1957 Chevrolet 3600 Dually Short Bed Dump Truck

Complete Restoration History

The frame restoration took about 7 years.  I stripped all those years of grime and road off the old frame and body. straightened her out. painted her up and set about to repair and restore all the mechanicals. I bought and installed new front and rear leaf springs and shackle kits from Benz Spring in Oregon. Installed new king pins.brakes and bearings. Installed a hydrovac unit from a big GMC dump truck and gave it power brakes. I rebuilt the mid 70's 350 cubic inch motor with bigger valves and a mild cam and rebuilt that quadrajet carburetor to a perfect working order.  Installed a new clutch. 11 inch flywheel and high torque starter.  Installed an electroniciginition. new alternator and optima battery for trouble free operation. I rebuilt and sealed the PTO and the pump with new bearings and seals. I removed the drum parking brake behind the SM 420 trans in order to install a Gearvendors overdrive unit and then installed a line-lock so there is some sort of E brake.  It really needed taller gears for freeway driving so I replaced the 4:57 rear end gears with a top quality 4:11 from a mid 60's truck and installed taller. later model wheels in the rear that took the 17. 5 inch wheels to 19. 5.  This required having the hubs drilled on a CNC machine to accept larger and longer lugs.  I kept the 17. 5 inch wheels in front and had all 6 wheels powder coated. Installed a power steering kit from ABS in Orange. California and added an auxiliary fuel cell just inside the frame behind the cab. I kept the seat tank and installed a fuel selector switch and now have a very long range between fill ups. It cruises at freeway speeds at about 2200 rpms and with all that Dynamat sound attenuating material I installed. it's pretty quiet as well. Someone gave me a bench seat from a mid 90's truck that I had recovered.  It's way more comfortable than the old stock seat. This old truck looks great and shows well at car shows. People go nuts over it. But I wanted it to earn its keep so the last thing I did was install huge air helper springs (Air Lift Dominator Series with 5. 00 lbs of leveling capacity!)and a wireless compressor.  This is a completely custom fabrication that I made with some technical assistance from Air Lift.  Now this thing can really carry some weight.  The huge hydraulic ram dumps the bed without even straining.

In October. 2009 it won the Participant's Choice Award: best in class at the 5th annual OCVCCA all Chevy show.

Also published at eBay.com

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