Wow, almost a year since I posted anything. I have not done much on my truck but drive and autocross it. But I do want to share something that is exciting at least for me. I am a member of a club called Canadian Custom Ridez Club. There is also an American version run by the same guy. In the fall he contacted me and wanted to put my truck on a calendar. Not sure if it was a scam or not as he wanted some money. A bit more than I would put out for a calendar but I thought I would take a chance. Well early this year I got my calendrer and now my truck is Mr. March.

 

Congratulations . In it's present state mine would fill a whole calendar . lol

 

Glad it wasn't a scam, although odd to "pay-to-play". Cool truck!

 

Congratulations. Very nice. That's a keeper.

 

Congrats Marten it´s allways nice to see your own vehicle on a Calendar.

 

Very nice.

Your truck is worthy of a spot on a calendar.

 

Been driving and autocrossing the truck this summer. Time for some updates. I've been having trouble with the taillights and brake lights since I had the truck on the road. They are not very bright. Been putting up with it as I could not find a solution. I have tried a few things. I finally found something that works and reasonably priced and not some off shore $25.00 broken in a month solution. I started with 2, 1157 bulbs. tried 3. Tried a different lens, using clear red plexiglass. Bought some lights that claimed to be good, they were not. Ended up buying some lights from United Pacific. I wanted to stay with the flush look.
This is the original set up. I have had a few people comment that they could not see the light. Just not bright enough as they do work.

The new lights look like this. I had to modify the roll pan to mount the lights flush as they are a trailer light that is to be surface mounted. Built some tabs and welded them in.
The top light I had to extend the slot on both sides. The bottom one I extend the slot on one side and had to weld in a small filler on the other side.




Side view of the light


Much better now. Earlier I added the third brake light. It was listed as a turn signal/brake light combo. Turns out it is a turn signal/tail ight combo. Works fine, brake light is hooked up to the tail light. So not as bright as the signal but works. As long as people see it, I 'm good with it.



The other interesting thing that has happened is that I am getting more comfortable autocrossing the truck, hence pushing it harder. Last round I cracked the sway bar rod end. Ended up getting stronger ones made of chromemoly. That should stay together.

That is the picture worthy stuff. Working through things that break or need adjusting. But that is part of the fun. A friend of mine reminded me that Ford spends millions each year on engineering and they still get recalls. I'm building one truck. I am going to have issues. Working through a power steering problem now. It had no power assist at low RPM's. Was working fine for a bit then stopped. Once over 1200 rpm it was fine. Rebuilt the rack and pinion, no change. Installed new power steering pump and it works. Drove it one day, autocross the next day. Three quarters of the way through the day and a bang and the same thing happens. No assist at low rpm's. Talked to a Summit guy. Turns out the pump puts out 1200-1300 psi but my rack only handles 850 psi. I need a pressure reducing kit. Waiting on that to come in,.along with a new pump. I talked to a few smart people about this and none of them have ever heard of that. But I am now smarter and poorer than I have ever been.

Thanks for checking in.

 

My next challenge was what to do with the rear end. I raised the front and I asked my mechanic do a front end alignment. I wanted an aggressive street set up as I autocross the truck. He went and did a 4 wheel alignment but did not notice that the rear tires are now rubbing the box. Ruined a set of tires doing that. Had the alignment adjusted but now there is zero camber in the rear.



I need add wheel tubs or get spaces/adaptors and make the fenders wider. I really did not like the idea of reworking the fenders again so choose to do wheel tubs. They are pricy to buy so I bought one trailer fender. Then took some 16 ga. steel and put a bend on one side of it and welded it to the fender. Did this on both sides and then cut the fender to the size I wanted.

Then cut the fender to match the bend in the flat panel. Then made up a flat piece to tie things together.

next step was to make a flange to go around the round part of the fender. I started welding on the "inside" of the fender to flange connection but found out shortly afterwards that I should have done it on the "outside" so had to rework that but got it done.




Then made a cardboard template and figured out where to cut the box. Wanted it center to the tire and also look good inside the box.

Cut the box. You can see that I left the angle in place at the outside edge of the box. That would get cut after I make a new brace and weld it in place to support the tub and the wood bed.


All fitting well now. Drilled a bunch of holes everywhere to fasten it in place. Looked at using panel adhesive but it was very pricy so will be spot welding it in place. Primed everything in epoxy primer. Then coated the box side of the tub with one coat of short strand fiberglass bondo to make things smoother. Then sanded off the primer where I needed to weld and sprayed some weld through primer on those spots. And started welding in place.
Final test fitting.


