restorable and yard art. I am a novice welder and would be very intimidated by your truck's condition. You have some work ahead of you.

I noticed that one picture shows a weld bead right accross the seam between two rusty panels (passenger side cab floor?). I always figure that you have to clean the repair area to bare metal and weld non-corroded stuff. Do you know something I don't? If one can get a good weld that way, I'd like to know about it.

What will be the driveline? It will make a great tow vehicle for that cool dragster, tho.

 

RJ, depends on what you're welding with. For Mig you want clean metal, rust and dirt form stalagmites in the weld bead. With Tig you can weld dirty corroded metal. His truck is considered a sound starting point in the snowy climates. Y'all get spoiled out there with rust free bodies (reason I bought my panel in NM).

 

A neat project and a great gallery too. The 6.9 will be a cool upgrade.

 

AX: That's cool your brother has a dragster too, do you have any pics? Are you planning on towing the dragster in the enclosed trailer, or do you have something else you're going to put in there?

Randy: Thanks for the compliment. I'm enjoying working on this truck quite a bit. It is fun working on something that so many other people have an interest in. As far a the welding goes, AX is correct, although you can weld flux core on rusty metal as well (but flux core doesn't do sheet metal worth a darn). Actually I'm just lazy, I put a wire wheel on my grinder and cleaned only the very edge of the weld where I was welding, tho it is actually cleaner than it looks in the pictures.

FoMoKo1: Thanks for the compliment, I'm hoping the 6.9 will work out well. I don't have a lot of experience with Diesels (yet), but the milage, plus the option to run bio-diesel or vegge in my truck opens up the possibility for me to use it as a daily driver (something I really want to do). Plus, I got some pretty good deals on the 6.9 stuff and am able to build it for about what I'd spend on a gasser, so that is really nice. It would be fun to fine more info from people who have done similar things, but it doesn't seem like diesel conversions are very popular in here. Not that I mind a lot though, I kinda like being different.

 

Both my brothers drag race as I once did, but they are 1K miles away. My wife and I now race autocross nationally (she's a 2 time nat champ) so that's the race car that will be riding in our trailer. Drop me your email addy and I attach some pics of Mike's dragster and Kevin's Olds Omega.