Low profile fan motor???

Very cool project Lee. Didn't some 50s vehicles, 55-57 chevy come to mind, use a blower motor mounted on the inner fender connected to the heater box by a flexable tube? (or maybe early

60s Corvettes?) It 'looks' like the fan pulls air from the cab through the lower square hole and sends it up through the core(s) then into the cab through the top rectangular opening. You could remove the motor and that lower fan housing, block the lower air inlet and fabricate a plenum in place of the old fan housing with a hose attachment. Mount a fan there on the inner fender to feed outside air to the cores. (If the air flow is the other direction, it will be trickier). Depending on space, you may be able to use that original air intake. This is just a guess without knowing the air flow and what's on the inside of the square hole in the firewall. To get really fancy, mount the blower motor to the hood bracing and use one of the hood openings for a fresh air intake. The latter is just a silly passing thought, don't know if it would be feasable. I've never seen factory AC on a Truck of that vintage, that's a rare bird indeed. It would be a real shame to lose it. Ford offered AC on the 67 -72 trucks but it was a dealer add on, and looked like it.

Hope this helps, even a little. Tom

Could you just lower the engine? It sure looks like it sits much higher than a stock engine. Is the center of the crank at about the same height? It would be nice if they made a shorter blower motor. I just changed the one on my son's 65 and it was a pain in the ass. The motor and blower do not have room to drop out the bottom. I had to loosen the entire heater housing and tilt it up to be able to rembove the old motor.

The engine going in is much taller than the original small block Chevy. It's also very much wider. The custom motor mounts doubtless add a bit to the overall height, but that cant be helped. Picture a full barrel going in the space of a pony keg, for reference. Something has to give. If it's only the blower motor as in this case, well...

The pictures where the fenders are on is where we had it mocked up... where it is in those pictures is sitting on about 3" of wood. I think we dropped it about 2" from that height.

Lee

Thanks Alex, I'm also getting positive comments from the Chevy truck crowd, they're excited to see something other than a SBC 350 being dropped in these things.

Holy crap... is Hell starting to freeze over??? Alex and I have actually held a short conversation without each other being called a racist or an idiot.

Lee

Things are looking up I"m picking on someone else now (:-)

Even the Chevy guys are tired of belly button motors. My oldest son is going to sell his 65 to my youngest son who has more time to fix it up. I will contribute some and we will have a family truck that we can all use when needed. It was my neigbors truck for 35 years and he sold it to my son about 8 years ago.