Started welding


Final product, need to put some more seam sealer on the inside of the box and then another coat of epoxy primer.



Now to make a decision, do I take the box off and paint it now or leave it on and drive the truck. Sounds simple but here you go. I would like to try painting it myself in my garage. To do that I will need to buy paint gun and figure out a way of painting in the garage, building some sort of protection and ventilation and heating all that. Or wait till spring and buy a canvas shelter or something like that. Then the box would be painted but not the whole truck. If I don't drive the truck this year, I could take it apart, paint it over the summer and put it back together for next year. I would then miss a season of autocross and car show stuff. Or do I wait till next winter, take the truck apart then and paint the whole thing. I also have to build some furniture for one of my kids and I have really enjoyed driving the truck the way it is. I'll figure that out soon.
Thanks for checking in.

 

Nice job on the wheel tubs. You did something similar to what I did with one trailer fender. As far as paint, I would prime it and drive it.

 

Looks really good. I didn’t same thing with the trailer fender.

 

Driving the truck a few weeks ago I heard a bang. That's not good but looked back and did not see anything falling out so I kept on driving. Got about 1 km farther and my amp meter started dropping and my temp gauge started rising fast. So I pulled over and by then the motor was steaming. Checked things out, not good. Got a ride back in this.

This was the problem. No idea why if broke. That was the water pump pulley.

I now have this one instead.

And then a couple of weeks ago I thought I had a small electrical problem so I put the truck on the hoist and while looking I found a shock not sitting right. Turns out it was broken. The small rod that the screwdriver is pointing to should be straight and attached to the top hat. And the larger rod that the small rod goes into should have a threaded end on it. That is inside the top hat. The top hat is the part on the right with the adjustment **** on it.

And now thanks to a couple of calls to QA1 to better understand coilovers and what I should get and then an order to Summit I now have this.

And for a funny story.
While autocrossing the beginning of August on my final run I messed up the last part of the run. Was pissed with myself and smacked the steering wheel hard. That caused the horn cap to pop off. That then made it so the horn is beeping all the time. So I am driving through the pits holding the wire so it stops making noise while everyone is looking at me. Go to fix it that night and could not find the cap. Now what? Ended up ordering a new cap and it came a week later. Then go to install it and there is a special spring under it that I know I had. Could not find it. Finally in a desperate bid go to pull out the cup holders, thinking did it somehow go under them. Lifted one out and there inside my cup holder was my horn cap upside down. The black cap was the exact size as the black cup holder. So now I have an extra horn cap that I paid way to much for off Amazon because Summit wants a large sum to ship less than $300 to Canada. At this point you are now allowed to laugh at me, because I did and so did my wife.

 

The new pulley looks beefwe than the old one.

It's good you can laugh at misfortune. It is funny that the horn button for exactly in your cup holder.

 

Your broken Pulley looks like (sorry) China Junk, the new one looks way better.
And one more sorry but the ALDAN Coilovers are Junk too, good you got the QA1´s
And don't worry, something like what happened with your horn button happens to me regularly...you have to be able to laugh about it.

 

It is hard to know where stuff is made anymore. The original pully I got from Speedway along with a bunch of other stuff. The new one had a made in China label on the box. Not sure what the laws of the land for our two countries are about this stuff but there are "rules" about how stuff is marketed. No idea what they are though.
The Aladan's were part of the deal when I bought this project. It all came from Flatout Engineering, the same people that made the mounting kit to put the Vette suspension in my truck.
Life happens. it was only a 15 km tow home. It was not my daily. Once you get past the frustration you move on. No one died, life is bigger than that.

 

With my truck currently in its resting position I thought i would tackle things I'm not 100% happy with. One of those is the way my running boards meet the fenders. With the fenders rolling under, to me it just doesn't sit right.
Rear fender




front fender


I bought an old beat up fender so I could use the outer lip. Then did some layout before cutting up my fenders.
I used the same concept for both fenders with this layout.


Then starting cutting up the old fender I bought and made a patch panel.
Ruler is there to keep things in a straight line.

Got it looking good in the face of the patch but not 100% happy yet. So I cut the patch again to make part of it bend out.

Along with some slicing of the rounded part.

Which later got cut off and replaced with another part of my spare fender. After I had the fender bent the way I wanted.
And that pie shape cut out was filled in at the same time, once I had things bent and twisted the way I wanted.


And now I am ready for some filler. Really happy with the way this turned out.




And to make sure nothing bends from anything I added a piece of reinforcing to the bottom of the fender. And that is a small drain hole at the front.