New guy to the forum, couple a '53 B4B's

[moparmonkey]

Hey!

Thought I'd introduce myself. I've been lurking on here occasionally for awhile, but I started posting when I saw the B series truck guide's get reprinted so I figured I'd better say something.

I've got a couple of '53 B4B's. The first I kind of inherited, it was abandoned on my parent's property. I grew up playing with my friends in it, then when I turned 14-15 I dragged it out of the field and started working on it. Decent truck, except it had been there for awhile so all of the trim was gone, windows broken, etc.

I clipped it with a '66 Fury front end to get the torsion bar suspension and mounts for the 440 that will go in it, and chopped the top 4". Unfortunately I got out of high school and went off to college before I finished (big project), so that's about where it is now still.

Fast forward a decade and change, finally got things established and have a decent garage and tools to work with. Have more car projects than I know what to do with, but someone listed a '53 B4B locally so I went out to take a look. Price was right, so I picked it up. Hopefully I can cure its electrical issues and get it running as is. Something to keep me entertained until I can get all the custom work done on my other '53.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be on here with more questions, great site.

[dontknowitall]

Welcome Mate, you find the best people here on this forum!

[ggdad1951]

welcome and keep us updated on the progress!

[Bob_Koch]

Glad you've joined us. There is some electrical stuff and even blueprints for our trucks over on the DPETCA site if they'll help.

http://dodgepilothouseclub.org/know/know.htm

[Dave72dt]

Welcome aboard. Nice start on the truck. Chop looks good. How are you planning to address the short corner windows? I'm a bit envious of the rust free sheet metal. Good luck with your project and keep posting pics as you go.

Edited November 7, 2010 by Dave72dt
spelling - too many letters or not enough

[moparmonkey]

Thanks guys!

Bob- I think I have pretty much everything downloaded off of the DPETCA site, what a great resource. All the wiring diagrams look great. I may just get a Rebel-Wire harness and convert it to 12V. I just glanced at it, but there were a lot of splices and connectors. Probably not worth trying to hunt it all down.

Dave- The plan on the quarter windows is to just have a stock set cut down. The angles didn't change, just the height. I should be able to find someone to do it, I had a guy when I did the chop, but I'm not sure he's still in business (I think its been about 15 years since I started that chop )

I'll try to get pictures of the new truck up soon. I've got an engine swap to do on my '71 Dodge Dart, after that I want to bring the truck down to my garage. By then I should be ready to start welding in the boxing plates for the frame and finish the chop.

[Dave72dt]

I knew the angle didn't change but didn't know if you might be possibly filling them in and changing it to a 3-window. When I did my chop I removed a section below the windows so my windows retain the stock size. You've got a pretty good chance of finding a good glass cutter where your at. Here, finding someone who's even done a chop is unusual but I am starting to see the occassional rod, custom or classic on the road now.

[moparmonkey]

Nah, I'm leaving them.

Even if they are all of about 5" tall. I took the 4 inches straight through the middle of the rear windows. In hindsight, probably not the best for visibility. But I wanted the thing to look chopped, and even with 4" taken out the front windshield was still pretty tall. But it was also my first chop, I was all of about 15 at the time. So when I finish it up I know I'm going to be running into things I wish I had done differently.

[carls 49]

hi ya and welcome. good to have you here.

[Dave72dt]

If you hunt up some posts by "buds truck" it'll show what he did for that extra tall windshield problem. I take up a lot of space in these trucks and I want to be comfortable in it. I've got a little clearance over my head without beiong scrunched up and can see out the front fairly well. Dropping the front glass any more for me will mean leaning forward uncomfortably to see any distance in front. I didn't want mine to look chopped, more like" I know something's different but I can't quite put my finger on it" although the doors do give it away. There's enough other changes on the truck that no one will mistake it for stock.

[moparmonkey]

Thanks Dave!

Actually, I've seen Bud's truck over on the HAMB, he's got a pretty extensive build thread over there too. The crown work he did is pretty cool, although, I actually like the look of the big windshield. Just, maybe not quite as big from the factory. Although its really growing on me, my "new" truck is going to stay stock.

Looking at the pictures of your truck it seems like the chop is pretty close to the same on our trucks, based on the size of the windshield. I don't think I'd chop mine any more than it is, I've seen a couple Pilot Houses with 5-6" chops and I have to agree with you, the proportions change a lot. The bed gets to looking too long, and although that's easy enough to fix the front end is too big to chop them much more than 4" without having to do a lot of work to get things to look right.

[Dave72dt]

I dropped mine 3 5/8" to line the corner windows up with the door glass. I dropped mine way back in the early 80's and finding someone to cut that corner glass would have been extremely difficult and finding spares to replace a failed cut woud have been even harder so I took the safer route and dropped the whole window. Where the cut was made also happened to have the least amount of taper in the cab.