RCSB Stepside Build/Restore

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Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
24
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Location
Mt Shasta, CA
Hello everyone,

This is my build thread where I will go over my project and elaborate on the headaches and sweet sweet joy I experience along the way. I owned this truck for about 3 years before selling it off after a DUI and losing my license. Sold it to a local kid who was still in highschool and was his first truck. I dont seem to have any pictures of it before the sale, but I can begin to explain how just plain awesome this truck was before it fell into the hands of a teenager. Anyways long story short he had a LOT of fun in it and the poor thing showed it. When i sold it to him i told him that if he ever got rid of it I wanted to have the first shot at buying it. About 4 or 5 years later he came through on his promise and contacted me so i swooped it up. This is what I bought back:

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Bear in mind that when I sold it to him, it was satin black and straight as an arrow. In this condition he had ran roll on bedliner over the whole truck and painted over the liner. Dents all over, part of the fiberglass bed was torn off around the fender well, beater rims and tires, gutted much of the interior, had racing bucket seats with no padding and 5 point harnesses. Just a mess. I couldnt bare to look at it so i left it in a lot for a few years before even thinking of tackling the project. All I know is I wanted it back and I couldnt pass on it. At times I wished i had but projects arent just money pits, they are fun right?

So first things first I went out and bought a donor truck when I was feeling like I was ready to start the project. I began by tearing off all the crap I was going to replace.

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While I had seats and such out I replaced the flooring and did some dash paint ot kind of freshen up the interior a bit, definately not keeping the red. It seemed much more subdued in my garage, as soon as it saw daylight i realized how horendously loud the color was.

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Did myself a solid and replaced the rear silder. The old one was a 4 piece and the passenger side stationary glass was bust and replaced with some sort of plastic. Also the seals were all bad and the slider wouldnt lock. Redneck first time glass job. If I ever do it again though I will have zero problems (and in hind sight should have had a helper of some kind, lone wolfing that was a pain)

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Next was removing the junk bed and treating the frame for the rust. I probably should have taken more time and really got EVERYTHING under there while it was exposed but by this time winter weather began to set in. No snow yet but lots of rain and cold as all hell.

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Alright so bed was on, window done, door seals replaced just in time for a long bout of rain and just generally ****** weather.

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Truck was mostly straight at this point but the doors on my donor were in good shape however they were auto rolling and locks. I had bought new plastics from rock auto earlier in the year for a manual crank and the weather was so bad I didnt have a place in doors to do them ( my garage BARELY fits the ol ladies ford focus so was a no go for the truck) However after some time I finally got all my front end parts stocked up and finally gave a buddy a call who has a large 2 car garage. It was time to do new bushings, ball joints, rod ends and sleeves, driver lower control arm replacement, drop bracket, wheel hubs, brakes and calipers, and CV axles.
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
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24
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7
Location
Mt Shasta, CA
Truck in my buddies garage getting "primed" (beer) to get the bushings, drop bracket, and driver lower replaced.


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I wish all ball joints were this easy to replace!!!!!

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Dont know what the deal is but the kid used washers to hold the bolts 4 bolts he had in place. they ate a pretty good line through the crossmember behind it too. Ugh.

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Brand new hub assembly that broke the next day when I took it for a drive. 30 ft out of the driveway and my tire fold in.

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All done for the night.

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How bad the drop bracket was bent in along with driver LCA.

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So Earlier I said my hub broke. Well I didnt want to spend more money and I really wanted to do both. I only bought a new one so we could get it done while everything was disassembled. So I got my 90 bucks back at the parts store and went out to my donor truck to see if they were solid. I have a problem with not being able to really sit back and relax when I have a project i want to do so I went out in the snow crawled under the donor truck and pulled nearly the entire front. (cv axles, rotors, brakes and calipers, wheel hubs, front differential, front driveline) And of course on top of the snow and cold it began to blizzard about half hour after I got started.

I have an extremely small garage so I am only able to pull the truck in just past the cab and close the door over the bed. While much better than outside actually crawling in the snow, the snow and wind still blow in the 1/3 closed door lol. I got started at about 5pm pulling from the donor, and ended about 11:30pm by the time I got it all pulled and swapped. I recomend having help when replacing the front differential. Its heavy, and its tough to get in place with the RCX lift. I had to manipulate it all sorts of weird to get it lined up with its brackets, then had to use a jack to manipulate it further to get it to seat. All in all that was about 3 to 4 hours of my struggle just laying under that ******* trying to get in the dif.

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YAAAAAAAAAY NEW TIRES AND RIMS!!! 35*12.50*15's Kumho Road Venture MT KL71 on Pro Comp 69 Series 15*8 w -19 offset

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Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
24
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7
Location
Mt Shasta, CA
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Got the doors put on off the donor truck and got the guts all swapped for the manual cranks and put on my new plastics. Wasnt to happy with the plastics from Rock auto. They look a hell of a lot better than the broken and worn old ones but the fitment leaves much to be desired, as does the build quality.

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So I read about the Jeep steering shaft upgrade and since my rag joint was all effed up i decided to try it out. I got a shaft off of a 96 Gran Cherokee which i assume is a YJ and not an XJ so while the splines mated up on the steering box, the upper end wouldnt fit on the firewall side of the steering collumn. I saw the the original shaft was roughply the inside diameter of the Jeep shafts female end so I started hacking and drilling.

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I had the right idea but the old shaft was maybe a 16th to an 8th larger than the jeep piece. So I ground the inside of the Jeep shaft for what seemed like eternity then beat the living hell out of it to get it in. The second hole wasnt nessesary i just needed a notch for the bolt to catch. I may do a small write up on it just to show that you CAN use the YJ shafts with a little elbow grease.

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Went to replace PCV components and the grommets were toast. When I was trying to remove them bits and pieces fell into the valve cover so i panicked and pulled the cover to get the crap out.........boy do i regret that. Its one thing to know the motor is nearing 300k and is tired, but I actually would have not seen this because now its all I can think about. New motor is in the summer schedule now FML. I mean it looks like barnacles growing on the end of a pier or bottom of a boat. ICK

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Decided I did enough work on the damn thing and it was time to go out and use it for what lifted trucks are for. I absolutely love the sm465. Granny is just awesome. I love having that low gear even while in 4hi.

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Burning oil or water. Having a hard time telling but again.... new motor in the summer.

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Joined
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Location
Mt Shasta, CA
Of course I couldnt help myself. Winter was almost over and I needed to take advantage of it.

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