Hell, its not a show truck. Who cares if its a little crooked?
...or is it a show truck? Damn I hope not...

Haha just kidding. Good to see progress though, keep up the good work.

 

Definitely not a show truck, I just like to not have it look like the thing is bending in the middle and the axle is hanging out the passengers side... LOL...
That DS fender is a new aftermarket one I got for free... My buddy who's shop I'm working in is all about having the truck look good... He's your typical sticker addicted everything has to be shiny Chevy type that really doesn't think outside of bolt on...

He was going on about how good it would look once I got all the rest of the body done and so on and so forth, so, I punched the new fender and said "there we go, first dent, we're good now" just to bother him... LOL

I'm going to swap the doors out for the rust free set I have laying around and try and come up with a straight, solid bed, and, then it'll probably just get another coat of semi gloss spraypaint to make it all one colour again... LOL

 

I prefer all one color over a dent. Lol. I swapped out the door that hit a tree and now it looks funny cause I have a blue door. -_-

 

Time for another update, made some real progress today.










Everything on the suspension is still in mock up stages, the front axle definitely needs to come forward, although the cab is still shifted out of square on the frame, as you can see by things not looking quite so bad on the drivers side. That will be next weekends project.
I need to re-fab the mounting for the springs on the front hangar anyhow, so, I'm going to move the bolthole for the spring eye ahead to the front of the crossmember, maybe even hang it out in front, as the current shackle angle is a bit too much. I may still end up having to move the rear bracket forward and/or use a zero rate to get the axle back where I want it. That is the drawback of the S/D springs being the same length as the stockers on the rear and longer in the front.



Fabwork on the front is far from done, but, for now, the truck at least is mobile. I plan on building my winch mount, the bumper, and a front receiver into the front, and tying it all together. I'm probably a good solid month from even having it ready to do much more than move in and out of the shop, but, it is getting there.

You can actually tell how far off the cab is sitting currently in this picture:

Engine and frame rails are nice and square, cab, not so much...
And, yes, some people do believe that lid... LOL

While I have made large amounts of progress on the truck, I still have a HUGE amount of work to do, especially since half of what's done is just mocked up and stuck together so the truck is mobile. Plan is to be ready for May long.

 

5.8L 4V H.O. huh?

Well good to see progress on the truck, its coming together nicely!

 

Yep, traded my buddy for the stock one off of my air cleaner a while back, he needed the flat 70's one for hood clearance in his Heep... LOL
You'd be suprised how many people see that and ask "so that's a 351 in there huh?" LOL

 

So did you do the disc brake conversion? If so, what did you use and what did it cost? So whats the plan now??

 

Those are brackets from Ruff Stuff Specialties, $50 for the pair, 78 Chevy 3/4 ton front calipers, 92 Dodge W250 flex hoses and 07 E350 rear rotors. Calipers were $32 loaded, flex hoses $14 and the rotors were $65 a pop. I just ordered their anti wrap bar bracket kit today. Considering I currently lack access to any cutting technology more advanced than a grinder, it's alot easier just to buy prefab stuff than build my own.
Right now, I'm waiting on parts, next fun project is going to be dealing with the cab mounts. The crossmember that the rear mounts sit on is shot from the rubbers, and that is part of why the cab ended up crooked on the chassis, I have wheeled this thing hard for a few years with a front suspension that didn't move, it's no wonder the body shifted around.
So, at some point this week I'm going to dig another frame out of the snowbank and nab that crossmember and the brackets that the core support mounts sit on. Also on the to do list provided my parts show up is re-hashing my exhaust, I had to pull all of it from the cab back as I had the hangars welded to the bottom of the bed... Oops... LOL
For the most part until some more parts arrive, it's just going to be go through the truck and fix all the little stuff that's gotten neglected and just trail fixed over the last few years and never fixed properly... My e-fan wiring is one such example...
Once the cab is sitting square on the frame again, I'm going to build some good solid rocker protection, probably some sort of slider setup, as I've already bent the drivers side rocker a few times.

A fellow I do some work for on a regular basis(keeping his diesel Fords running....) is supposed to be getting a 96 parts truck this week, and it's supposed to have a good bed, so, if I get that, nothing too exciting is going to happen bed wise. Going to hide the M12000 between the framerails under the back of the bed, build a new bumper for the back end, and sink a bronco tank through the floor of the bed at the front so it's nice and high and out of the way.

Also sitting on the to do list is building my doubler setup, I have all the parts for the setup I'm going to build, but, I just haven't gotten around to doing it.

 

So you paid under $200 for the setup?

 

That's about what it works out to, you should be able to get better pricing stateside on most of the parts too.

 

I want to do the disc brake conversion, but that is like 50th on my list lol.

 

It's been on my to do list for a long time, and since I tore the hard lines off of the rear diff the last trip out wheeling, combined with everything in the drums being junk, it was time.

 

How did you manage to do that!?

 

I honestly have no sweet clue, was night wheeling, went through a hole and next time I went to stop the pedal went to the floor... LOL

 

Thats always fun lol!

So when do the parts arrive?