my 77 4x4 rebuild

[Tonka]

This truck is just too good. Man I want pics of everything including that bumper!! And how about a walk around video with the engine running??

[winky]

be for warned the truck is still kinda rough lol. no exhaust and about a million lose ends to tie up. I'm trying to upload pics to photo bucket right now. one of the tires kept going flat so today i decided to fix it. 2 hours later and the bead lock ring was off :/ had to cut 15 of the bolts because they had rounded off. so i guess one of the skinnies is going back on it until i can order bolts.i finished up the shifters today and fixed the huge hole i cut in the floor board 2 years ago. its a 2 wheel drive cab so the shifters look funky but it ll be ok haha. once the tire is fixed i am going to weld the new spring perches on and then she is off to the muffler shop down the road to get the exhaust done (205 t case is in the way of the passenger straight pipe.)

to do:

finish bolting bed down.
Spring perches
Front drive shaft
Exhaust
custom gauges
Attach driver bed step
bolt tool boxes down
side markers
tail light
LEDs
ladder bars
dual batteries
few other things I'm not thinking of
- I'm Mobile!

[winky]

bumper pics suck, i took them after shutting down the shop.ill have more pics tomorrow





never mind on bumper pics they arent worth looking at. il upload some tomorrow. I did a little welding today for the shop manager not to bad for a half blind kid wish ihad my welding gloves today.. my mechanics gloves kept tryingto melt on me so i had to stop several times.


i was also reading threw my thread today and i remember when i was trying to fix my old cab and kept burning threw. It turns out practice does make perfect (or at least better) im very comfortable welding on sheet metal i was doing it almost every week there for a while at work.

[Greybeard]

I think you got yourself a winner Winky! Sweat the details now, they are soooo easy to ignore. Once a truck gets roadworthy ....well, you know where it goes from there.

The first picture is a great reason why what you were talking about in the traction aid thread is why you need as much flexibility as possible. On a half ton truck the frame ALWAYS twists easier than a lift spring. Can't say how the newer easy ride springs work but in order to hold the truck up that high the spring naturally has to have a stiffer rate than stock does. Especially if the same load capacity is kept. That's the old version anyway. The new version of lift springs may have broken the laws of physics IDK. The way I see it is a spring rated at 700lbs will hold up 700lbs no matter the lift height just as long as each is measured under a standard load of 700lbs. From that point the amount of lift is measured.

Anyway...that's some great work!

I have a two wheel drive cab on my truck too. When I got the truck it had a three inch body lift on it to make it work. I cut that lift down to just around an inch so the t-case clears the floor pan. I used a JCB fork to lift each tire on the corner to be certain that would be enough to clear at all frame twisting angles. It wasn't but I doubt I'll ever get the truck to twist into those contortions in real life so I settled on the one inch. I really hate body lifts anyway. The body was never meant to be a stressed member of the vehicle. Just my belief...no proof. And to be honest I could probably get rid of those 1" pucks if I bought new body mount rubber. Next idea is an air hammer to the tunnel.  Or I have a ten pound sledge hammer.....I just need someone that knows how to operate it. LOL!

[winky]

thankya! yeah the frame definitely flexed more than the springs. after i have played in it a while if i feel like i will be doing a decent amount of flexing i plan on boxing the frame and adding more cross-members (that cant twist due to rivets) the details are killing me but im kind OCD about it. got the winch cable back on today and started working on the dash pad i have something different planned for it but i guess we will just have to wait and see. i made a walk around video with it running today but for some reason i guess it didn't save... here are some pictures though. mounted one of the LED lights on the back and finally cleaned out my truck. Now my truck doesn't look like a parts store over flow container I hope we have a little bit more work next week but if not the truck will get a pretty decent amount done on it.

sigh.. when photo bucket decides to load i will add pics. i have pics of the bumper as well KaptCaos

[winky]

[Captkaos]

That is pretty nice.

[winky]

yeah, i love it. i believe i paid $1200 for the bumper and it came with the Warn 12000lb winch

[Captkaos]

That is even better.

[winky]

gauges came in. i turned 14 labor hours this week at work :/ needles to say i had plenty of time to do whatever. so here is what got accomplished.

took an angle grinder and 5 mins later the small gauges were in. the big ones were too small for the hole so i had to heat the plastic on the bezel and bend it in.


when the gauges are in the correct spot they are all angled slightly up. from reading several threads about installing gauges the biggest problem seem to be that people were having problems reading gauges due to them being flat and not actual pointing towards the drivers sight.


also painted an s 10. The owner of the chevy dealership also owns a ford dealership down the road that use to have a paint shop (6 or 7 years ago) so the guy with the s10 saved some paint  from being disposed of.  mixed 4 different base coats together (all different brands lol..) lord only knows how many different primers they mixed together luckily the activator they found worked in it (or at least it seems) used some nice DuPont clear (not a big fan of) any ways the truck was rusted and had been covered up with rattle can primer... the cab got painted as is via owner request and the bed i just had to sand down and feather out most of the paint flakes etc.. it got sealed and then based and cleared. it actually turned out decent for what it was before paint was sprayed.

Then i fixed my busted up dash and added an ugly extension on to it for my i cab winch and light controls and cut out an aluminum switch plate. i also did a few other things as well but ill post them later on when i finish them. pics are below. photo bucket was acting up again..

[Greybeard]

Looking Good Winky!

I've been busy with my last week at college, got my final project turned in and it looks like smooth sailing from here till the 18th which is the official last day of my college career.

I remember seeing folks with bumpers like yours and the guard part folds down into steps so the bumper could be reached and worked worked off of easier. After looking at yours for a few minutes I see an easy way to do it to yours too. In case you might be interested, the way I see it is to use the frame extensions near the lower front and drill a hole large enough to put a small piece of pipe (1/2"ID) put a fork on a bent U- shaped tube of your choice (diameter wise) so the horizontal bend is the same height as the top of the existing guard tube, weld a stop so it will be at a comfortable angle when it's swung down and a way to fasten it when up; my rough choice would be a simple pin through the tube with a hairpin clip or something on the outside. What would be cool would be the ability to mount two small lights that point forward and then under the truck when it's down for working under there at night on the trail. ?  Just thinkin out loud...

[winky]

That sir is pretty snazy. I'm live I'm gonna add it to the list of things I'm going to do when it is fully running. Thankyou

- I'm Mobile!

[winky]

here are the dash pics.. its ROUGH lol. i could have made it look better but i just needed something that functions until i get my custom dash.





top left is an amber light to let me know when my winch is armed, the blue switches are for lights, and the bottom two are for winch armed and then in/ out. winch controls are ran off acc on power to prevent people from messing with it when the key is not on.


crappy pics sorry everyone... here is a few of the s10

[winky]

Gauges

- I'm Mobile!

[bd]

I've always been partial to the "blue" look.    

It's comin' along nicely....