Mrmramerican
Newbie
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2014
- Messages
- 8
- Reaction score
- 2
Figured since 90% of my spare time goes into my truck, I would start a build thread.
Since this is the first paragraph, lets start at the beginning.
Was in Virginia living with my Mom, and she wanted to get a truck to take stuff to the county landfill, and was looking at some P.O.S. 80's ranger 4x4 rust bucket death trap, and I talked her into just helping me get a decent truck, so I came across a 1998 GMC C2500 SCLB, with the vortec 5.7, 4L80E, and loaded with tow goodies, trailer brake, oil, trans, and finned power steering cooler, best part was it was an old county water truck with 76K on the clock, and a $4k sticker, got it for $3600, drove it stock for about 4 years as I paid off a few bills, here's how she sat
I put the Black Diamond plate bed rails, and tailgate cap, and a buddy had an old polished tool box... nothing some scrubbin and rustoliem* couldnt fix, so I shot the box and slapped it on there, problem was it was a crappy clamshell box and the door flew up one day while I was doing about 70, and almost ripped off, anyway....... i decided to move to FL and help out my dad.
He's an old one, was a school teacher, and had multiple strokes, and pacemakers "4th one now I think" and is disabled, it all hit em in his graduate semester of his doctorate in education. now he does mission work in Caucel, Merida, Mexico and surrounding areas/ Guatemala, and some other places
Anyhow I hadn't seen much of him in about 20 years, so I left VA to move in and help him out, and left all my work refrences, and connections up north "big headache at first", Trip cost about $1k in gas, with a 84 camaro in tow, and about 5 ton total rolling weight. Bout $1 per mile
Got up with GMT400.com and began digging into droppin my sheeeeet, decided on a DJM 5/7 "kit"... I say "kit" because I pieced it together, and just cut the front springs, cut off 1 coil and got within 1/32th" of 2" on each side, so its within a 16th from one side to the other, depending how much gas is in it 1/2 a tank levels it right out. So with 3" spindles 2"cut
, and a 7"flip in the rear she sat like this, with plastidip on the 04 wheels
Had to cut the gutters off the Lower control arms to fit the 04, 16"s with a 1/4" spacer, as they actually hit the balljoint it's self. not to worry a little spacer and a BFH held me over for about 6 months.
So eventually I put in new ball joints, problem was the stock bottom joints didnt want out, and they wallered out the hole on the way out, and bent the F out of the lca's, had to weld the new one's in as they just flopped out the hole.... hot dog in a hallway syndrome, never a good thing.
The uppers went in ok, had to grind the tops off the rivets and drill the core of the rivet out in order to drive them out, as the metal is pretty soft, and just mushroomed in the hole when I tried to punch them out with a air hammer.
Also made a sub box for behind the seat, first attempt was a carpet box made out of 3/4" MDF, she weighed about 80lbs and held water like a sponge "more on that later im sure". Second attempt is a Birch, 7 layer ply box, all glued, no nails, screws, staples etc.
holds 2 12" and has internal walls for a 3rd, 0.75cu ft airspace in each chamber, air tight with poly-fil.
Had one heap of a mess, got some bad gas, clogged the fuel filter which was put in backwards by the county fleet mechanic, and then exploded the paper element inside sending all the trash to the injectors, trashed the spider, fuel pump, cats, all kinds of fun.
Put in a MFI spider, perma-dry fel-pro gaskets all round, rock auto $60 fuel pump "temporarily", still ran like trash till I cut out the cats. nothing a 1/2 day, and some 3" pipe couldn't fix.
Now I work at a Sign and Graphic shop, thats also owner of a old school sheet metal shop, we have 10' Metal breaks, good up to 11ga steel +- depending on length can bend 3"16, and a 10' shear good to 1/8" aluminum, or either 18 or 16 ga steel "not sure tbh"
We also have a 8' wide high def printer/plotter, 2' wide plotter, 2'x3' cnc Co2 laser, 4x10 CNC router, pressure pot sand blaster, power coat oven, and a 30x35 ish backdraft shop with a dead level floor for storing all kinds of
that dont need to be there, even a 2 post lift in the parking lot, that's yet to be installed... unsure why, anyhow here's my first useful item off the laser 
So in an effort to make it look less like, and hook a turn instead of brake loose on them Wrangler MT/Rs, I decided to get some XD808's, 22x9.5 +12 offset
Hopped on Rockauto recently and got 2 Moog LCA's, and Moog Uppers, as the last one's were the $6.00 cheapo's to hold me over till the money started flowin. also got some Energy suspension poly sway bar bushings and endlinks at vatozone.
Put all that in tonight,
Here is another shot from tonight, in the new shop thats full of that dont need to be in there, cool , but in my way none the less
So thats kinda up to speed to where it sits, still gotta lot of work to do yet.
Plans are for a LSD or Locker, and Linked rear, unsure on 3 link, 4 link with watts type link, triangulated 4 link, 6 link. Most likely it will be a ladder bar type 2 link with an altered watts link called "mumford". or a regular style watts link tied into a ruffstuffspecialtys.com diff cover as it's 3/8" thick.
High hopes for the motor, when budget permits, time 4 sleep -_- more to come soon as I attempt to get you guys caught up over the next few weeks. More parts in the mail
Since this is the first paragraph, lets start at the beginning.
