Changes and modifications to my '85.

[Intrepidyota]

Yeah, some...creative...spotting mixed with some throttle to scrape that bumper over some rocks ended with a rock ledge jammed into the headlight opening, which destroyed the outer fender, headlight, and corner light, plus "accordianed" the inner fender and buckled the hood. Video of teh ownage here:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...90439771551004







I am currently debating what to do with it. I had planned to bob the truck once I got back from this trip, so now I have to add another body mod to the list, haha. I am debating between just getting those pesky fenders out of the way by dovetailing the front or just comp cutting and tubing out the fenders with more front end protection so that this doesn't happen again.

Oh yeah and I mashed one of my nicely trimmed rear fenders this trip too. It saved me from flopping, but it is bothersome since they took so long to do.

[fustercluck]

I liked the vid clip!

Relative to overheating, I wonder sometimes if the two core rad that these trucks were designed with are efficient enough for real off-roading. I bought a new stock rad for my runner and when I went out in the desert and ran the washes in low gear at about 3000 rpms, the truck overheated too. The water pump, fan clutch, hoses, t-stat (upgraded per 4crawler's directive) were all new too. I dumped the 2 core for a v6 three core and it seems to have remedied the issue.

I'm enjoying this thread. I haven't had time to post recently, but I am lurking....

[Intrepidyota]

Inner fender damage, that outer edge should be perfectly straight.

[all_terrain17]

Sweeeet.

This is the excuse you need to take all the hard lines!!

[Intrepidyota]

One needs an excuse for that? This certainly didn't happen on an easy line.

Unfortunately, it pushed my battery back along with everything behind it so it needs to be fixed. I got it mostly straight with the help of a come along, pry bar, and hammer last night. Just need to bend my battery tie down back bolt in the fuse box, battery, headlight, and new outer fender and it should be good to go.

Also, I might have scored a set of 38's today, I will hopefully find out by tonight.

[Intrepidyota]

I didn't get started until late, but I made some progress even though I only got about an hour to work on it. Got the inner fender fully straightened, put the battery and fuse box back where they belong, dropped a new fender on, just need a couple extra bolts, put a new headlight in, and got the hood mostly straight. It needs a little tweaking as it pushes the grill down now. I tried to take some pics, but it was getting dark and even with the flash, they sucked. I was able to play with some settings on the camera to lighten it up, but it got blurry, so this is the best you get:



Just to compare to what it looked like at a normal setting with the flash:




The bumper was built with trimmed fenders on, so the bottom front of the fender doesn't fit over the bumper, it needs to be trimmed before I can fully bolt it on.

[tulsa_sr5]

I'm impressed, looks like you managed to flatten the hood back out too.

So which corner 'gets it' this weekend? Maybe I should start a poll.

[Intrepidyota]

I'm impressed, looks like you managed to flatten the hood back out too.

So which corner 'gets it' this weekend? Maybe I should start a poll.

Not wheeling this weekend. Got some other stuff I have to do.

The hood needs more work on the front corner where most of the crushing action happened, but it is pretty close. It is tough to get it to round out correctly due to the substructure under the hood, I will give it maybe another 5 minutes of attention, but that is it. Hit it with some paint to match it, trim the fender, and it is good, haha. It is begging to wheel, I can't bear to see her beg.

I am going to wire up the bumper lights as blinkers and corner lights and leave out the corners, I always manage to smash them.

[Intrepidyota]

Good enough!

[fustercluck]

Well done Dr. Frankenstein!!!