My first 40: Building up Barney the purple '77

[77mustard40]

Looks great Galen, hoping to get mine wrapped up by March 15th

 

[subzali]

My freeborn red ‘77 has been 3 shades of purple in its lifetime! What’s up with that coincidence?!

PS It’s now silver...

 

[bottombracket]

Does my 40 have a cocaine habit?

 

[Jetlander]

Once I got it inspected I drove it at highway speeds...stable, no death wobble...the lift and 33’s feel great. I even passed another car.

Broken down and on the side of the road doesn’t count... Nice rig!

 

[bottombracket]

I’ve gone digital: LED headlights for the 40. Thanks to @davegonz for the eBay link- @Racer65 was out of stock in his store and I feel like I’m cheating on him. Roger, I’ll be faithful to you in the future.

Installation took 25 minutes door to door, including the obligatory neighborhood drive and headlight adjustment. WAY more light. This is a 0.5 banana job and I now am running LEDs on all of my cruisers.

I’m firmly convinced that, dollar for dollar, LED headlights remain the best money I can spend on my trucks to improve overall safety on the road.

Almost ready for Roundup.

 

[davegonz]

Looks good, Galen. The only thing I didn't like about them is that they protrude out more than the stock lights. I installed some stone guards to hide them a bit.

 

[davegonz]

Did you get the Narva's worked out?

 

[bottombracket]

Didn’t have time. Plus, I need a set of taillight protectors so I don’t crush them at K2 with my amateur wheeling skills.

Wiring in the Narvas and hooking up my new-to-me Trollhole carb (thanks @greenbeast) will be the post-Roundup projects.

 

[davegonz]

Thanks for reminding me. I have a set of new tail light protectors that didn't fit.

 

[bottombracket]

Roundup 2018. Was it really 3 months ago???

 

[bottombracket]

After a shop day at @davegonz ’s with @Sea Knight, @tucker74, and @Spallet, Barney rolled 100,000 miles on the way home.

It’s like a whole new truck, except purple.

 

[JohnBoy]

Great adventure just starting.

 

[KUJO85]

Mind posting up some photos of the seatbelts and rear bench? I’ve got a con-ferr bench I’ll be installing soon and have kids aged 5-3-1 that’d is like to have back there for short trips around town....

 

[dad4x4]

Always jealous when I see you Texas guys getting together for a cruiser wrenching day. I'm in the middle of nowhere now surrounded by jeepers....
Anyway, your cruiser is looking better with the change in suspension and tires/wheels. When do you plan to repaint.... or is it such a figure now that a repaint is off the table...?

 

[bottombracket]

If you have a Con-ferr, look and see if @tucker74 has posted any pics. He installed eye bolts on the undersea carrier that he can strap car seats to. I have a Little Passengers seat with integral seatbelts that I need to install - but that company has just gone out of business. They are around on Craigslist, eBay, and MUD occasionally.

I planned on repainting Barney....before I got 2 60 series projects. I keep saying next year...it's a 2 year plan....the frame-off is a 5 year plan....

So he may be purple for a while yet.

 

[bottombracket]

So today I finished a project that that was at least two years in the making. Sometime way a long time ago, I bought some Narva LED taillights from @TRAIL TAILOR. They say around for a while as I just didn’t have time to pull the pigtail harnesses off and solder them together.

My left rear tail light OEM gasket was leaking, and I kept blowing bulbs. So it was time to get my hands dirty and finally install them.

I actually started a couple weeks ago, but forgot that I needed an LED flasher.

I reached out to @Coolerman and now I finally have a Coolerman-built piece of electronic gear on my truck.

 

[bottombracket]

I had a 7 year old helper assisting me with figuring out the correct pinouts. Both times I swapped brake for driving lights. It was a 50/50 shot and I was wrong both times.

Soldered, heat shrunk, and ready to go.

 

[bottombracket]

I didn’t have any scrap metal laying around, so I double-sided sticky taped them in place and wrapped zip ties around them until I could get up to @davegonz ’s place.

Dave donated some aluminum bar stock to the deal and Barney is now LED front and rear. Those suckers are BRIGHT.

 

[davegonz]

Glad you got that done. Those lights rock .

Good afternoon for cruiserhead shenanigans too.

 

[RodrigzCrzr]

Great thread!
That color is actually nice on that 40!