sirhk100
Explorer Addict
- Joined
- December 19, 2000
- Messages
- 1,776
- Reaction score
- 1
- City, State
- las vegas
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '91
Figured I'd post some pictures of one of my project vehicles. I haven't decided on a color yet but long term, all said and done it should look similar to this to get an idea of where I'm going.
So that's the end goal and that's not my truck... Here's my truck...
It's been passed thru a couple hands over the years, here's a few pictures I've found of it in the past while it was growing up I guess you could say...
At this stage the truck had the tried and true Ford straight 6 under the hood and was a garage fabbed truck. It was sold from the original owner to a friend of mine who used it as a shock testing/development platform for his company. During this time the straight 6 couldn't run the speeds wanted so he swapped in a vortec V8. This extra power lead to the chassis basically falling apart. He said he had welds breaking, tubes falling off, etc... Never was able to get the motor running well and then he flopped it onto the roof and at that point he'd had enough. He took the truck to a very skilled fabricator and turned him loose on it. They cut the existing cage work out and rebuilt the whole chassis and swapped on a new cab out of the junkyard to replace the damaged one from the rollover. He swapped in a 6.0L Chevy LQ9 out of the escalade/H2 platform and mated it to a 4L80E that was heavily built by a top name in the offroad race transmission builder scene. It was converted to a full hydro setup without the electronic controls. At this stage it was returned to my friend and pushed in the back of his machine shop needing plumbed and wired. It sat there for almost 7 years and then I had the chance to pick it up. I got it in my possession thinking it would be easy to finish up and get in the dirt... Little did I know... So I took delivery of the truck looking like this...
This truck has a spool in the rear and just getting it up my driveway and turned and into the garage was a project. LOL, good thing our race truck has a solid bumper!!! LOL
So my first plans were to tear it down, clean up the rusting chassis and get it all clear coated. During that process I'd take note of everything needed and get my materials and jobs list created.
The engine externally was dirty from 6+ years of collecting dust in a machine shop.
But internally it literally looked brand new... Remember those details for later!
So I start the tear down and clean up process... This was done during evenings and weekends as I have a full time job too.
Scotchbright and WD40 become my new best friend for a few nights in a row and I added some sore arms to the mix. Followed the clean up with a wipe down of brake cleaner and the 4 coats of rustoleum gloss clear spray paint. I don't know how well it's going to hold up and it may eventually get painted a color but I really like the raw metal look so I'm going with this for now.
I stripped the truck bare basically from the firewall back but the front, I didn't pull the motor, just worked around it all.
Now that it's not all raw steel I pushed it out and went to town with the pressure washer cleaning up the rest of the truck.
Reassembled the rear and during the process took note of a game plan of what was needed to button up the plumbing of the coolers, fuel cell, etc... Also took note of wiring needs as well.
During all of this, I found that the original frame the truck was built on a frame that was bent. I was able to straighten things out and work around that fact with a couple changes. One involved moving the driver's side beam over a bit which meant I had to rebuild the steering. Someday down the road I would like to redo it again and make it so I can get the major bend out of the one tie rod but this will do for now, it's 1.5" x .375w DOM steel, this stuff is STRONG even with the bend in it.
Another thing I had to do... Sitting in the truck, I didn't like the pedal placement. I relocated the brake pedal closer to the firewall and redid the gas pedal mount too.
I know, not that exciting...
I don't plan to race the truck but if I ever wanted to, the cage has to be fully welded all the way around and the original builder hadn't done that so I figured, nows the best time to do it if I'm going to so...
With that out of the way I was able to deal with these...
Put the roof back in place and will let an expert clean up my mess eventually...
At this point I got my hands on some shocks... 2.5" coilovers front and rear, 3.5" bypasses front and rear.
They're not the sexiest but they're functional and that's what matters most to me!
Started cycling the front and rear suspension and the rear mounts as they were worked out perfect for the shocks I had, the fronts ended up needing some modifications.
Having the shocks in hand and mounted up I was able to finalize the suspension and ended up with 21" of front travel and 29" in the rear.
I also mounted some rear hydraulic bumpstops too.
At this point I started getting into my wiring. I wanted both the center console and the dash to be basically removable with minimal plugs as complete assemblies. The entire truck needed wired from radiator fan at the front to the cooler fans at the rear to everything inside the cab.
Main plug for the console...
And some wiring notes. BTW, I'm colorblind so this is sometimes a challenge! LOL
Using a 3d printer at my work I made some main power distribution blocks.
Pulled wires all over to approximate locations and used notes to keep track of everything.
Somewhere in the mix I built myself a roof mounted light bar that flips up and down controlled by a switch in the cab on the fly...
They're all HIDs...
Got some bedsides mounted up and fabbed up a rear bumper setup and spare tire carrier.
AIR BRAKES!!!!
Just kidding, I wanted to have a cargo area for gear, tools, spares, etc... I'll eventually fill in the space under the spares with a fully enclosed aluminum box with a hinged top as well. I can lock the spares in the down position and then everything is secure.
