Rochester VICA

[boristheblade]

Hey guys, lurker posting for the first time. I'm posting on behalf of the Rochester VICA Street rod project (rvsr.org). Basically, we're a bunch of highschool guys building a '64 Ford F-100 longbed stepside. This project has already been going for four years, and we hope to have it completed this year. The project has been made possible due to many local and national sponsors, all of whom are listed on our site. Without them, this truck would not exist. Scott Gulbranson (XcYZ) came by our shop a week ago along with some local rodders to check out our truck. They were really nice about it, so I decided it might be worthy of being posted up on his board. So here it is, the sketch was originally done by Jason Rushforth, and we ran with the drawing. It's a '64 F-100 longbed stepside, chopped 3 inches, mustang II IFS, billet specialties 18's up front and 20's in back, 4 bolt main 350 with an Edelbrock package, nitrous, and soon to come water injection system. We are hoping to have it driveable by April 1st, but we are once again rethinking some things, and making things better all around. Well, heres a pic that I have right now, I'll hopefully get more tonight as we will be trying to fit the bed together tonight. Ford's tolerances sucked back in '64.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/Picture039Small.jpg

[907rs]

Welcome to Lateral-g! Hang around for a while and you'll like it even more.

Scott was telling me about that project, looks killer! :thumbsup:

[AAW]

Hey!! Welcome. I heard all about your project from Scott too. It sounds awesome! I look forward to following this project along on this site.
Please keep us posted on the progress. :thumbsup:

[XcYZ]

Welcome to the site.

The truck looked nice, I think it's really cool what you guys are doing. I wish I had that opportunity when I was at that age.

On a side note, I'm still waiting to hear back from my contact at Best Buy on the audio equipment... but I have a few more options to try, so we might still be able to get some audio equipment donated.

It's a cool truck, I love the color combo. :thumbsup:

[boristheblade]

Well, noone said things would be easy. Trevor and I have been working on the truck for the past two weeks a solid 4 to 8 hours per day, five days a week for the last two weeks on the bed. Several problems that we have been working out. When we got the truck, the bed was dissasembled, with a wood bed kit. Everyone must have assumed that it would all go together, as it was never truly assembled. I had my doubts, so we set out to assemble it from to to bottom. several things came up that we did not like. Stock, the mounting tabs of the bed sides sit on top of the wood- not very nice looking. The first thing we did, was to assemble the wood alone, and welded nuts to the frame to get the whole bed square, and to align it correctly. The problem was that someone had already welded nuts on previously, without drilling down into the frame. The bolt were going down into the nuts, but would hit the frame. Most of the bolts had to be blasted off, holes drilled, and new ones welded down. Next came the sides. All of the holes on the sides were welded shut, the side was lowered 3/4" so that it would be mounted underneath of the wood, like so
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1965Small.jpg
Then we discovered that there was a nasty gap at the back
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1959Small.jpg
So a piece was made to fit in between, which was welded to the bed side. At the same time, we cleaned up the outside appearance by welding in two studs, and welding the holes shut on the outside of the bed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1957Small.jpg
Set in place, it looks like this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1963Small.jpg
And the over all, clean and organized look of the bed/tailgate section when mounted becomes
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1964Small.jpg
Thursday night, we had the whole bed assembled by 9PM, and the sides looked good. Then the horrors came. First off, the supports to make the stepside steps functional were welded on messy the first time, and too long the second time, so they will need trimming. However, we had remounted the fenders for whatever reason when we first got the truck. The fenders had been put on without the steps being in place, which now need to be remounted yet again. The side must line up with the step, which must line up with the fender, which must line up with the side. It's a vicious circle I tell you. As well, the boards did not pass quality control, as you can see there are some considerable drips and waves in the board itself. These will be stripped down and redone in the next week or so. As well, due to our side relocation, the two end board no longer fit. Their contours aren't quite right either, so new ones will be made from 2X6 oak like the rest of the bed. Our instructor, Gary Komaniecki, is currently in St Paul. A group of VICA students went to the state competition Friday to Sunday, and will be competing in events such as automotive, cabinet making, small gas engines, and opening and closing ceremonies. Wish the best of luck, and I hope to see them go on to the national competition. Thats a wrap for this week, more after we get the rear tidied up, boards restained, fenders fit, and front end in place. Later.
Russian

[XcYZ]

Well that all really bites. Good luck with all of that. :thumbsup:

[srh3trinity]

The color scheme looks great, good luck as you progress.

[boristheblade]

Spring break for highschool guys, I'm post secondary. We were there from 2 till 930 today. Here's the progress. I took the best pics I could with the limited lift, tables, and shelving in the way. Everything is on basically for mock up, and so that we don't have to move it around all the time. Some things need trimming, others a little encouragement from a BFH, but all in all we are pretty happy how it turned out, for a bunch of teenagers :rolleyes: .
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1990Small.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1989Small.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1991Small.jpg

As soon as we get the bed assembled, we will be ready to take it to Mike Kuhns shop - a local exhaust / stainless master, to have him help us put in a full exhaust in. Which leads us to the age old question: How do we finish the exhaust? The way exhaust exits a car can make or break a cars looks, and we want this thing to look top notch. It is obvious that the back end needs to go down a bit more, maybe just the rear fender. Gary mentioned that we could route it through the tailpan, but for some reason I'm not a big fan of that. I keep seeing images of two round pipes sticking out, bellow the tailpan, with a nice blue flame, maybe a foot to a foot and a half. Do any of you guys have any suggestions? Heres a pic for refrence on how the rear is going to look.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1997Small.jpg
More sometime later this week, we are really trying to get this thing driveable ASAP, and as much done for BTTF as possible. Later
Russian

[boristheblade]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1992Small.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/boristheblade437/IMG_1993Small.jpg