Was in Virginia living with my Mom, and she wanted to get a truck to take stuff to the county landfill, and was looking at some P.O.S. 80's ranger 4x4 rust bucket death trap, and I talked her into just helping me get a decent truck, so I came across a 1998 GMC C2500 SCLB, with the vortec 5.7, 4L80E, and loaded with tow goodies, trailer brake, oil, trans, and finned power steering cooler, best part was it was an old county water truck with 76K on the clock, and a $4k sticker, got it for $3600, drove it stock for about 4 years as I paid off a few bills, here's how she sat
You must be registered for see images attach
I put the Black Diamond plate bed rails, and tailgate cap, and a buddy had an old polished tool box... nothing some scrubbin and rustoliem* couldnt fix, so I shot the box and slapped it on there, problem was it was a crappy clamshell box and the door flew up one day while I was doing about 70, and almost ripped off, anyway....... i decided to move to FL and help out my dad.
He's an old one, was a school teacher, and had multiple strokes, and pacemakers "4th one now I think" and is disabled, it all hit em in his graduate semester of his doctorate in education. now he does mission work in Caucel, Merida, Mexico and surrounding areas/ Guatemala, and some other places
Anyhow I hadn't seen much of him in about 20 years, so I left VA to move in and help him out, and left all my work refrences, and connections up north "big headache at first", Trip cost about $1k in gas, with a 84 camaro in tow, and about 5 ton total rolling weight. Bout $1 per mile
Got up with GMT400.com and began digging into droppin my sheeeeet, decided on a DJM 5/7 "kit"... I say "kit" because I pieced it together, and just cut the front springs, cut off 1 coil and got within 1/32th" of 2" on each side, so its within a 16th from one side to the other, depending how much gas is in it 1/2 a tank levels it right out. So with 3" spindles 2"cut
, and a 7"flip in the rear she sat like this, with plastidip on the 04 wheels
You must be registered for see images attach
Had to cut the gutters off the Lower control arms to fit the 04, 16"s with a 1/4" spacer, as they actually hit the balljoint it's self. not to worry a little spacer and a BFH held me over for about 6 months.
So eventually I put in new ball joints, problem was the stock bottom joints didnt want out, and they wallered out the hole on the way out, and bent the F out of the lca's, had to weld the new one's in as they just flopped out the hole.... hot dog in a hallway syndrome, never a good thing.
The uppers went in ok, had to grind the tops off the rivets and drill the core of the rivet out in order to drive them out, as the metal is pretty soft, and just mushroomed in the hole when I tried to punch them out with a air hammer.
Also made a sub box for behind the seat, first attempt was a carpet box made out of 3/4" MDF, she weighed about 80lbs and held water like a sponge "more on that later im sure". Second attempt is a Birch, 7 layer ply box, all glued, no nails, screws, staples etc.
holds 2 12" and has internal walls for a 3rd, 0.75cu ft airspace in each chamber, air tight with poly-fil.
You must be registered for see images attach
Had one heap of a mess, got some bad gas, clogged the fuel filter which was put in backwards by the county fleet mechanic, and then exploded the paper element inside sending all the trash to the injectors, trashed the spider, fuel pump, cats, all kinds of fun.
Put in a MFI spider, perma-dry fel-pro gaskets all round, rock auto $60 fuel pump "temporarily", still ran like trash till I cut out the cats. nothing a 1/2 day, and some 3" pipe couldn't fix.
Now I work at a Sign and Graphic shop, thats also owner of a old school sheet metal shop, we have 10' Metal breaks, good up to 11ga steel +- depending on length can bend 3"16, and a 10' shear good to 1/8" aluminum, or either 18 or 16 ga steel "not sure tbh"
We also have a 8' wide high def printer/plotter, 2' wide plotter, 2'x3' cnc Co2 laser, 4x10 CNC router, pressure pot sand blaster, power coat oven, and a 30x35 ish backdraft shop with a dead level floor for storing all kinds of
that dont need to be there, even a 2 post lift in the parking lot, that's yet to be installed... unsure why, anyhow here's my first useful item off the laser
You must be registered for see images attach
So in an effort to make it look less like
, and hook a turn instead of brake loose on them Wrangler MT/Rs, I decided to get some XD808's, 22x9.5 +12 offset
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
Hopped on Rockauto recently and got 2 Moog LCA's, and Moog Uppers, as the last one's were the $6.00 cheapo's to hold me over till the money started flowin. also got some Energy suspension poly sway bar bushings and endlinks at vatozone.
Put all that in tonight,
You must be registered for see images attach
and purged out some of the old brake fluid for some decent new juice, handles good enough now that I have yet to get it to slip around a turn, hooks like nails now. Only problem is wheel-hop in the rear, freggin bad though... real bad.... Like 2 elephants in full swing, both rockin their O face Here is another shot from tonight, in the new shop thats full of
that dont need to be in there, cool , but in my way none the less
You must be registered for see images attach
So thats kinda up to speed to where it sits, still gotta lot of work to do yet.
Plans are for a LSD or Locker, and Linked rear, unsure on 3 link, 4 link with watts type link, triangulated 4 link, 6 link. Most likely it will be a ladder bar type 2 link with an altered watts link called "mumford". or a regular style watts link tied into a ruffstuffspecialtys.com diff cover as it's 3/8" thick.
High hopes for the motor, when budget permits, time 4 sleep -_- more to come soon as I attempt to get you guys caught up over the next few weeks. More parts in the mail
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