Project: B3000 Rat rod FRONT END FINALLY FRIGGIN DONE

Howdy everyone!

I'm b3kbruiser, here from , but a member there referred me to this site, said you guys would enjoy this. I'm really, really glad to see a forum dedicated to the Mazda trucks, they are simply suberb.

Anyway, to bring you up to speed... When I was young, I saved up for years and bought a 1994 Mazda B3000 with 38,000 original miles when I was 15. I beat the hell out of it for years, and now that I'm 20, the transmission finally blew up into a thousand bits at 67,000 miles. I bought the truck in absolute mint condition, and 5 years later, the poor thing had been through 3 accidents, numerous garage "oopsies", and years of off-roading. Dents, scratches, ect everywhere... Worth maybe $450. But this little truck awas my baby, I couldn't bear to part with it. So, I decided to use it and build one of my dreams, an old school rat rod. So, I'll give you guys the highlights and then update this thread as I go.

Here is the full, original thread.

Well, here goes possibly the most interesting project of my life. My beloved, BELOVED 1994 B3000 blew the rear main seal 100 miles from home, and crawling it back home on low fluid ruined the tranny for good... The truck was worth about $500 in it's broken state, so I decided to just keep it and do something amusing with it instead, after I picked up my new truck. I've always loved rat rods, and I realized I had all the parts I needed to build a sweet rod, so I'm going for it.

I want something along the lines of this:



Motor: Ford 302, stroked out to 34-something.

Body: Chopped B3000 cab, later on, a 40's Ford 5 window truck cab.

Suspension: I'm going to use as much as the B3000's suspension as I can. It's going to be lowered as much as I can, at LEAST 4 inches. I'm going to keep the B3000's rear end and drop and tub. MAYBE BAG IT! Man that would be so cool. All comes down to budget though. I MAY try to move the whole front steering / suspension assembly to the very front of the frame, like the rod in the picture, but that's a LOT of work and I'd have to get a longer steering column, ect ect. But I WOULD like to try and do away with the power steering. The big knobby tires are going to stay, I think they'll look awesome on a lowered rod, and fit the truck theme.


So, here is the truck as it sits in my driveway...



LET THE FUN BEGIN!

End of day one... Just starting to strip down the front end.





Poor Baby...

End of day two... The entire engine is exposed and I'm going to try and eliminate systems one by one, like the A/C, EGR, ect ect











I'm actually in a good spot. I have unbelievable access to everything in the engine bay, and it still starts up and runs, so I can keep the seals wet as I work on it.


That's all for now, it's raining and icing and 22F outside

Small update today. Today is a snow day for the schools which means I don't have to work, and trust me, snow days are FEW and FAR between in Texas, so I've been taking it easy, knocking down a few cold ones and watching movies with the roomies. (They all work for the school district too). I did get a little done, and I may go out and work on it some more tonight.

Out with the old, in with the older! Or something. Took all the scrap metal from the front end to the scrapyard, made $3.55 :biggthump :biggthump




Incidentally, that's 1/4 of a 100 gallon school bus fuel tank I got from work and was using as an oil pan

Big update, which I'm really glad about, is my buddy who works for a local shop agreed to come out and drain out the freon from my A/C if I put the shop's logo on the cab's door "or something amusing" :biglaugh: Not a bad deal. Took off the A/C radiator and scrapped it, cut out the copper pipes and scrapped those. Freed up quite a bit of room. Next to go is the heater core and blower motor.



I love this pic. You can really see it almost start to look like a rat rod a little bit. I've still got a sh!t-ton of work to do though. Like this. I still have to deal with the huge mess of a wiring harness.




And here's a quick video of the garage and the project so far.

[URL=]

[/URL]

Ok, I've decide dthat I'm going to chop the cab and use it while I look for a proper tub to use. And If I like the B3000 cab, I may just use it.







Lip or no?

Well, that happened. Still need to cut out the windshield, chop the driver's door, then time to bondo and fiberglass up the gaps in the sheetmetal, paint, put the interior back together and the bucket will be done.

I'll have pics in a minute, but the cab is totally chopped down.

Also, heading out tonight to pick this beast up.

this is so pimp.

def the first time i saw this. keep us posted with the updates. this is gonna be so sick!

Ok, sorry for the low quality, I took these on an iMac. The cab is all chopped down and ready for some bondo work. I'm going to use foam pipe insulation as a mold to make a nice mold to fiberglass and bondo over all the gaps around the cab. I'm going to trim down the firewall. After that, the engine is going to finally get pulled out, and the cab is going to move back somewhere between 18 and 24 inches. That'll make plenty of room to mount a v8 and having the wheels way out front. Once the cab is moved back, I can mount the v8 and get a tranny, mount it, and I'll be able to drive it while I work on it.