Jnunez74
OBS Enthusiast
I don’t have any pictures for this update, just words to fill in the progress.Got another free moment to share a bit, so following the painting of the firewall, the body was put back on the frame and the real challenges began. To start with, the transmission crossmember had to be relocated farther towards the rear to allow for proper mounting of the transmission and Tcase.You must be registered for see images attachOnce the drivetrain was properly fitted and secured, the next challenge was had.You must be registered for see images attachyou can see in that picture how far out the camber was. The geometry of the front suspension was not ideal in anyway, as no adjustment could bring the top of the tire in far enough to allow for alignment. After some head scratching it was decided that shortening the uppers would give us the necessary adjustment, so they were shortened by an inch. This was done by a local machine shop and the results were as desired. More issues came with the driveshafts as these component’s utilized e different Ujoints. After trying to find conversion joints to utilize the stock shafts, it was decided to just get new shafts cut and skip all of the conversion nonsense.You must be registered for see images attach
For exhaust, we trailers the truck to New Orleans and had Custom Muffler install dual 3” stainless pipes with Borla Pro XS mufflers. Eventually the goal is to do side exits before the rear tire so I had them turn it down before the rear diff.
For cooling, I couldn’t find any affordable options for radiator and fan combos that were reasonably priced so we opted to make our own assembly. A cold case radiator was chosen and paired with a Jegs dual 16” fan kit. From these two, I drew up a cad file of a shroud and had it made by our sheet metal guy out of aluminum.You must be registered for see images attach
I wanted to utilize the trans cooler on the radiator but my Transmission shop insisted that I use a stand alone system, so I strapped 2 40k coolers to the front of the assembly to handle keeping the 4l80 and 242 cool.You must be registered for see images attach
More to come
To begin, my drive line angles were less than ideal so 4 degrees of shims were added to compensate.
Had to make power steering hoses, had 2 blowouts before that was finalized.
The fans are all wired in, they are ground switched by the pro flow system, so that wasn’t too bad. Figuring out where to mount the relays was a bit of a conundrum but they ended up getting mounted to the side of the passenger battery support.
Installed all vacuum lines (brake booster, pcv and fuel pressure regulator)
First start was a breeze, it came to life and boy does it sound knarly. Definitely not the choppiest or loudest but the Borlas definitely give it the more modern sound I was going for.
After adding fluid to transmission and setting up TCU, we finally got it moving under its own power. From the little testing I was able to do before having to go back to school, there was no binding in the driveline, and it seems as if the theory is now a working example. You definitely can swap gmt400s to a 9.25 without any suspension lift or modifications to anything other than the mounting points on the frame. There is another thread where I addressed the driveline.
All that seems to be left mechanically is installing the shifter for the T-Case and the Posilok cable to allow for diff engagement from the cab. Also have to address the parking brake as it currently is non existent.
On a side note the paint isn’t only gonna be the red velvet. Against what seems to be popular opinion, I am going with the traditional 90’s two tone. Where the original was silver though, I am going back with a gold accent. I believe it is Coppertino but I’m not entirely sure on paint code.
More to come when I can get more done