craigslist pic


i bought this rig knowing the rear driver side wheel cylinder was toast. little did i know how much damage it had caused before my drive home. on the way home from purchase, the bearing in that side exploded destroying the axle in the process. while collecting replacement parts i figured i would go ahead and start tackling stuff i could do for free.




it originally came with a massively heavy 4" tube bumper that stuck out about 1.5 ft. ugly as piss, overweight, and destroying any kind of approach angle i decided to just chop it off. i have no real good pics of the original bumper, but i assure you it was hideous and extremely unnecessary. also, the rear bumper was bent all to hell, keeping the tailgate from opening easily. i decided to build new bumpers front and rear out of scrap i had laying around in the garage. it also came with a set of homemade canoe racks that bolt on with the top taken off.

right after hacking off both bumpers and mounts

 

as you can see there is some rust and a bit of body damage to address. currently these are the least of my concerns.

i ripped out a MASSIVE amount of wires snaking their way throughout the rig that were installed for one reason or another. the alarm that came with it, was originally wired into the ignition, but the connection must have rattled loose leaving it impossible to start the truck. the previous owner was an "electrician", but failed to trace the problem. instead he installed a solenoid from a random piece of machinery at his work, and a push button next to the key switch to start it. well, that solenoid didn't work half the time, so i began to trace all the wires finding the problem along with many others. the more i dug into the truck, the worse it got. luckily all of these have been sorted for the most part, so it will now start without hesitation and the majority of the dash now functions. the only thing i now lack is a good set of climate controls, possibly a heater core, and a face plate for the climate controls.

 

i got around to building both bumpers, but haven't got a chance to paint them yet. shortly after bolting them on for a final fit, it started to poor down a fair amount of rain, causing all the rust you see. i tried to keep them as simple as possible, and i was also limited with the material i had in the garage. i reused part of the old hitch mounts that came with the truck, which helped out quite a bit, and saved even more money. i wish i took more pictures during the build process, but i am horrible at being able to stop when in "the zone" fabbing.



















chopped off the rear exhaust pipe right after the muffler and did a quick fix mount to replace the broken/rusted one.



found a broken front sway bar stud on the passenger side. still need to find a cheap bushing and mount set.



i finally got to fix the rear axle setup with the details in this thread here------>CLICK