Thursday, February 28, 2008
Hey sorry for the lack of progress.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
New problem.
By the way, the donor frame had taken a hard hit on the end of the passenger side rail causing it to diamond or parallelogram, so I cut loose the right sde first, then put a come-a-long on it to pull it back square. I just used a framing square along the left rail to check squareness.
This thicker frame also pretty much means I do not change over the tranny member that I talked about in my last post for the same reason I was not able to do it ten years ago.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Another thing.
Not a lot of excitement today.
Though the cross members are shaped different and the frame is a 1977 and the donor is a 1992, the mounting holes are exactly the same. The problem here is that they are riveted not bolted. I can torch them out on the junk frame, but I do not want to put that much heat on the crew-cab frame. I will probably drill them, chisel them, or grind them off.
The other problem is with the cross member shown on the right. This member holds the carrier bearing. The shorter truck does not have a two piece drive line. The above pictured fuel tank goes forward to the middle of this member. You can see in the pic a little notch I took out of the member to fit the small tank ten years ago. I don't think I should notch it out half way, so I will probably move it forward about 4 inches. I will need to shorten the short drive shaft and lengthen the main shaft. Since this may end up being spendy, I'm still thinking of other possibilities. If I move the tank backward, the arched cross member will get into the curved part of the frame. All in all, I find this to be a minor problem. But I guess it will be the first of many on a project like this.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Two days in a row in the shop. A guy could get spoiled.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Finally, I get to take the cab off.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Got 2 more hours in the shop.
Monday, February 11, 2008
I only got about an hour and a half in the shop today.
Now the heater box is out. It helps if you remove all the nuts first. You feel kind of stupid after yanking on it for a while, only to find that it was still bolded-in.
Another shot of the nearly empty cab. You can see the paint from my previous build, ten years ago, has held-up. All the metal was that goofy green color like the interior of my new cab and the shot of the back wall behind where the gas tank was. You can see the engine through the hole where the heater box was.
This is what ya call one-a-them artsy shots. Notice the tranfer-case shifter and front seat through the hole.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Back to work on stripping the old truck.
Back in the shop today.
New Cab
Front axle.
The first problem is a broken inner "C". The king pin was torn frm the yoke on the passenger side.
I have ground away the weld. I just need to heat it up and pound it off.
The next problem is the broken knuckle on the driver's side. I was going to switch over to crossover steering and then go with a high steer set-up. This would eliminate this worry, but the guys that build the high steer stuff don't recommend it for larger tires on pavement. And it is an $800 set-up.So now I am looking for a knuckle. As far as I can tell they do not exist. None on Craigslist or ebay anyway. I'll just have to keep looking. Maybe I will buy a whole axle and part mine out.