Its not to often I feel like an A$$. But I wil say in my defense I did follow the diagram

 

Like gibby said, I have had a pretty long week trying to buttom up alot of the needed stuff to make this thing move under its own power.. I finally got the rear brakes fully done. I ended up ripping every chunk of it out to re-do it so there will be no failures now (knock on wood)





As you can see, I ran the lines down the track bar for the utmost protection (It seems dale likes to tear up rear brake lines )

The lines at the rear diff hug the housing pretty tight and the rubber portions at the calipers are retained by the spring plates(not shown, I know crappy pic)

 

Yep, the diagram was not very clear. I only laugh cause I did the same thing and because I didn't have to go spend mega bucks to replace it.

If that's the only mistake in all this work, praise the LORD!

 

SO now that the rear brakes are done, I decided to jump back into the engine compartment to finish up the wiring on the drivers side. The relays are for lights and fan control along with a 50amp circuit breaker (also act as a small junction block)



Here is the fan control switch in the head (silver tape is for heat protection, have had very good luck with it). Unfortunately, either the switch is too low of a temp, or it has failed because the fan IMO comes on way too soon (didn't have enough time to dig into it)

 

Can I get an AMEN

 

So, the next step (one I almost forgot about) was to modify the accel pedal. SInce I am using a GM cable, the cable was longer by roughly 2" that the stock one from the firewall to the portion of the pedal where the cable pops in. Soall I did(and what I have done in the past) is lop the pedal about 1.2" from the end and move it back 1 7/8" by adding some 3/8" material. Some may think this is weak, but it hasn't failed yet. And if you also plan on using a GM cable, you must drill the slotted hole out to 3/8" and the cable pops right in smoothly.. I also had to bend the portion of the pedal near the foot pad since the stroke is a little more alos (I should have left it, gibby needs limitauon,lol)

 

As many of you on POR have found, JESS at highanle driveline does some kick A$$ work, so last week I got the needed measurements and gibby odered new shafts from JESS.

Both shafts are 1 ton CV's to 1350 joints, with the front being a long slip and the smallest diameter thick wall tube he could make work for clearance at the tranny pan..

Here is the new front output flange. It clears the x-member by 1/8", wow, talk about CLOSE.



Now for the rear, I ran into a couple issues..

First off, since the new flange was pretty big, it was rubbing up against the rear heater hoses.



I got lucky and was able to trim about 1" from both hoses and it gave me roughly 1/2" clearance from the flange..



But with the rear CV, it brought on another problem (I was expecting a 1310 U-joint at the t-case) and that being the rear horseshoe x-member kinda being in the way(or at least part of it). It was enough to where I was unable to bolt the rear driveshaft up, so for temp reasons we put on the front driveshaft to make it mobile for now

So now that the flanges are on, I filled both cases with lube and filled the tranny (with the lokar dipstick tube, its kinda slow process) and ops, overfilled the dang thing. So with these done, it was ready to drive and biggy was ready to haul it off for exhaust work today, but we came across one little problem. I followed a generic diagram for the premier alternator and I kinda fried a diode in it. After calling them and they ran me thru the system, thats when we found the problem.. But,we got lucky and gibby just happen to have another one, but it was for a 22re and the casing was a little different, so I was able to tear both units down and swap the internals (not the stator and armature). So we thru it back on and now we got charging action. So we bled the brakes, and it was ready to roll..

 

Well, this thread would not be complete without dale driving the rig for the first time(can you see the S**T eating grin from here(and I think he was more excited about the open exhaust,lol)

 

BTW, the guys at Premier Power Welder are great! I've called them several times for support and they've always been very helpful and very knowledgeable.

 

The thread's not complete yet!

 

So since the rig is actually out of the shop, I cleaned the huge mess up, and since gibby got a spare box, I decided to get it ready for the hydro assist setup..



Damn these things are messy



So it was tore apart, it was time to attack it with a drill. Here is the one port that you have to be carefull with the depth. As you can see you really need to nail it right in the moddle of the port(and not go too deep). Soryy for the poor pic, I could not get a good focused pic



So in the morning I will re-assemble the box and have it ready since the rig should be back tommorow night..

 

That is awesome! Glad to see it's moving under its own power. That rig is definitely badass.

 

Amen .

 

I got the exhaust completed today. I hope Crash will be able to post some pics. I drove it from Everett to Goldbar. I realized that I was doing 60 uphill and I wasn't floored!

 

60 is that all i woulda figured you'd be just jamming to get it out there to be finished

 

Hmm, you ever tried driving a highly modifed 2wd truck in front wheel drive only? It's quite a trip keeping it on the road. I was still listening for every little noise that I could waiting to see what might go wrong, since it was no where near really being ready to drive on the road.

 

just joking with ya I wouldnt want to push it to hard either, just in case something or someone(another driver) did something stupid and i woildnt want to see anyone hurt or rigs damaged

 

Miss the manual transmission yet?

 

Yeah, I kept trying to put the clutch in LOL!

 

Ok, time to get off my butt and post more stuff

Ok, I don't know what all the hub hub is with these balls in the steering box, took me like 5 minutes to get them into place and had no problem putting the worm type gear back into it..




And here is the box, all painted and ready