cheers horward i joined your group mate and even mentioned a place on there to by cheap parts in aus! Panelbeating wise i am using a young bloke in churchill actually for the reason that he does alot of custom work on mini trucks ie shaved doors ect.... and he is giving me a reasonable hourly rate then it will be getting painted in geelong by a friend. The original wheels i had on there where only 20" and the only issue i had was that the offset was not right for them so they would scrape on the guards evry now and then over real big bumps ect.... but apart from that i had no drama's as the drop i had on it was only very mild! what drop do you have on yours and also i suggest that you take the front inner guard bolts out and change them to a coach bolt style so that if the tyre does hit them you want take a chunk out of your tyre!! Ring up show wheels australia (in roweville) and see if they have any rims to suit your truck that they are trying to get rid of cheap! That's how i got mine, someone had ordered them then changed there mind so they sold the wheels at 50% off!! I paid $2800 for mine and they retail at about 6k! just ask if they have any wheels to suit a tf rodeo as they are the same stud pattern as chevy 6 lug. As for engine im will be running a tpi motor, been looking at this motor (look at ebay link). Hp wise it's decent and it really looks the goods and the ignition system is self learning which to me is a real good thing! trans wise im running the original t700 which was rebuilt a tricked up by a mate a couple of years ago, he will be stripping it down and checking it out and i will get him to trick it up a bit more for me and will most likely run a 2500 or 2800rpm TCI hi stall convertor. Diff wise i am having john at john taverna chassis shorten and build me a 9" with full floating hubs, 3.5 or 3.7 gears with a lsd and disc brakes also. In my opinion the stock 10 bolt diff's are about as good as a banjo diff out of a 6 cylinder hq as soon as yo put some decent power through them!
