Page 26 - Issue 48

Technical Stuff: mounted under a running board, but was made in their shop, from the
Panhard bar, to all the brackets,
still works fl awlessly.
There isn’t much left from the The heart of this beast is a the bag mounts, and even the
original vehicle, outside of the Cummins 6BTA – a close cousin to crossmembers. Time didn’t allow for
main part of the cab. They did the more common 6BT, but with a a running rear axle, so the tag axle
manage to hold on to all the lights, bigger turbo and different pump. will have to do for now.
mirrors, and trim in deference to It and the Allison 545 automatic Charlie’s father Elmo was the
the original owner’s love of the transmission were left as-is for wizard who designed and built
truck. The sleeper was built by hand, reliability. Future plans call for a the air ride system. The whole air
except for the cab corners. Charlie’s six-speed manual transmission, as system is stand-alone, running off
pretty creative and resourceful, the time constraints of the build-off a compressor that originally came
but even he was stumped as to made the automatic the best choice with the 6BTA. It runs Dominator
how to fabricate them. Then his at the time. bags up front, but out back is where
dad mentioned that you could just The REAL work went into the magic happens. There are four
buy them locally – they are repair the stuff you can’t see. The front Peterbilt bags incorporated into a
pieces for horse trailers and they fi t suspension is from an ‘85 GMC Peterbilt leveling system. As with
perfectly. 1-ton truck, but everything behind every other truck these guys build,
The pointy nose of the cab made that was put together from scratch. it must be able to haul loads, and
placement of certain mechanical The frame itself was built from 2” this one is no exception. So, when
components a bit tricky, but not x 6” rectangular tubing. Out back they are loading four-ton pallets, the
impossible. The charge air cooler is a Dana 70 rear hung from a truck self-levels without anybody
(lifted from a Sprinter van) is custom rear suspension. Everything having to touch a thing.

26 RAT ROD MAGAZINE ISSUE FORTY-EIGHT

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