Words: Tommy Parry
Dwayne purchased this ‘67 D-100 with his son Isaac in mind. Not only did he intend it to be Isaac’s first set of wheels, he saw it as a project they could bond over. For a period, it was – all was smooth sailing and their joint effort on the weekends was quickly turning this old truck into a stunner.
Tragically, those idyllic weekends weren’t to last. Isaac passed away last spring, and one of his last requests was to never let the truck collect dust in the corner of the garage. So, as a commemoration to his son, Dwayne set to completing the build with a level of dedication few possess.
Dwayne is fairly handy; he’s performed engine swaps, fitted performance parts and even done a bit of wiring. While he leaves the paint to the professionals, he’s quite capable. However, he’d never attempted anything on this scale.
He started the second phase of the project by lifting the cab and bed from the frame of a seconds parts truck. As Dwayne wanted to focus on refining the suspension, he decided to leave most of the major body panels off the frame until he could level the cab and determine the correct ride height.
With his talented future son-in-law, an expert metalworker, Dwayne shortened the frame, coated it in POR 15 and added a second crossmember. Next came a splice to accomodate a four-link in the rear, since he wanted the D-100 to have the kind of handling a modern sports car ought to have. Continuing on that aim, Dwayne added rigidity where he could with extra boxing, then started piecing together a suspension kit from Uncle Jimmy’s. Using mainly Mustang II parts, this cost-effective setup promised to meet his needs and not break the bank.
While this setup was robust enough, it had one or two weak points: Mainly, the flimsy A-arm mounts needed reinforcing. Once that was completed, he turned to the top hats. Once lined up, these offered Dwayne about +4 degrees of caster. This places the upper ball joint behind the lower and leans the spindle backwards. While that amount of caster wasn’t quite worthy of a racing car, it would work well with a street-driven truck. Once the ride height was sorted, the D-100 had an athletic stance that suited its new purpose.
After borrowing a MIG welder from work, Dwayne next set to tackling the butchered sheet metal in the transmission tunnel and firewall. With a few minor tweaks, he was able to start squeezing the four-speed automatic into the tunnel, on the other side of which he connected a modest 318.
Though there’s still plenty to do, Dwayne is charging along with the same energy he had at the start and intends to finish it by next summer. Once he completes the build, he’ll attend the Hot Rod Power Tour with this commemoration to his late son. “The Power Tour is something Isaac and I wanted to do with it,” he tells us.
Seeing the way this gorgeous truck is coming along, it’s certain Isaac would be proud.
To keep tabs on this moving build, you can view the build thread here.
