Where are all the Bay Area diesel guys at? I need me a dang wrenchin buddy, workin on your truck by yourself is boring! Where yall at?

 

I know what you mean. There aint nobody from FTE over here in my neck of the woods either. It's a lot more fun when you can have someone else hanging around to BS, talk about chicks and drink beer with. My wife's kind of a tom boy so she'll help out sometimes. At least she'll hang out and offer suggestions. (though i hate it when she's right, at times...) An extra set of hands is nice too. I'm clear over on the other side of the Sierras or I'd stop in to lend you a hand.

Come on folks, aren't there any beer drinking red necked backyard grease monkeys out there in the bay area? Ya got an FTE-Northern Cal Bro needing a little support on his truck. Guys, strut your testosterone and help a brother out. It's the manly thing to do. You too Tomboys. You know you want to get greasy and show the guys up.

 

shee-oooooot if it's gunna be a chick, she aint gotta be a tomboy, just cute heh, yeah buddy. This is pretty sad though... I was living down in socal for 5 years, just moved back up here about a month ago, and FTE socal had guys who liked to wrench. psh, socal has their own powerstroke website! Kinda feel like I don't belong up here... High time I got out this state

 

Oh they're out there. Most of the members that like to do that sort of thing are out a little further inland, in the valleys. You awta try and get to one of the chapter meets. There are some great people in the Northern California Chapter Club. Sometimes I wish I was a little closer so I could show up to more of the chapter meets. Good folks.
Good luck with the oil burner, Tim

 

yeah buddy! I been waiting to see a chapter meeting post on here but aint hardly anything ever posted on this chapter's forum. I was hoping for alot more participation, more like what I had seen on socaps.com...

 

I got the addict part, but not the Bay part. I like what you're saying about leaving the state......tempting to say the least.
When I do wrenching, I have an 8 yr old helper, and he's losing interest.

 

well hey man, if you got a big project, give me a buzz. I have family out in Manteca, I don't mind the little jog over the hills from some quality wrench time with another diesel fiend. I super want to do a good project on my truck but need to find some parts and design something... want to do a dana 60 swap for my front end, figure out how to make a removable dually package so I can have the extra payload ability and still be stable if needed, want to airbag the rear, put in a 3gal. capacity onboard air system... bunch of stuff.

 

You shouldnt need a dually to get hi load capacity, just the proper tires with the airbags. You can get singles in some pretty huge load ratings. That, and to make sure the rear sway bar is of good size, and bushings are good or aftermarket.
My big project is a real slow go, unless my side biz takes off. It sure is a good motivator going to a car show, I do say. I think it would be pretty koool to have a 6 cyl diesel in an ugly old truck that lopes at idle.

 

going DRW is more for lateral stability than anything. The loading capacity is also helped by having 4 rims taking the heat, not just getting like a bajillion lb load rated tire on the same rim. Plus the traction benefits as well, I have drug my back tires down the road a couple times trying to stop this rig because of some who cut me off. Plus I just think it would be a pretty sick project to create a one of a kind removable dually rear end . so let me know if you got a cool project you'd like an extra set of hands on!

 

where are u in the bay im in concord u know how to make battery cabels

 

The problem is that this North State area is so darn big, we're spread out all over the place. I'm two hours north of the Bay Area and there's nobody closer than that to me, so when I need to do some work on my vehicles, it's always just the three of us...me, myself and I! I'm going to be dropping a Cummins into my '68 pretty soon (yeah, I know, I've been saying that for the last three years!) and it's another project that I know I'll be doing alone.

The other factor that comes into play seems to be scheduling. Because we're so widespread, it's never just a simple matter of dropping by someone's house for an evening of wrenching, or a couple of hours here and there...it's gotta be pre-planned and scheduled, and everyone seems to have something else going on that gets in the way. For me, I've usually got either some sort of music gig or rehearsal, or else a wheeling trip on the weekends, or even work from time to time, so a free weekend is tough to come by.

But maybe we can work something out. We've had wrenching parties before, either at Mike's in Oakdale, up here in Clear Lake or in Vallejo at Karl's...

 

dang dan u should have said some thing i go up to slear lake and spring valley about every 2/3 weeks to go shooting

 

I've been working by myself for so long I don't even think about it any more...I just go out and tackle whatever needs doing. Changed the rear end in my F250 a couple months ago after a wheel bearing went out and I found that the new bearing would have to be special ordered and was ridiculously expensive. I just said to heck with it and pulled the whole rear out of my '72 and swapped it in, got it done before the parts would have arrived and now have an upgraded rear end with bigger bearings to boot!

One thing that makes the bigger jobs easier when working on my own is having my own forklift. Really helps for moving the big stuff around!

 

wish i had ur fork lift when i but my new bed one

 

I wish I'd had it when we did the cab swap on Karl's truck here in my driveway. We rigged a 2000lb. ATV winch to a tree branch, and had to tie the tree branch back to another branch for extra support. It was something of a PITA...