I had a slow day.. went to lowes in Ozark to pick up some building materials.. stopped by a friends shop but I guess he was busy elsewhere.. will have to make another trip later to check on projects progress..

 

Evening everyone.

After spending most of the day taking Dad to Springfield to the Urologist, I did manage to get a few hours in on the '87 before it got too dark to continue. I now have the upper & lower intakes installed, fuel lines connected, replaced some pretty brittle vacuum lines, and the injector harness plugged in. Tomorrow I'll the rest connected and try to fire it up. It would be great if the idle problem was solved, but I figure there will be some more stones that need to be turned over before it's all ironed out.

 

RC. Sorry I missed you. I was out and about running errands and saw you stopped by. In between playing with masking tape and letting filler dry, I got Earthquake buffed out. It looks a TON better when it's shiny! I'm starting to get excited about it again.

I'll get the Focus finished up tomorrow and buff both vehicles out on Monday. I keep waiting for people with lots of American dollars to show up and buy the '73. Maybe next week?

 

I hope your bumper will be stronger than what Warn built. I bent my bumper when I drove into a ditch in pea soup thick fog. I thought the bumper would have faired better than that.
My plan for this summer is to get my Jeep out of storage and start working on it. which means I need to dig my welders and plasma cutter out of storage aswell, so I can make my tube fenders and also build my ranch hand style bumper for my yellow truck.

 

Lee. I can make it bullet proof so that it will never bend, but what Warn had was pretty stout. It was 1/4" plate in the center and 1/8" plate ends on it. How sturdy does it need to be?

I AM going to change the gussets in the middle because I want the actual winch mount to be stronger. I don't know if that will shore up the ends or not. Honestly, I'm not very concerned if either end will take an impact without bending a little. It'll still be much stronger than stock.

 

I think braces going from the frame to the ends of the bumper would probably work.
I thought about using it on my truck but I don't think I can straighten out the bumper without messing up the chrome finish. Plus it's a straight front so it doesn't have the wrap around ends to fill the gap under my fenders it's more suited for 70's trucks not 90's trucks. I also doubt it would hold up to my 12,000 winch.
I had to redrill it to mount my old 8000 pound winch predicessor to the great Warn 8274. I don't want to have even more unused holes in it.

 

There should've been braces in there. They used 1 1/2" angle to brace out the ends. They went from the outer edge back to the bolt holes in the frame like the stock bumper had. The pictures Rich put up even showed those. I think somebody robbed yours if you didn't have them.

 

Usually Federal refunds don't start getting processed until early February with the refunds starting to be released until the middle of the month. If the IRS is consistent, you should start seeing money in about 10-15 days. People who get the refund advance loans should have it sooner, but with less to spend.

I'm anxiously awaiting ours so I can hopefully get a new roof on the shop.

 

Morning amigo's, what's up for the day?

 

I have to finish the Focus bumper today so I can color sand and buff both vehicles on Monday. I also have a guy stopping by to talk about finishing his El Camino. I'd also like to get some more work on my Dad's dash board done.

 

Dave. Jerry, at the car lot, noticed there's money out there already. His sales already started to pick up. Maybe that's the advances you were talking about. We already filed and should be getting ours back soon. (already confirmed the return through e mail) I found a set of axles and would love to get them before they get sold to someone else.

 

good morning Missouri.. alan I hope you are right.. had a guy who said he wanted the chevy 4x4 I have for sale, when he gets his his tax return back.... but I don't believe anything till I have cash in my hand..

 

So far so good - truck's back together and running with no visible fuel leaks or missing parts.

Not so good - Idle is off the charts high. Since there are no disconnected bits and pieces, I ran a diagnostic scan and only came up with codes for a cylinder 1 misfire and a bad neutral switch - both of which were there before I started. Since the EGR valve was stuck closed when I tore it down, I think my success at freeing it up left me with a bad seat and horrible vacuum leak.

Even worse - I can't find a new one locally. Everyone locally lists them as "No Longer Available" so I'm off to the inter web to locate one. In my opinion, this isn't a pick-n-pull item.

 

New one ordered from RockAuto...

On the upside, this is the first time that I could stand on the exhaust side of the truck when it was running (hot or cold) without my eyes watering. It even smelled "right" even though it was idling that fast.

Off to take Mom to the store and pick up oil & filter for Durango. If the weather holds, maybe I can get out and pull the #1 plug and try to figure out what's up with it. I'm hoping I just have a bad plug or wire and nothing more serious...

 

Howdy all. Off to town for groceries and who knows what else.