56: DAMN LO

— TRICK LS-POWERED C10

That old saying of there being no rest for the wicked is very true for Central Otago’s Todd Sutherland. Not long after finishing his ’31 Chev coupe, he was straight into thinking about the next project – something that was user-friendly but looked the part too. An engineer by trade, and running his own business, TS Engineering, Todd had the skills both to buy something that he could see potential in and to put in the hard graft himself to see that potential come to fruition. This meant plenty of internet searching both locally and globally for just the right thing. While Todd knew it was always going to be a Chev, he didn’t know exactly what year he’d end up with — instead hunting for something that was just right. Making the search a touch harder was the fact that he didn’t want to have to deal with bodywork — call it sunburnt, call it faded, call it patinaed; he wanted something with the right look that wasn’t going to see him wasting hours with a polish cloth or touching up stone chips. Having lost out on a few deals — mainly due to people thinking that, since he was from abroad, he was trying to scam them, he found a 1964 C10. Thanks to Kiwi Shipping, an inspection was performed and shipping arranged. All he needed to do was pick it up from Christchurch and trailer it back home to Alexandra. Being a long bed, a long trailer was needed, but he’d wanted just that, as, in theory, it would allow the vehicle to be used for work when required. Once in the workshop, the truck was stripped to bare chassis.

Todd then proceeded to overcome the first hurdle: the cross member that hung below the chassis line. The plan was to get the rails hitting the floor, so this simply wouldn’t cut it. Thankfully, these are only bolted on from factory, so it didn’t take much to remove and modify it to suit. The resulting narrower part could then be welded back in, adding stiffness to the chassis in the process. In a clever move, if you’ll excuse the pun, Todd mounted the cross member forward 45mm from its original position, a move that sees the wheels fit more centrally in the wheel arches than previously. Of course, all this shifting of things meant that a bit of trickery was required to get the Unisteer steering rack into the right place so that no bump steer would occur as the suspension moved through its travel. Special attention was paid to the mounting points for