A couple of days ago I started fitting a Unibar spotlight mount to the front of my truck. While I was doing that I decided to clean the surface rust off the bumper and polish it up. That looked pretty good so I polished the chrome grille surrounds. When I'd done that I thought that the grille looked pretty ordinary so I pulled it out to clean it up.

Long story short, I eventually had the whole thing stripped back to the radiator support panel and I cleaned and repainted the whole lot and put it back together. I didn't take any before photos because I never intended to do this work now, but here's a photo I took a little while ago.



And here are a couple showing how it looks now.





Jim

 

Looks good Jim.

 

I changed out all ball joints in my 86 Lariat today. What a fight!
Rented a ball joint remover/installer from Autozone which worked well.
I had to apply some heat and a hammer several times.
Glad thats over.

Last week I had dual exhaust put on. Went with 2-1/4 aluminized pipe and turbos.
Forgot to put the cats back on.
Runs like a new truck.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Meat

I changed out all ball joints in my 86 Lariat today.

Done in a day? Wow, congrats. I'm gonna allocate around a month (of
weekends) to do my ball joints & D50 seals & bearings & bushings & whatnot
on my F350.

Hey, Uncle, fill out the rest of your profile so we can see where you're at, OK?
Click on User CP in top LH corner, then fill out stuff in LH column....

 

You go, dude!! (must not live in Cal.)

 

I took my truck to the muffler shop yesterday and had 'em cut off the tailpipe after the muffler....when I originally had them install the Flowmaster 40 series, they welded the old 2" tailpipe to the 2.5" outlet. The result was a good Flowmaster sound, but it was kinda quiet. I liked that, but after a while I started wanting a little more of that tinny Flowmaster sound. Now with just the bare 2.5" outlet dumping out below the middle of the bed....

Let's just say that I make sure to let off the throttle when I see the cops! :P I rarely floor it (except if I'm on the interstate and I need to merge or something), but with even half-throttle it sounds like I'm ready to race...lol

The muffler shop that did the work is also a state-certified inspection center, so I'm pretty sure I should be fine as far as sound level goes. I don't think he would have done the work if he knew it wouldn't pass inspection or break any laws.

I'll get a video posted as soon as I can, it just sounds too good not to! lol

I also lowered the idle speed a little. Before I was getting about an 800rpm idle in park when warm, now I get about 500-550. In gear warm, now I get about 400-450. It sounds real nice at red lights, just sayin'....lol

 

Paid $55 to get my truck jump started. Why couldn't it have failed to start in my garage, instead of the parking lot at the sandwich joint?

 

Getting a new windshield put in right now. So close to being able to drive it now!

 

What all have you had to do to get it drivable?

 

Congrats! I've gotta go get a windshield installed myself as I've got a nasty little leak at the top of mine. Probably wouldn't hurt to get some fresh glass to as i've got a small crack as well.

Do tell on what has gotten your truck to this state, its fun learning about what others have done to get their rigs back on the road.

 

My windshield had a big crack and 3 big stars. It's the original glass so time for a new one with that nice blue sun shade on the top. It's soooo clear now.

Getting it running? Keep in mind I wanted a nice Daily Driver that will be with me for years to come. Well, when I got it 86 stepside, 300cid, 4spd, the engine was half taken apart. The wood bed was falling out. Electrical problems like crazy but the body was in decent shape. It was more work than I wanted but I really wanted that stepside!
- Rebuilt the 300
- Rebuilt the 4spd (has OD)
- Removed all the emissions (25yo so not required)
- Removed cleaned and painted the dash and door panels
- Installed JY factory Tach
- New brakes including shoes, pads, calipers, wheel cyl, rotors, drums, soft lines
- New coil springs and shocks
- Offenhauser DP intake
- EFI exhaust manifolds
- Edelbrock 500cfm
- Misc. switches and relays
What's left?
- Patch holes in cab floor
- Recover seat
- Carpet
- Stereo
- Tires, I'm painting my wheels
- Body shop for a new paint job
- Last, new wood bed

 

Can't they make filling this out a requirement when you sign up on this site?

Also, any chance we could get page #'s added to the thread titles when viewing the mobile version of this site? Threads like this aren't worth opening when they are so many pages to go through to get to the most recent posts.

 

Doesn't the mobile version have the "Go to first unread post" option? The standard version has the little blue icon with the "v" in it beside the title for this option.....

 

interesting, never noticed that blue button with the sideways "v" before. anyway, when you click on it with the mobile version it seems to take me to the top post on the last page. better than nothing i suppose.

 

That's the "Last page" button. The "first unread" button is just before the thread title, and has a standard "v" in it.....
Dunno about mobile version, though.