The rig gets some much needed TLC

Josh S - rear glass, suspension, manual tcase

Hey guys I'm back! Well it's been a while since I've done anything major to my truck and it's high time! For starters, I've been running off of one shock in the rear forever and the shock will bottom out if I hit too hard. It was just a thrown together setup cuz I got some free 5150's so I slapped em on.

Anyways, it now has 1.5" per side widened beams up front with rigid bumpstops, kings, eibach coils still. The front end hangs pretty good right now minus the jacked alignment, but that's alright for now cuz I haven't been driving much.

The imminent plans include:
1) Cleaning up the rear fender hackage, round the corners and trim up the body straight so it looks cleaner, then maybe wrap the edges into the wheelwell.

2) mount the rear fiberglass quarter panels. These will be ordered in the next few days from Fiberwerx. I have the mounts already for the fenders, courtesy of Camburg. These are preferable and less of a PITA that dzus fasteners, and I like the look too.

3)finish rear suspension. This will involve the most work. after a lot of thought over the past year or two(while not having any spare $$), I have decided to keep the shocks under the bed instead of coming up through the floor. I have been in Sirhk100's old X that was set up this way and it hung hard enough for what I plan on doing. I just would like to bomb around the desert mildly(not fullon race speeds) with a bit of jumping in the mix, with also doing trails of course.

Having Kings up front I would like to stick with em, and also match them with 2.5s. I'm having trouble finding some used right now so they may have to be ordered new I'm estimating that I will need around a 10" stroke, but cycling will tell the truth.

I will disassemble the Deaver leaf pack that is on there currently, and just have the main leaf to cycle the suspension, and get some rough measurements off of an "imaginary" upper mount, then I will know the right length to get. A crossmember will need to be fabbed for the shocks to mount to, as well as some of the stock spare tire mount cut off. gooood, my sawzall is getting a bit of dust settling on it

in this same time I will mount my Radflo 2" stroke hydro bumps in the cans I just picked up from Camburg. These will be nice for the harder hits in the whoops or on dropoffs or mild jumps. The short stroke and bodies of these custom bumps work great for mounting under our explorers and fitting underneath the floor. After this is complete I will measure for and order some limit straps to keep my leaf pack and shocks together at droop.

While this doesn't sound like a whole lot, it's going to be a lot of work for me but I know it is going to be awesome!

One more current event lol...I ordered a manual t-case from a guy that will be waiting for me when I get back to Chico. Just need to track down some linkage and a shifter and I'll toss that baby in to get rid of these darn shift motor blues

I'm down in OC right now and won't be back up home to the truck in chico for another week or so, so not really any pics of the stuff...but you can count on this thread having mad amounts of pics once the work starts!!!

 

[Josh S.]

Oh and before anybody talks any crap!!! haha...Fiberwerx was appreciative enough of my business to send me the wrong damn glass. I specifically asked for the early-style taillight glass. What happens??? Well they go ahead and send me **** for a 2nd gen :fire:

Anyone selling some 2nd gen taillights?

 

[section525]

Wouldn't you have to cut the **** out of your 1/4 panel to get second gen lights to fit? I was at the ole pick n pull on friday and they have a nice '97 V8 with front end damage. Don't recall if the lights are there still or not.

Lookin good so far. Actually, I think you'll need to paint it before I'll be seen with you.

 

[Josh S.]

Yes unfortunately I am a white fender kid again ...paint will be on there soon enough, quite possibly this week. You talkin U-pull-it in town? I'll be sure to get my butt over there soon. Think they're open tommorrow?

Yes I will have to cut the **** out of my truck to get those POS's to fit in there, and no I'm not happy about it damnit! Sweeeeeeeeeetttt more body work for me and the ole Lincoln 100 :fire: oh well, its not like the thing doesn't leak like a damn sieve already.

Oh and were you afraid of being seen with me the other day when we went shootin? ya missed out!

 

[FROADER]

Why don't you just use fiberglass or some kind of body filler to match up the fender itself instead of doing all the work to make the new ones fit? Unless of course you want the 2nd gen lights now.

 

[Josh S.]

Well, nope don't really want to go through the trouble to put the new lights in, and don't like the look much either. The thing is, I don't know crap about fiberglassing ****. Allegedly my buddy knows, but you never know. Basically, I don't really want it turning out like crap. I already don't like the idea of using Bondo on my rig haha. My prediction is that it will be a while before the taillight situation gets taken care of.

 

[HappyGilmore]

im jealous of the glass.....looks real good

im curious to why u installed it when it was the wrong year though?

 

[Josh S.]

haha thanks...well i would have been picking it up from their shop if I still lived in SoCal, but now I'm up here in norcal, which tends to complicate getting "prerunner parts"...shocks, glass, straps, bumps...basically everything has to be shipped. It was hard enough for them to get it up to me, DHL, took em some time to find a box, etc. I would have had to ship it back down, then wait and get a new set shipped up. i decided to just grab my ankles and slap em on, and make em work. Plus I'm planning on taking a cute girl out within a week or two, and I want the truck lookin pretty Believe it or not, the chicks don't really dig the big ass square holes(as my friends call them) lol.

Basically I didn't want to deal with all that crap and wanted to get them on and painted asap...I've been waiting for a LONG time to have money and time to get the glass on.

Today I worked on getting the driver's side on, PITA! The body is pretty dented in from the "roll", so fitting the glass straight against the body w/o any gaps is pretty impossible. i shaved it down some to get it better, but it looks like there will still be a gap up front. Oh then as I was working fast to get the third tab mocked up and welded, it started raining so I had to throw all the tools back in the garage in a hurry :fire:

Another thing...I could have sworn the Camburg washer things came in sets of 12, but no they came in sets of 10. I used six on the first side(bare minimum) and only have 4 left. Looks like I have to order up some more in a hurry.

