Recent content by MudHooligan

I picked up a 1998 5.7 Vortec builder a couple weeks ago. I debated back and forth over the 5.3 Chevy and the older 5.7 Vortec for a while. Finally settled on the 5.7 and plan to run Edelbrock pro flow 4 fuel injection. The newer Chevy platforms have really impressive performance and have a...

While I’ve been sitting idle on my 73’ build i ordered some upgrades that I’m going to fold in over the next year. I picked up some 95’ 80 series axles and a 93’ Chevy Nv4500 tranny with the Extra low 1st gear. Time to hit up Advance Adapters for the tranny and learn 3 link front and 4 link...

i sized them to slip in the inner lip along the edge on both sides.

Sorry for the very very late reply, been home schooling 3 teens that just finished so i can start my playing again. I only inserted the 3’ wide strips as temporary supports so not really attached. I made a bending form out of plywood. I took my router jig and made 3 circles 28” in diameter...

Here are the basics. The hole i cut in the roof was 30” wide. On the driver side it went ~ 1/2 way around the edge curve leading to the drip edge. On the passenger side is stopped ~2” short of the radius. I went to a metal supplier in Denver and had them shear a 32” x 56” piece of 18 gauge...

A couple other notes on the header. When i recieved it the welds where the individual header tubes meet the mounting plate to the engine, where not planar and thickness varied over .050” across the 6 cylinders. Since it was the weekend and I didn’t want to go to work and sneak on a mill, i...

I have been running a few experiments for stripping parts down to metal. I hope to have some results next week. I have caustic soda in one tub and Electrolysis in the other. Caustic soda is simply 3 tablespoons per gallon at room temp. Electrolysis is arm and hammer washing soda (not baking...

Then the biggest risk so far...the roof. I wish i would have taken a picture of the 1” plus thick bondo across the roof that was caved in. It had been there for a few decades with water getting under and rotted out the roof. So i had to cut out a 30” wide panel across the width of the car and...

I bought a header off of eBay and installed it. I found a s bend fitting off amazon for under $10 that was great fro the jog around the motor mounts and tranny. Walker 52358 Welded to the fitting that came with the header. I‘ve never been good with tuning carbs so I installed an O2 sensor from...

its been about 6 weeks so thats 3 weekends of work (with a toddler running around I get every other Saturday) stripped the rest of the floors to bare metal, painted and put down some truck bed liner And seam sealer.

Here’s that picture of under the rear seat. Slathered on seam sealer over the lap weld and shot some truck bed liner (rattle can) over the top. Needs another coat, next weekend...

I'll snap some pictures this week for you, but it may not be where you are interested. going from the rear seat passenger floor, there is one step up to the level the rear seat covers and then another step up to the cargo area from under the rear seat. I did not modify the area from under the...

Thanks for the support! I’m going to try some of that weld through primer.

My biggest lesson learned (besides keeping bandaids and super glue around when doing sheet metal work) is welding 101, clean metal!!! I thought i was clever and painted the bottom side with a self priming truck bed liner. I dirtied up all the welds RUSH55 nailed it on the grinding wheels adding...

Well I got my floor panel fab done, the fit is good enough for this build. Took some time figuring out the bead roller (19” motorized from Eastwood) and what i really learned is it is going to take a lot of time to ever be any good. But these are good enough for a trail rig.