Builds Farm Fresh LV

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Following with interest!
 
I third Cult's comment. Following with--

..wait.
 
So now it is on to the steering. I was able to get an 80 steering gear for a decent price and talked with Lance over at Iron Pig to get the backing/ mounting plate and tubes as well as the telescopic shaft and a bearing to fit in the end of the steering tube. With the kit from IPOR comes a paper pattern you can print out to locate the gear box holes. In this position the box interfered with the front bib and the marker light. The template is for the 60 box and the 80 is a bit bigger but has the same hole pattern. So I decided to move things around a little. Hopefully I have not :poop:ed on myself? I removed the shock tower and slid the box back so it clears all the bib and lights. I also rotated it to get the pitman arm up closer to the frame for maximum clearance. I got a ford F250 shock mount and cut it down to size so it measured the same as the other shock tower. I lined it up with the axle mount and welded it in. Ok, I put a couple screws in for placement and then had a friend come by and weld it in. He went over all the welds on my motor and trans mounts as well so the crappy weld in the last pictures has been cleaned up! Mocked up the tube and cut it to length. Then put the shaft in and cut that to length as well. So far it seems like all is good to go. I am curious about "bump steer" and whether I will have an issue with that? Not sure really what causes that?

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This is a very common conversion here in Aus, except we mostly do it with 60 series boxes. Looks pretty ship shape to me. In fact, the 80 box is probably better as it is bigger and has a flatter pitman arm!
 
Actually, I find most of them are canted forward a touch.
 
Next phase: Bodywork! Every LV owners exercise in denial!! I had a classic case. The pictures of the body I got from JackA were the same everyone else saw and yet I chose to see the parts that were there and not the parts that weren't. You look all over mud and find the most rust bitten ragged out vehicles and tell yourself it is not as bad as that one so it must be fine! I am not so skilled in the ways of sheet metal so I called in the cavalry in the form of Kyle Yocum....I had to wait a couple months but I am so glad I did! I tell myself I could have done this and that may have been partially true but the time and the quality was worth it. It would have taken me close to a year to do what he did in a month. And the quality of the job is, well, professional and not first timer learning the trade.

The bad and the ugly:

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As soon as I can! :steer: I hope to have the frame back all nice and powder coated soon. I will need to talk to Kyle again though :(:( .Found some extra goodness behind the remnants of the headliner! I was really surprised because this was the only spot that was bad and I could not see why. Then I went back through the pictures from JackA documenting the "harvesting" of the Farm Fresh LV and saw that she was not sitting level and that was the low corner. But that may have been a blessing in disguise because the rest of the roof is not bad?

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Wow, the metal work is outstanding. He should have made 2 of everything and I would have drove down and bought the 2nd set of replacement panels. Everything being replaced seems like the areas of universal rot.
 
XtremeVA, Yeah I am trying to get him to produce a few of them the next time I have the LV there. I told him there is interest in these parts. He seemed mildly interested and said he would think about it and take some more measurements when I brought mine back. I'll keep pushing and at least get him to price it out.
 

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