New VT Pig Intro

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Crappy pics with the painted grill. First time I've washed it since I got it home, took off a bunch of the loose paint.

All my hard work is hidden behind the front wheels.

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Going to get the new lenses on the back tomorrow and chase some electrical gremlins.

Time to order that case of Krylon olive drab. =)

http://www.therangerstation.co...t.htm
 
After blasting off all the loose paint, I think just all-olive drab. There are a number of that will need significant scrapping, rust repair and POR.

I may do a full strip, fix and paint down the road but this truck is really just a wheeler. I want to get it clean, patched, and decent looking from 20 feet.
 
Got a bunch of pig work done on Sunday.

The back brakes are in GREAT shape, cylinders aren't leaky and adjust easily, shoes adn drums are fine, there are even some new hard lines. The lugnuts were'nt even close to tight enough though. My guess is whoever had tehm off last didn't ahve a think walled socket so the were only tighted to the rim face, not cunk in like they are supposed to be. I've got them set right now but the hindsight is scary.

Can't find my fuel leak issue, not sure how to progress with that. Figure I'll go top it off at the as station with a pal so I can watch from inside and see if I can detect where it's leaking.

Cleaned out the back fender areas and need to get those patched up... it's wide open to the ground at this point. :( Can't get the little service door in the cargo floor off, the screws are stripped and my attempts to grind them off didn't work. What is under there? I was hoping it would lead me to my fuel leak issue.

Picked up some metal to temporarily repair my floor. There is a hole where the Pside front seat mount sits and it rocks, SOOOO not safe. I've got a plan to patch that up for now, ugly but safe and inspectable. I really need to plan to take the truck floor completely down to bare metal at some point in the future and weld in a lot of floor patches. The PO's patches are really boggling, lots of different materials used including what I think is very heavy tar paper or maybe lead roof flashing. ????

Need to figure out a few electrical things and get my dash back together as well. I pulled the stereo and all the speaker wires. I still have 2 or 3 wires that are just stuck into the fuse panel that are related to the SCB swap so I'm in the processor figuring out exactly what is what and install and underhood aux fuse block to accommodate them.

Fan switch still doesn't work and I can't seem to pull the dash panel out far enough to get to the back of it.

All in all, I'm still pretty happy with the truck, it's been a project but for how cheap I got it it's been well worth it.
 
wow, this thing sounds like its coming along fine, now post some pics!!!
 
The pig, she is testing me!!!!!

The Pside floor near the door is worse then I thought... no way I can patch it up the way I thought. :( :(

It really needs the front seat out and a LOT of stuff cut out and replaced. Pretty much firewall to back floor hump on the Pside. The Dside isn't nearly as bad but I worry about that, too.

The PO used some sort of heavy roof shingles or something to cover the floor then painted them, even has a block of WOOD between the frame and one of the underfloor ribs. :(

I knew it was rough but I'm still a bit discouraged tonight. I've had some VERY generous offers of help but this is a big job and I think I might just be best off to suck it up and have someone do it all--once--correctly. I'll call the local fab guy tomorrow and bend his ear see if I can see him Saturday for an estimate. If it's too pricey then I'll be hitting up some of the generous mudders who've offered to help. ;)

In the meantime I will ignore the floor and get the rest of the truck ready to go. :)

Big ups to my lovely wife for her extreme patience and understanding btw, I keep expecting her to get frustrated that it's not road ready yet but she hasn't complained once and is very encouraging about me doing so much work, learning, etc. She's a keepah.
 
Tough news about the floors. I have a welder friend down here that works for cheap and does great work.

I still have the stock wood between the frame and the underfloor ribs on mine so yours must be stock too.
 
The wood blocks are stock?!

After a night to sleep on it I think I'll pull the front seat and patch it up ghetto style as best I can then plan to have it at Kina's or Wally's this winter for fresh metal.
 
Pulled all the fuses and cleaned the contacts, the fuses were all good, cleaned the up and reinstalled everything including the multitude of wires that are jammed in there. The fan works again!! :) Just on high but that's fine by me.

Now I can put my dash back together. i think I'll try to find a CB to fit the radio holed.

Fiddling with one of my turn signals, it wasn't blinking (the other side is fine) which from my research is a bad ground but in the process I busted off 3 or the 4 screws holding the assembly on. Time do to some drilling.

Finally found a few gallons of 90wt finally so I'll be draining the tcase and trans, putting in the new ebrake shoes and refilling.

Got my TRE set from SOR yesterday so once I finish at the back of the truck and get it turned around again I'll tackle that project. Need to hit all those joints with PB Blaster a few times this weekend. Nice to add 1 more SOR receipt to the STACK of them in the PO's records.

Gary is swinging by this afternoon to check out my masterpiece. :) He'll be the first once other then Jason (fogblanket) so see it in person.

Alright, I need to put in my kitchen backsplah now, more later....
 
got all the metal cut last night to patch up my floor. Need to pick up some hardware and seam sealer tonight on the way home. I'll take before & after pics. :)

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
 
Whatever they sell at Autozone, I think it's a 3M product.

I basically just want to "glue" the metal down with seam sealer, then it will all be attached to the floor with screws, bolts, etc.

I've used 3 pieces of 16g steel.
 
Booty fab floor patching worked better then expected. :) I was able to utilize an existing patch up by the firewall and Gary's idea of using bolts and washers worked brilliantly. I scraped up the factory sound deadening before putting down the new metal.

I still need to screw down the outside edge but it's really solid. I plan to use some caulk to fill any tiny gaps, then lay down some roofing shingles, covered by the SOR carpet and the Weathertec mats that I already have.... should do just fine. :)

Obviously I need to get the seat bracket back in there as well. ;) The bench is going back in for FG. Maybe I'll go to buckets down the road at some point.

Before:
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Good progress this weekend, floor finished and the front seat back in, rear quarters buttoned up (not pretty, but should be inspectable) more rustoleum laid down over the new metal, turned her around and started on the TRE swap. Need to pull the front wheels to ease that process.

Any suggestions for getting out stuckies? I have one where the nut came off fine but the post won't budge through the end. Ideas? Tricks?

Can anyone point me towards a topic on adjusting the slop (hopefully) out of the center arm and the manual steering box. need pictures. thanks
 
Sporin said:
Can anyone point me towards a topic on adjusting the slop (hopefully) out of the center arm and the manual steering box. need pictures. thanks
Click to expand...

Someone posted a thread in here about retro fitting 90 series TRE's into the drag link...

Center arm should adjust the same as a 40.

Manual box has a jam nut you loosen, tighten the center bolt, re-tighten jam nut.
 
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