Building the Lucky Dog

[LuckyDog]

Next set on the rear axle. This was all around May/June of 2016...
1) Axle assembly ready to install
2) Brakes mocked up
3) Brake line fab
4) Brake lines fab #2
5) Complete

 

[LuckyDog]

A little more time travel this morning. Orion transfer case build..
1) Case painted with cast blast instead of the typical black. Almost went with aluma blast to make it look more like a stock unit, but didn't..
2) Check fit input gear
3) Check fit gears on output shaft
4) Check fit output gears in case
5) Final check and assembly in work

 

[LuckyDog]

More Orion TC
1) Getting the transmission adapter bolted up - what fun these two bolts are.
2) All ready for covers
3) Front output housing and trans adapters in place
4) 'Done'
5) Next step was to trim the transmission output shaft to fit.

 

[LuckyDog]

One more and June 2016 will be complete.
1) Old axle removed (anyone looking for an early rear with a centered third member?)
2) New axle in. This all single handed, no helpers around.
3) Had to notch the cross tube in the frame so it's cut, made 3/16 plates to fit, and weld it up. Tack them in
4) All tacked
5) All welded into place.

 

[LuckyDog]

Moving right along to July 2016. Made some good progress with the long weekend.
1) Also had to notch the frame cross tube to clear the rear mounts and adding the scab plates. Four holes in the rear of the plate are so I can weld through and into the remainder of the cross tube in the frame.
2) Scab plate welded into place
3) Locating the front scab plates
4) Front scab plates

tacked into place
5) Empty frame with lots of weld wire consumed

 

[LuckyDog]

More July 2016 frame mods.
1) More plate fab to close up the cutouts in the cross tube
2) Fit and weld on the cross tube
3) All done with the cross tube mods
4) Made a support for the front motor mount so I can establish the correct height/angle of the driveline before welding things into place
5) With a mount in place. The bottom of the mount sits in a gap so it is held in place pretty well (at least good enough for mock up)

 

[LuckyDog]

Now some good stuff. Time to get the engine trans and transfer case fitted to the frame.
1) Swinging all that heavy stuff into place.
2) Using every trick I can think of to hold the driveline in place and still be able to adjust is forward, aft, side to side, and the height.
3) A good shot of why I needed to notch the crossmember tube.
4) A tight fit, but it works
5) Fronts can just sit on the frame for the moment.

 

[LuckyDog]

Still July 2016
1) Rear mounts in.
2) Front mounts in
3) Woohoo, trans engine and tc clear the body
4) Just enough room to barely get a fan in there, maybe... More on that later (summer of 2017..)
5) Threw some today parts on to make sure everything fits so far

 

[LuckyDog]

September 2016, big changes. Need to move the project out of the house. Slap it together with as few bolts as possible so I don't have a monster stack of parts. Borrow a friend's truck and trailer and set out on a road trip.
Finally safely tucked away at its destination. Now it just sits until June 2017 when I finally get 100% moved and can start in on it again.

 

[LuckyDog]

While the project was put on hold for the next 9 months or so, I did manage to keep as least one small part of it on hand to make a little more progress.
1) Aux tank will be the main tank. Getting it marked up for some holes. Need ~45 psi to feed the fuel injection so more modifications are needed.
2) 12 holes done, 5 to go.
3) Check fit fuel pump with sump and sender
4) Sump and sender installed
5) All set for now.

 

[LuckyDog]

June of 2017, big changes afoot. On the plus side, there is now a little more time available to work on the project.

 

[LuckyDog]

So the 10 month break included retirement, moving, a bunch of work on the new place so the project sat. Finally got a re-start in August.
1) Finished up some details on the fuel tank like removing the no longer needed pickup tube evap tubes. A couple of small welds to plug the holes and done.
2) Had some time to think on the whole packaging of the engine, radiator, fan, etc up front. Since I have the truck 5.3 it has the long water pump and related parts. It also has the AC compressor down low on the passenger side fairly close to the pumpkin of the front axle. Sourced a bunch of parts to gain some clearance by going to the short water pump, balancer, and brackets to get accessories up and out of the way. This created a new problem with the VVT since the front cover that contains the VVT actuator will not fit behind the short water pump. So delete VVT.
3) Actually now have barely enough room for hose fan, etc up front. Still tight but doable.
4) While I'm in that far, might as well put in a better cam from an LS2 and delete the AFM as well and get a good look at the internal condition of the very low mile 5.3.
5) Very clean inside.

 

[LuckyDog]

A little more August 2017.
1) A little radiusing in the oil pump outlet while I have access
2) Same for the inlet side
3) Adding 0.010 shim to the oil pump relief to gain another 1-2 psi at idle.
4) Need to change out the valve springs to accommodate the higher lift cam.
5) Upgrading the rocker arm trunnions so that they don't spit a bunch of needle bearings into the engine one day.

 

[LuckyDog]

Holy moly. Now I've done it. Removed the engine wire harness so I can strip it down to a stand alone harness - yikes!

 

[LuckyDog]

Re-assembled most of the engine and ran it with the starter only and verified good oil pressure.

 

[LuckyDog]

Late August 2017
1) Colored spaghetti everywhere. Starting to look at where to mount things and how to route the various wires
2) Time to get the body off the frame so I have some working room.
3) All clear
4) Welded up some wheels for the body so it's not stuck in one place.
5) With the new access, I added on to a factory bracket to make the perfect mount for the fuel pressure regulator

 

[White Stripe]

Are you going to run a evap system?

 

[LuckyDog]

Somehow, no more pictures until mid-October. Oh well, must have been busy with other stuff..
A few pix of experimenting with the wire routing to hide most of it. Made a cardboard mockup of the firewall so I could play with where to mount the computer as well.
Last picture also includes the start of integrating the new chassis harness as well plus moving the computer to the far left.

 

[LuckyDog]

Are you going to run a evap system?

Not planning to run the evap. Everything associated with it is stripped out.

 

[White Stripe]

Not planning to run the evap. Everything associated with it is stripped out.

Oh ok. How are you going to vent the tank?