I've been a real douchebag of late for not keeping up with my little thread here. Therefore I am posting new pics so all will be forgiven.
I stripped the dash in prep for painting it orange this weekend. The yellow next to the orange drove me crazy. Painted up the speedo, glove box door, and the center console with shiny Cruiser silver from JTO (stole the can from 82Cruiser) Came out nice. Painting the dash tomorrow afternoon.
Replaced the door pins. The rattling from the doors was unbearable. They are nice and tight now but haven't driven it for a test run cuz the dash is all apart. Saturday or Sunday. Either way it'll be quieter.
Decided I'm gonna build a pumpkin colored diamond plate bed lid. There is a 1/2 inch lip around the edge of the bed which will fit a nice metal cover. I'll bolt hinges to the metal below the rear window. Might do square tube around the outside edge on the top of the lid to mimic the look of the roof rack and to allow for strapping down crap to it. Excited about this one.
Calculated the gas mileage the other day. 9 mpg......highway. Ugly. Need to get the right distributor and maybe a 5 speed to get up to 12-14 mpg. Don't wanna pull the cam out of it cuz I'm so damn lazy.
Oh yeah, bought a 5 speed from AU for it as well. Tee heee.
pic of the back bed. the lip around the side will be a perfect fit for a nice lid. I have it in my head so now all I gotta do is buy steel, welder, plasma cutter, hinges, welding jacket, helmet..........
also got a new Toyota badge for the grill. the 350 badge looks good. might get anal and paint the 350 to match but probably won't.
gary has some great input about the dizzy and engines in general. he definetly speaks from experience.
fwiw, i have bought and installed a couple of the summit brand billet hei distributors and have been very happy with them. pretty reasonable price as well.
fwiw, i also like running an msd ignition box with crabed V8s. seems to smooth out the idle, a little better throttle response and a hair better fuel economy. just don't try to re-install a plug wire that's fallen off when the engine is running. MSDs have a mean bite. at least they did 15 years ago. ask me how i know.......
Wifey went on a wine night with her friends down the street so got some good cruiser time in. I had painted the dash and the inside winshield while the kid was taking a nap. It dried obviously so bolted everything back on tonight. did some random cleaning, vacuumed out the interior, got rid of tools, detailed the engine, and a bunch of other puttering. Fun nite.
Found out my axle is extremely loose. Needs new spring perches, ubolts, and tabs for the sway bar. Have a local guy gonna do it up cheap.
Chasing down the electrical gremlins now.
Exhaust doesn't line up with the header properly so need to get the exhaust modified to geta better seal. should quiet things down and eliminate the fumes in the cab.
Exhaust is fixed. Had to have the pipe cut and angled to line up with the headers.
Need new Ubolts but I tightened them up and the thumping went away. Definitely near the top of the list of things to do. Was told I need new spring perches as well. Might do new springs at some point as the ride is a bit rough with the heavy duty springs. I'm not doing any hauling so no need to have the extra jarring.
Got the sway bar mounted properly as well. Found a great shop in Upton MA called Extreme Fabrication. Great guy and was dirt cheap.
Electrical gremlins are gone for now. I'm sure they'll be back soon!
Bought a set of speakers for the doors....don't have a stereo yet though! I suck at electrical so this will be a good snowstorm project for Jan/Feb.
Tonight I just replaced all the shocks and put wheel spacers on. As with all minor stuff there were plenty of fitment problems but beer seemed to fix everything.
Pulled out the passenger seat to see what I need to do to get the Caddy seats in. Bought a set of 2005 black leather Caddy CTS seats- power and heated. Might have to get another set for the back. Very cushy and cheaper at the junkyard than new racing seats.
Bought a troopy hardtop from AU that's going into the container that I'm shipping. Got it for $120! Has a bunch of rust but I've wanted to learn bodywork and buy a welder so this will motivate me to get going.
Planning on having the hardtop removable, have a troopy top that will fit then eventually a soft top set up. Switching everything around won't be easy but having all the options for camping and daily driving will be really nice.
Was gonna work on some dents in the floors but the gas tank needs to be dropped in order to get to them. Those will have to wait a looooonnnnng time before they are fixed.
Just ordered a TON of little stuff from Specter. I got gaskets for the xfer case, door latches, door pulls, ubolts, etc. Ended up spending $330 even with 20% off. Basically bought everything I need to tighten up this beast.
Also got a set of Skyjacker shocks of eBay. $140 including shipping. I already broke the front left shock that I just installed last weekend. They were the wrong size anyway. I had them off an old parts truck and they had some rust on the edges so who knows what they've been thru. I hate putting used stuff on a truck anyway.
Shocks and my CorrosionX undercoating showed up today!! Mother in Law is coming in a week so gonna save all the cruiser work for when she gets here. Might start a little this weekend though. I'm due to post up some new pics anyway!
