The Donor

The 2000 Freightliner chassis lived out in the California desert under a tarp for about a dozen years.  I think it was originally purchased as surplus, along with half a dozen others, some of which were used for parade floats up the road at Disneyland.

Freightliner chassis in storage.

It was a dusty mess, but aside from that it had been well cared for -- run once a year or more to keep the parts from drying out.  With a fresh battery, the Cummins fired up almost instantly, spewing a great cloud of desert sand out of the radiator.  It tasted of dry.  Just dry. 

I'm told that the owner had occasionally taken his little fleet out for joyrides between the scrub brush and Joshua trees, packing a few pounds of landscape into the cooling system in the process.

In spite of the well aged diesel at the bottom of the tank, the engine tapped out a steady diesel rhythm; it turns out oil burning engines aren't quite as particular about their fuel as the average passenger car.  

As it chattered, the whole chassis lifted slowly onto the air suspension.  There is something eerie about a 30 foot vehicle frame, half-covered by old tarpaulins, seeming to levitate.  Still it was a good sign that all the key parts and systems were still operating properly.

Front sub-assembly
(note the steering wheel covered by a plastic bag)

Even on the high-desert back roads, the un-built chassis didn't qualify as street legal, so a crane and a piggyback trailer transported it back to the shop to be decomposed.

It is tough to convey the size of these parts in photos, but instead of the usual jacks and engine hoists you'd see in a hot rod shop, the chassis comes apart using a full sized fork lift and a crane truck.  Each subframe was unbolted, the engine and transmission removed, and the front and rear axles and their suspension components separated.  At the same time, the Flxible got propped on jack stands so its stock components could be cut away to make way for the new parts.

Front axle

At this point, the news is good on both chassis.  The Freightliner runs properly and all the components work as expected, with the exception of a cranky fuel pump.  The Flxible is coming apart easily and the underside hasn't provided any surprises.  With any 60-year-old vehicle, rust, old repairs and fatigue cracks are all potential problems.  So far, so good.