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Opened up the rust on the cab this week, with no holds barred...as I'm sure you can guess, it was a little worse than I imagined.
We went till midnight Friday, back at it all day Saturday. Really huge job. Thanks Dave & Larry!
So here is the finished product, i ground everything down today, next is seam sealing everything and then protective paint.
Waahoo!
Putting this thing back together is so close i can almost taste it, moving out of the place we're in June 1 so i have a lot to do and not much time but hey, such is life.
That's all for now, hope everyone had a fun weekend, yap atchya soon.
Big moment for me last night. It's been 7 long months of carefully pulling this thing apart, cutting, blasting, coating, welding...getting that foundation sound again.
Turning the page, the first new part went on last night, the cab and the frame are now joined again, with prothane poly mounts.
About that lack of content over the past week and a half?
Right, So in putting on the leaf springs (ome) and shackles (warrior) I find the shackles are a tight fit around the bushing and sleeve on the leaf side, and i mean really tight. Fittingly, there was a note about this in the shackle instructions, and how it can be an "...extremely frustrating experience". Haha, They weren't kidding, in the process of working the shackle on I sledged my thumb. Now I'm no stranger to hammering digits, I've had a quite few blackened nails, but this was a doozy. Add an infection after the fact and long story short, I didn't get much done last week.
The thing is still all swollen up like a balloon but the throbbing is finally gone so i got back to it this weekend. Starting with finishing off that leaf install
Then the new upper control arms went on.
Would have liked to dive farther into the front or rear end this weekend, but i'm still waiting on parts.
So then it was on to the 3vz, i needed to remove the engine mounts and oil pan, not too much trouble.
Gave the rusted old leaf springs one last job
Got the pan all cleaned up then moved on to another random little job, replaced the steering column dust boot. Old one was totally gone, probably the culprit of all my floorpan rust on the drivers side.
gah, photo upload isnt working...
see ya soon folks.
Dad came by to help this weekend which was a big help, got rid of the 3vz and all the old rusty bits, did a dump run, got the 5vz up on an engine stand, put on lower control arms, front shocks, and prepped knuckles.
Buttoning up more little things while i wait for the rear diff and front hubs to come back.
Painting! Always fun, here's the ever-growing pile:
In there is the bumper, which i ground down, rust converted, and then hit with flat black enamel. The grill also got the flat black treatment, thinking it will look nice against the bedliner green on the body panels.
Got the headlight upgrade kit from marlin (among other things!) So those went on. Can't wait to see the difference, the stock lights were sooooo bad.
Knuckles! Put the ball joints on and slammed those in, funny thing about that, on the lower Ball joints, in order to get the castle nuts high enough to insert the cotter pins, i had to over-torque them, a lot. Strange as the top ones (both moog) didn't have that issue...meh whatever, they're on and they move around just fine.
Then torsion bars went on, struggled with that for a while because i was Trying to put the LH anchor arm on the RH side
Things are generally pretty easy if you do them the right way...generally.
Steering relay rod got sinched up
Then I tore the guts out of the old tailgate so i could finally throw it on the floor, ahhhh.
Here's the parts warehouse...at least it's getting smaller now!
03-18-2018, 03:20 PM
