Well, despite the heavy clutch pedal, I said screw it, and put more fuel in the beast, bled out the injectors, and fired it up. I let the air pump up, and released the park brake. It rolled out into the street (like I figured it would, but I was behind the wheel). I managed to press in the clutch, and put her into gear, and roll her back and forth under her own power. Still not done, but getting closer.

 

Getting there

 

Slow but sure. Actually, since that earlier this evening, I made a throtle linkage, and should actually be able to drive it down the street tomorrow. I was only able to idle it earlier, but man, talk about some torque. The driveway is at a slight angle, and I idled it back into the driveway, without stalling, or even lugging it too bad. It was cool. So to top that off, I had to give a good yank on the air horn lanyard. Blasted them babies, and it sure echoed through the little valley.

 

I checked out your gallery and photobucket you had some great pictures of your build. I love home builds more then the builds someone took to a shop and paid for. The truck I am working on is going to be home built, it may not look as good as some paid builds but I will be proud of it. Looking at a lot of the trucks on this site there seems to be a lot of great looking trucks which were home built that look better then then a lot of the trucks which big money was spent on at shops.

 

Hey progress is progress, can't do it all in a week end. Keep up the good work,

 

Couldn't agree more. Now, I'm ok with folks building there rigs, and getting down to the shops for things they cannot handle at their house, but for the folks that boast about the rig, and had nothing to do with the build, I got no room for that. I tried to get as many pictures as I could, especially when it had to do with "making" something work. I also tried to focus on the simplicity of just transferring measurements, and bracketry, and things like the fuel tank return fitting, because those are all important steps that future builders can take notes from. I can't afford to go buy a $40.00 specialty return line fitting, and braze it into place, so a simple bulkead fitting, drill the hole, seal it up and attach my fuel line elbow....done. Things like the running board brackets. Drill a small hole, then enlarge it. Mount em up. When transferring measurements, a common spot was key. I measured from dead center of the king pins. The axles are straight, and that is a solid start point. I took that measurement, and transferred it over. That was where I started from, and modified body panels as required. I actually only had to do some trimming, never having to really "fabricate" any special body pieces, AND, there is still room to remove both cylinder heads. The tranny shift tower came up almost perfect where the 53s was, I only had to trim the hole out and back a little bit because of a slightly different shape. Now, on to bigger and better things. Going to go finish installing the throttle pedal linkage, and se about driving it down the street. Will take some pictures if I get that far.

 

Well, I actually drove it. I only went a few hundred feet, but I drove it. It was cool. Managed to even get a few neighbors to come out and see what all the rumbling was about. Man, that Caterpillar has a tone to it.