Changes and modifications to my '85.

[Intrepidyota]

I have been wheeling my truck for a while now with plans to mod more later (read: whenever I find that money tree)...but I have decided that I need to make some changes before I hit Rausch Creek at the end of the month. (At least I left myself plenty of time) I was running 34x9.5's because I was on stock axles, but I have put in longs since then, chevy springs w/ AAL because the springs alone didn't give me enough height, and a dual case crossmember/skid from TG because the deal was too good to pass up, even though I only have a single case. Anyway, I find myself getting high centered on larger/harder obstacles lately with this setup and I have already trashed a driveshaft...twice, so I am looking for a bit more clearance, plus I want my rear springs to better match my front. Of course, all this has to be on the cheap since this truck is a ghetto budget build. (wabbit and cheese have begun to quiver in fear)

The chevy springs w/ AAL didn't give me enough lift to match the front and were too stiff compared to my rears up front (not bad, just that RUF are REALLY soft) plus they are too long to allow me to bob much. I am swapping in some Ford F-150 springs that I got for $70 from a local scrap yard, they are only 57" long and 31.5" from the rear to the center pin. I am running them reversed so that I can use the chevy mount in front and the stock rear shackle hanger, also I cut off the rear half of the overload but left the front to counteract axle wrap. These are thinner and have more arch than the chevy spring. On a test fit it looks like I will get 4-5" out of them and match my front height rather well.
They will be wired wheeled, primed, painted, and put in tonight.


The dual case crossmember hangs pretty low (you can see it in the bottom pic), so I sold it and have ordered a budbuilt made for a 1" body lift, that should arrive friday. I got a set of worn 36" SX's that will be grooved and put on the truck hopefully in the next couple weeks...and last but not least I will be cutting my fenders tomorrow (finally, they are rusty and bondo'ed by the PO). Hopefully once I am back from Rausch I will start chopping the rear, I am looking to bob somewhere in the 11-14" range, I haven't settled on that yet.

(tire rolled forwards a little in this pic, disregard my soft top, it is still messed up from my flop)


Should be lots of pics to follow.

[all_terrain17]

Done yet? I really want to see how this turn out!

[Intrepidyota]

It is, as usual, taking a lot of time, the fender trimming is taking WAY too long because it is the first one we did, which means lots of, "Hmm...we can cut this here...hammer this here...wait...no, lets do this...". Also I had to grind off a lot of bondo and then hammer out a bunch of dents.
We got the springs in and painted, it looks like they gave me 4-5" of lift, I haven't gotten to flex them out yet. I removed my crossmember and threw in a stock one until Friday when the new one arrives (guy I sold it to wanted to pick it up). Then we got a front fender done and a rear one cut and half plated...then it started to rain and put a stop to that.

Ok, here are the springs painted in my yard:



This is the height above 34's that I got from the F 150 springs, I am uneven, about 38 5/8" on the driver and 39 5/8" on the passenger (ground to fender, innacurate, but I was really just measureing for levelness), but I am waiting to get a real idea until after I have driven it. the locker loading one side or the other when I turned it around could account for some as could one side being tighter than the other. I will wait and drive it around, then make changes as necessary. Overall though I am happy.



The plan was to cut 4" out of the rear and somewhere around 2-2.5" out of the front:

Close up of the fender:



Marking the line:



Planned cut:



Outer fender cut and hammered out of the way:



Inner partially cut and hammered back:



Cleaned up and ready for welding (the shiny part you see inside the fender is a vertical section that is the inner body panel, it cannot be cut because it is formed around the seat we plan to weld right to it):



As I said, it started raining so the camera went away and I snapped about two snaps to keep the top semi-down. My brother welded on about 3/4 of the inner fender, we just have to cut and weld on the front and back sections (the harder to shape parts). I cut the front while he welded the rear. It started raining more though so we had to call it quits, we got one side mostly complete.

This is what we finished today, those 34's are looking REALLY small under there. Hell, the 36's will probably look small under there.