About this time I finish up the wiring and the plumbing and fired the truck up for it's first time ever with the new motor and trans. I primed the engine block cause it had sat for so long and tossed a very tiny bit of oil down each spark plug hole and turned it over by hand a bit. I then cranked it a bit with the starter with the ignition and fuel pump off. Hit the button for reals for the first time and with just manifolds it fires to life! VERY loud but it runs!!! I shut it down, do a full inspection, everything looks good and then go for a full heat cycle. Fire it up and let it run for about 15 minutes actually till the engine oil cooler came up to temp. Everything seems good... Pull it out on the street and load it on my trailer to go have the exhaust done.
Then... It went bad... I fire it up at the exhaust shop and instantly over the straight manifold exhaust think I hear something. I do a slight rev and the motor locks up solid. Like can't turn it at the crank with the plugs out solid. My drive home, I'm literally sick to my stomach.
First sign of something really wrong...
Well, let's see how bad this gets...
two broken rods and a shattered piston. I also find a hairline crack in the block. DAMN!!!! BRAND NEW CRATE ENGINE WASTED!!! I turn it in for core and pickup a 130K mile LQ9 out of an '04 Escalade from LQK Recyclers.
The fun continues... I fire that one up and INSTANTLY it has a knock. I work thru the warranty with LKQ and after a bit of a hassle I'm happy and long story short, I rebuild that motor finding a slightly bent rod and a cracked piston in that one too! WTF!!!
Hone the cylinders, replace the rod and piston, new rings, hot tanked the heads, fresh valve grind, new seals, arp head bolts, and slap it together.
Fire it up, and it purrs to life like it should've on day one!!!! Button up a bunch of stuff and nervously take it out for a maiden voyage. I'd driven it around the block but that's it...
Hit a local spot just to run it thru some small bumps and put it thru the gears. Alls good for about 15 minutes and then it starts running like crap! Haul it home, find one injector stuck open... And then it clicks... Could this have been the cause of the two previous blow ups? Did I hydrolock both of them? Very well could've and it's the only thing that explains it. Neither engines had any witness marks of an issue. I replaced the injectors and all seems great since.
So far I've had it out in the real desert twice and out of the box it seems great! I've been playing with shock settings and have been getting it more and more dialed in.
I have a race coming up for our other truck I've been putting all my effort in recently but mid march I hope to get back on this truck to button up getting it dialed in. I want to get the rear storage trunk area fabbed up and then get a front clip mounted on it so it looks like a truck again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dpBP0pnCgc
5 minutes of watching it do it's thing from a cool angle in my opinion...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGSmq2Chzk
The end...
So that's the end goal and that's not my truck... Here's my truck...
It's been passed thru a couple hands over the years, here's a few pictures I've found of it in the past while it was growing up I guess you could say...
At this stage the truck had the tried and true Ford straight 6 under the hood and was a garage fabbed truck. It was sold from the original owner to a friend of mine who used it as a shock testing/development platform for his company. During this time the straight 6 couldn't run the speeds wanted so he swapped in a vortec V8. This extra power lead to the chassis basically falling apart. He said he had welds breaking, tubes falling off, etc... Never was able to get the motor running well and then he flopped it onto the roof and at that point he'd had enough. He took the truck to a very skilled fabricator and turned him loose on it. They cut the existing cage work out and rebuilt the whole chassis and swapped on a new cab out of the junkyard to replace the damaged one from the rollover. He swapped in a 6.0L Chevy LQ9 out of the escalade/H2 platform and mated it to a 4L80E that was heavily built by a top name in the offroad race transmission builder scene. It was converted to a full hydro setup without the electronic controls. At this stage it was returned to my friend and pushed in the back of his machine shop needing plumbed and wired. It sat there for almost 7 years and then I had the chance to pick it up. I got it in my possession thinking it would be easy to finish up and get in the dirt... Little did I know... So I took delivery of the truck looking like this...
This truck has a spool in the rear and just getting it up my driveway and turned and into the garage was a project. LOL, good thing our race truck has a solid bumper!!! LOL
So my first plans were to tear it down, clean up the rusting chassis and get it all clear coated. During that process I'd take note of everything needed and get my materials and jobs list created.
The engine externally was dirty from 6+ years of collecting dust in a machine shop.
But internally it literally looked brand new... Remember those details for later!
So I start the tear down and clean up process... This was done during evenings and weekends as I have a full time job too.
Scotchbright and WD40 become my new best friend for a few nights in a row and I added some sore arms to the mix. Followed the clean up with a wipe down of brake cleaner and the 4 coats of rustoleum gloss clear spray paint. I don't know how well it's going to hold up and it may eventually get painted a color but I really like the raw metal look so I'm going with this for now.
I stripped the truck bare basically from the firewall back but the front, I didn't pull the motor, just worked around it all.
Now that it's not all raw steel I pushed it out and went to town with the pressure washer cleaning up the rest of the truck.
