Brad, good ideas.
Tranny wise the turbo700r4 is a strong tranny when rebuilt right,
Finding a rebuilder that can do it RIGHT may be hard. No national chain
shops. B&M sells complete units built for towing but they are not cheap,
but may be as cheap as having one rebuilt.
The turbo 400 is pretty much bulletproof, but are getting rarer and no
overdrive.
I would not use a turbo 350 for a dedicated towing vehicle, no reason
too when you can put a better unit in anyway as you are starting from scratch.
My dream vehicle would be a cabover with a caddy 500 V8, turbo 400 with
a gear vendors overdrive, if I ever win the lottery.
The rear brakes are just fine they are modern type drum brakes, the only
hard part would be finding drums if yours go bad. A word to the wise:
DON'T have the drums turned, DON'T. Unless they are really rough, I mean
rough, not grooved. A grooved drum will not hurt anything, the shoes
will wear in to match the grooves. If you MUST have them turned take
them to a machine shop, not an auto parts store and stress to them to
remove as little metal as possible as they are irreplacable.
The rear differential (chunk) will fit from 3/4 and 1 tons up to 1971
(mostly). The later model trucks have much better ratios. I found one
from a 1970 pickup that has 3.90 gears, much better than the original 5.14.
the front suspension idea is good, fed-ex me your old axle ok? You'll
pay the freight right? :-)
the steering collunm can be cut off and a lower bearing put in. you can
hook it to a u-joint from the new power steering box.
stock ride height is nice, you don't have to jack it up to work on it!
Oooohhh. Dual tanks! you can pull up to the pumps on either side,
instead of just the passenger side which is different than almost EVERY
modern vehicle that I drive so I keep forgetting and pulling up to the
pumps on the wrong $^&*)! side and have to turn this LONG LONG &%$^&
around In the GAS station with NO power $@%^ steering and accidentally
back COMPLETLY over a $(*%# Toyota and ... and....Oh, OK, Sorry got a
little carried away there, but I feel much better now. Whew.
John Dorsey
Wauchula FL
http://www.strato.net/~jrdorsey
'49 3800 Chevy Panel
'52 640 GMC Firetruck
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