[Intrepidyota]

I will preface this by saying, I don't have any pics to put in this post. So I have saved you the time of reading it hoping for pics. :P

I changed the oil pan gasket instead of finishing my fenders because I had a couple minutes in between rain storms. I didn't want to have grinders, sawzalls, and welders out in the driveway if it started raining. I got soaked the other night running around to clean stuff up. On the passenger side, the front is done and the rear is almost done, just need to grind it and paint it, the other side I have to replace the front fender since I smashed it and the rear is cut and half plated. I hope to finish it up this weekend and get some pics.

I put in my Budbuilt single case crossmember and gained 2 1/8" clearance over stock and at least 1.5" over the TG skid I had. I am very happy with this.

I need to drill out the holes in my shackles to get the proper size bolt into the ford spring. I am 1" lower on one side than the other in the rear, I plan to swap the springs side to side to see if that changes anything, then make a decision based on that.

I hope to get my 36's mounted on friday and have them on the truck for this weekend, although they won't be grooved yet.

My aim is to finish this up and wheel on Sunday...that might be tough though. I need a garage so very badly.

[Intrepidyota]

Budbuilt skid painted and ready to go in (it is in now of course):





MOST IMPORTANT/best off road MOD EVAR! ;D ;D

[Intrepidyota]

Last night I swapped sides on the leaf springs, it seems to have worked, I put jack stands under the axle and let the truck sit on its own weight, both sides appear perfectly level.Drilled out my shackles for the larger 3/4" bolt that the f150 spring needs, bolted everything up and torqued it down. Other than possibly swapping out my shocks, I am done with rear suspension for now.

I haven't wheeled on them yet, so I can't give an official recommendation, however, from what I have seen so far, I will recommend an f150 spring swap over a chevy spring swap from now on. I am SO much happier with these springs. I have much more downtravel than my chevy's had, I actually need longer shocks. They are thinner and I think they will match my rears up front perfectly.

Got my 34's dismounted yesterday, getting the 36's dismounted today, then getting the 36's mounted on my yota rims tomorrow plus draining and filling my diffs. Saturday I hope to finish the fender trimming so I can be ready to wheel on Sunday without crap flying into the inside of my cab.

[Intrepidyota]

If I could ever manage to hold my phone steady, I might get a half decent picture...

Here she is, trimmed fenders, ford springs, 36's, sitting on the ground! ;D Just need to do some grinding and painting to finish the fenders and I am good to go.

[img width=800 height=600]http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/303/nonamees4.jpg[/img]

[img width=800 height=600]http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5615/noname2zx6.jpg[/img]

[Intrepidyota]

I realize it is difficult to see in the second picture and that the truck is facing the opposite direction, but I think you can get the idea:

[img width=800 height=285]http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5770/comparoxe6.jpg[/img]

[Intrepidyota]

Finished up the fenders on Saturday, it is a 5 foot job, from 5 feet away, they look great, when you get closer they look a bit more rough. I could hit them with a relatively thin layer of body filler just to smooth them out, but it is a trail rig and the minute I slide against a tree, it will crack and I will be angry that it looks like crap. So I am not going to bother.

More crappy cell phone pics!

36's:



This is the worst of the two fenders closeup, there are some warps from welding, etc:



Like I said, a layer of body filler would make them look mint, but I would rather see them be a little rough and NOT have to worry about body filler cracking.

Then I went wheeling today! It is a relatively easy trail about 40 minutes from my house. Great for a shakedown run though.









However, the most important event of the day...I GOT MY WIFE BEHIND THE WHEEL! This isn't a posed shot either, she actually wheeled more of the trail than I did, haha. I just ran the harder obstacles because she isn't ready for that yet. She had a lot of fun, we will be going to Rausch in a couple weeks, she will get some more seat time then.

[Intrepidyota]

One problem though, my truck was overheating all day. I could run the heat and sweat my balls off to keep the temp down a bit, but it was still really high. I have changed the t-stat and fan clutch but neither of those did the trick. I don't seem to be losing any coolant either.