Oh and Happy, the glass isn't for the wrong year. It's for a 1st gen exploder, but a lot of people put conversion kits on, front and rear to update it to the 2nd gen look. This means chopping out the taillight area in the rear, and doing a whole lot more work up front. There is a thread on Rebel where my buddy did the 2nd gen conversion up front if you're interested in looking. Thread here I ordered the old style because I preferred it, but oh well I will figure something out

 

[HappyGilmore]

cool man sounds good. i know what you mean about the whole shipping hassle.

ps- i hope those fenders get you some action with that cute girl

 

[Josh S.]

If this doesn't work I'm lowering it

 

[Stic-o]

haha thanks...well i would have been picking it up from their shop if I still lived in SoCal, but now I'm up here in norcal

When did you move to Nor Cal? I must have missed that

 

[section525]

If this doesn't work I'm lowering it

Then I'll bring my virgin sawz-all over tomorrow!

 

[Josh S.]

When did you move to Nor Cal? I must have missed that

Steve I moved on up here last August to go to Chico state. I am studying construction management up here and pulling good grades instead of wasting away more of my life doing GE crap at CSUF. 2nd semester starts again here in a week. Slight chance I will be at T-haven...Section525???? :roll:

Man Johhny you really need to chop the hell outta something I can sense it! Maybe you can give it a go when I get them taillights goin.

Ya wanna go to the ole' junkyard tommorrow? I need to see if I can ***** some linkage off a 1350

 

[section525]

Let's do it. I have nothin goin' on. Maybe I'll try and pull a clock spring that'll work for me.

 

[Josh S.]

yah whatever that means ...gimme a ring sometime after 9 in the morning, I probly won't get up before 11 or so if you don't wake my lazy butt up I'm sure I have to work sometime tommorrow, so the earlier the better.

 

[Josh S.]

Well last semester took up a lot of truck time with classes and work and stuff, but I've been paying more attention to the truck now.

The rear glass is on now in case ya haven't seen the pic in johnnys SAS thread. Painted it with some cheap spraypaint from Napa which isn't lookin all that great, but the whole thing will get done a little later down the line...

A few days ago me and a buddy made a stand and a mount in some concrete for his JD2 tubing bender. Lets just say some cool chit is gonna be built soon.

While running around town getting stuff taken care of for that my truck kinda broke down. We limped it home then I tore into it yesterday. The driver's side outer spindle nut had backed out all the way to the splined washer/clip and had ground off some metal inside my nice warn hub!! So thats what that narly noise was haha!

Got that taken care of and regreased the outer wheel bearing. Checked out the other side to make sure it was good too. the grease was all kinda dried up with a lot of dirt and grime and nasty rusty colored crap everywhere. I've decided it was from all the mud and water and snow I played around in this past winter up here. Cleaned everything up on that and repacked the outer bearing(a la 410 fortune style ...then i noticed my inner bearing adjuster nut had it's "post" break off, so I had to go to napa and get a replacement set. soo everything is good now pretty much. Still need to do balljoints and grease TRE's.

After driving it today and yesterday I have a new wobble in the steering. Could it be from rotating my tires the other day? I rotated them front to back, this is correct right? I have not balanced them yet but I think I will do that tommorrow and see if it makes a diff.

I welded up a Flowmaster single chamber muffler last week that I scored for free from a buddy. It doesn't sound much different than no muffler, but it starts up better now and seems "healthier".

I'm headin down to socal for a couple weeks to visit family and work, so I'm thinking about coming back with a set of new Kings for the rear, cuz its so damn hard to get anyone to ship used ones up. They would rather sell locally, and I don't blame them.

I will also be fabbing a radius arm crossmember to beef up the new bracket me and Section525 made the other day. I have the tubing and picked up some flanges from a local fab shop so I just need the time now.

When I return in a couple weeks, it is time for the rear suspension to get fixed up so stay tuned!

Manual T-case linkage is still not complete, need to "borrow" Section's piece off his t-case and fab one up.

Long post sorry, but it's been a while.

 

[Josh S.]

Updates

:d

 

[Josh S.]

Well after three or four months of downtime with school, work and getting distracted by a new dirtbike, I finally got the itch to fab again and button up the truck some more.

I have the thing up on stands now, working on those rear shocks and bumps. Should be done by this weekend.

Last night we got the frame plated in on both sides and the lower shockmounts done. Today I'm going to try and get the uppoer crossmember done. Wish me luck!

Here is what it looked like before...

This is how we keep warm in Chico...

New rear shock tabs...I have the leaf pack taken apart down to the main leaf so I can cycle the axle. The plywood pieces help with not having to tighten down the u-bolts forever, and easier to line the axle up...

plated in frame, and a good shot of my pretty shackles, courtesy of the boys over at the Section525 fab shop...welding upside down on the frame with my lil 110 welder was a major PITA but it will work...

plenty of room to work with the stock rear crossmember and spare tire thingy removed...

Im gonna try to get the uppers done tonight and get the shocks on, then airbumps on monday. Stay tuned for pics(this time it won't take 4 months)

 

[410Fortune]

sweetness
Trucks coming along real nice Josh, is that exhaust dump legal in cali? hahahahaha

 

[Josh S.]

haha thanks man....before it didn't even have a muffler and it passed smog, so I guess that means its cool!

 

[Josh S.]

Upper crossmember is welded in, upper shock mounts are cut out and drilled, just need to be grinded. Shocks should be fully mounted my tommorrow!