I was thinking the same. Relatively small price for the piece of mind.

 

Been a while since a posted. A lot of catching up to do:

-Installed tank
-Installed new 9” rear pumpkin to replace the 9 3/8 that came with the truck. Went with a 4.11 gear ration
-Installed shocks, brakes and breather (finished up rear end)
-Working on the front axle now. Almost have it buttoned up, just waiting on another U-joint. Re-geared the front to match the rear, installed a new carrier, new seals, new breather to replace someone’s makeshift one that was installed, new dust shields, etc. Re-gearing was by far the most frustrating thing I’ve done so far. Now that it’s over I’m so glad I dove in and picked up that knowledge.

Will be nice to finally get this rolling again. Starting to come together.

 

Also, the passenger side radius arm has a pretty good bend in it. If anyone has one in the KY, TN, IN area please let me know. These things seems to be hard to come by for a reasonable price around me.

 

 

WOW.... good work!
Lookin' GREAT!!

 

Got the transfer case and trans installed. Dropped off the 400 to the machine shop last week to get checked out.

Warning: Hack Job Incoming. I had zero welding experience or body work experience.

The cab was more rough than my already low expectations. For now, this is basically a crash course into some body work, finding out what works over a period of time and what doesn’t. I imagine in 10 years, if I’m lucky, I’ll be pulling this cab and replacing with a good donor. But for education, cheapness and impatience this is what I’m going with. I do know this was not done the right way in a few areas, especially the roof, so go easy on me.

Basically stopping body work for the season until it warms back up. Going to focus the winter on the engine and whatever else I can do to get ready to hit the body work and paint in the spring. But I am running out of stuff to do, so I’ll take any suggestions that won’t get in the way of future work.

 

Nice work! Looks like you made some good progress on the cab.

 

Dropping some more pics. Weather is warming up so body work will start soon. Hope to get the engine tested this or next week and install. Working on wrapping my head around wiring now. Started another thread but I’ll post it below in case anyone has any advice here:

This is a very rudimentary question for most but it’s my first time wiring and starting an engine outside of a vehicle.

I plan to get a painless harness but for now I just need to start this to track down all the leaks I screwed up over the past couple of months during assembly. I have the schematic below. The Green/Yellow/Purple/Black going to the distributor and neg side of the coil I have. The blue and red side is what I can’t find/don’t understand.

What is the easy way to replicate this for a test run? It’s a roller cam so no flat tapper concerns, this is more to get the rings seated and chase leaks. Should get the rods tomorrow so just trying to prepare for a run this weekend or next.

Any help is appreciated, been dreading wrapping my head around wiring since I started the project and finally can’t avoid it any longer.

 

Looking really good. Lots of hours (days, months, years....) there.

 

Can really help with the stand wiring as I use a MSD box & distributor for that. But the truck is looking good.

Have you looked at other harnesses than Painless? I went with an American Autowire 510342 for the last one & found it to be far more painless than the Painless harnesses I've used previously.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, no I haven’t looked at any. I remember seeing the painless recommended a few years back and that stuck in my head, I didn’t know there were other options. I’ll check it out!

 

Thanks! As long as I don’t add “decades” to that list I’ll take it as a win!

 

Fairly new here and I just read through your entire post. The span of time and the work you've done is amazing. That truck will be better than the day it rolled off the assembly line! You now have mad skills under your belt!! I started on mine in January. When I read a post like this one, I now have an appreciation for the time, skill, learning and dedication it takes. A little at a time with consistency and it all comes together!

 

Welcome! A ton of good resources and helpful people here.

It’s definitely been a long path but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Could have been much faster but most of this being new to me I’ve had to put in 5x more research/learning/reading time as actual hands on wrench time. And to not get overwhelmed I just focus on what I’m doing now or next basically.

I’ll have way way way more money/time in it than it will ever be worth, but I love the truck and it’s worth it to me. There is a lot of stuff I could have just paid someone to do or just bought a new part but to me it’s an education and entry into a ground up build. I’ll surely come across a lot of things I messed up or didn’t work out but hopefully that’s knowledge I can carry onto the next project.

 

It’s coming along really well. I like that you keep it simple and focus on the task at hand. That’s the best way to work through a big project. You’re doing a great job and it will be even more fun when you get to drive. Looking forward to seeing you get it completed.