Reassembled the rear and during the process took note of a game plan of what was needed to button up the plumbing of the coolers, fuel cell, etc... Also took note of wiring needs as well.
During all of this, I found that the original frame the truck was built on a frame that was bent. I was able to straighten things out and work around that fact with a couple changes. One involved moving the driver's side beam over a bit which meant I had to rebuild the steering. Someday down the road I would like to redo it again and make it so I can get the major bend out of the one tie rod but this will do for now, it's 1.5" x .375w DOM steel, this stuff is STRONG even with the bend in it.
Another thing I had to do... Sitting in the truck, I didn't like the pedal placement. I relocated the brake pedal closer to the firewall and redid the gas pedal mount too.
I know, not that exciting...
I don't plan to race the truck but if I ever wanted to, the cage has to be fully welded all the way around and the original builder hadn't done that so I figured, nows the best time to do it if I'm going to so...
With that out of the way I was able to deal with these...
Put the roof back in place and will let an expert clean up my mess eventually...
At this point I got my hands on some shocks... 2.5" coilovers front and rear, 3.5" bypasses front and rear.
They're not the sexiest but they're functional and that's what matters most to me!
Started cycling the front and rear suspension and the rear mounts as they were worked out perfect for the shocks I had, the fronts ended up needing some modifications.
Having the shocks in hand and mounted up I was able to finalize the suspension and ended up with 21" of front travel and 29" in the rear.
I also mounted some rear hydraulic bumpstops too.
At this point I started getting into my wiring. I wanted both the center console and the dash to be basically removable with minimal plugs as complete assemblies. The entire truck needed wired from radiator fan at the front to the cooler fans at the rear to everything inside the cab.
Main plug for the console...
And some wiring notes. BTW, I'm colorblind so this is sometimes a challenge! LOL
Using a 3d printer at my work I made some main power distribution blocks.
Pulled wires all over to approximate locations and used notes to keep track of everything.
Somewhere in the mix I built myself a roof mounted light bar that flips up and down controlled by a switch in the cab on the fly...
They're all HIDs...
Got some bedsides mounted up and fabbed up a rear bumper setup and spare tire carrier.
AIR BRAKES!!!!
Just kidding, I wanted to have a cargo area for gear, tools, spares, etc... I'll eventually fill in the space under the spares with a fully enclosed aluminum box with a hinged top as well. I can lock the spares in the down position and then everything is secure.
About this time I finish up the wiring and the plumbing and fired the truck up for it's first time ever with the new motor and trans. I primed the engine block cause it had sat for so long and tossed a very tiny bit of oil down each spark plug hole and turned it over by hand a bit. I then cranked it a bit with the starter with the ignition and fuel pump off. Hit the button for reals for the first time and with just manifolds it fires to life! VERY loud but it runs!!! I shut it down, do a full inspection, everything looks good and then go for a full heat cycle. Fire it up and let it run for about 15 minutes actually till the engine oil cooler came up to temp. Everything seems good... Pull it out on the street and load it on my trailer to go have the exhaust done.
Then... It went bad... I fire it up at the exhaust shop and instantly over the straight manifold exhaust think I hear something. I do a slight rev and the motor locks up solid. Like can't turn it at the crank with the plugs out solid. My drive home, I'm literally sick to my stomach.
First sign of something really wrong...
Well, let's see how bad this gets...
two broken rods and a shattered piston. I also find a hairline crack in the block. DAMN!!!! BRAND NEW CRATE ENGINE WASTED!!! I turn it in for core and pickup a 130K mile LQ9 out of an '04 Escalade from LQK Recyclers.
The fun continues... I fire that one up and INSTANTLY it has a knock. I work thru the warranty with LKQ and after a bit of a hassle I'm happy and long story short, I rebuild that motor finding a slightly bent rod and a cracked piston in that one too! WTF!!!
Hone the cylinders, replace the rod and piston, new rings, hot tanked the heads, fresh valve grind, new seals, arp head bolts, and slap it together.
Fire it up, and it purrs to life like it should've on day one!!!! Button up a bunch of stuff and nervously take it out for a maiden voyage. I'd driven it around the block but that's it...
Hit a local spot just to run it thru some small bumps and put it thru the gears. Alls good for about 15 minutes and then it starts running like crap! Haul it home, find one injector stuck open... And then it clicks... Could this have been the cause of the two previous blow ups? Did I hydrolock both of them? Very well could've and it's the only thing that explains it. Neither engines had any witness marks of an issue. I replaced the injectors and all seems great since.
So far I've had it out in the real desert twice and out of the box it seems great! I've been playing with shock settings and have been getting it more and more dialed in.
I have a race coming up for our other truck I've been putting all my effort in recently but mid march I hope to get back on this truck to button up getting it dialed in. I want to get the rear storage trunk area fabbed up and then get a front clip mounted on it so it looks like a truck again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dpBP0pnCgc
5 minutes of watching it do it's thing from a cool angle in my opinion...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGSmq2Chzk
The end...