Skeletal's Build Thread

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Skeletal

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Got the ball joints and an alignment done last weekend. The lowers were a real pain, they really didn't want to come out. The lowers were completely shot they moved around like a wet noodle, the uppers weren't as bad but they were getting there. Took me 11 hours to do and I managed to cross threaded a lug nut.

The truck rides nicely over bumps now, for the time being there's not a whole lot to do besides enjoy it and fix the small things that are broke, interior door handles would be one of those.
 

Skeletal

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Picked up a new set of wheels yesterday, they're off a 15 Silverado. I wasn't intending to buy a set of wheels but they were 275$ with lugs which made them cheaper than getting tires mounted on the other rims. I mounted them on the truck and reprogrammed my speedometer yesterday. Had to drop the pressure in the tires since it was at 40-45 psi and now the truck rides nicely. I'll put a pic of the truck up tomorrow but here's one of the rim
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Skeletal

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Here's how the truck looks with the new wheels, after looking at the truck for a few days with the chrome wheels I prefer them over the black ones.
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Skeletal

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Haven't done a whole lot with the truck and haven't driven it very much either recently. Only thing I've done to it was remove the intake resonator and cap it off last week, I drove it and didn't notice much sound difference but I drove like an old man because cops were everywhere, it did trip my check engine light for my bad O2 sensor quicker than normal though heh.

I have been thinking about what I want to do with the truck going forward, I like the idea of a lift a lot but for the 4" Rough Country, 20" rims I like and new tires its about 3k and I don't think it'll give me much more enjoyment out of the truck for the price so that's off the table, and I could start a new project with that much. The idea that I keep coming back to is partially restoring it and doing some upgrades. On the exterior I want to fix all the dings and dents, resprayed it and replace the old trim, I would like to do this myself so that pushes it a ways out. Have to finish school and increase my skills at auto-body. For the interior: new carpet, a new console that isn't cooked, new steering wheel and replace the faded plastic. Upgrade wise: whole new dual exhaust, headers, a cowl hood, rear disk brakes, a tune, maybe a cam, new shocks front & rear, adding sound dampening and that's about it.

For the interior and upgrades I would like to do some of that this year and start another 400 project (want to pick up another truck and do some rather ambitious & cool stuff with it) but don't know if that's going to happen since money is in short supply for the time being. The bodywork is probably a year to a year and half out.
 

Skeletal

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I've done a little work to the truck since my last post. I removed the trim strip from the sides of the truck (got tired of my truck looking funky), fixed some rust that was starting on bottom of my rocker panels and starting cleaning up the stock front lights.

To get the trim strip off I ran some fishing line behind it to cut the adhesive, then to remove the adhesive I used an eraser wheel and some adhesive remover. That got most of the adhesive off, for the small spots that were left I got those off with my polisher, a medium pad and some compound. I'm 50/50 on the truck without the trim
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I left the screw holes from the fiberglass running board/skirt on the truck untouched and when I was underneath it the other weekend I noticed the holes were starting to rust. On the bottom of the rocker I drilled out the holes, sanded, Bondo'd, sanded again then hit it with some flat black. It came out alright. On the backside of the rocker I removed the rust with a wire wheel and painted over the holes since I want to add running boards in the future and an hoping I can reuse the holes.

With the front lights I've only done the headlights so far, they're looking almost new. Sanded them, then went over with various compounds and polishes. I do still need to reseal them so they don't hold water.
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Skeletal

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I haven't done much to the truck until recently because I lost a lot of interest in it after I put it back to stock height, it looked great but it wasn't really what I wanted. I took another stab at lowering the truck this week, it's sitting at 5/6. I wasn't planning on lowering it again but I seen a McGaughys flip kit for 80$ so I said f*ck and now she's sitting pretty.

In the front I put back my 2-3' keys and de-cranked them almost all the way for 5' in the front, when I installed the flip kit I pulled the bump stop mounts off to see where the rear will roughly sit with a notch installed and the rear sat at 7.5' or so with the stock shackles. The rear is sitting on trimmed bump stops currently.

This time around I have no shaking and the truck rides/handles pretty well except my turning radius increased quite a bit. I threw smaller tires on the truck and that didn't help, cranked the keys and that didn't help much either, if you have any idea why my radius is worse let me know. I'm quite happy with the truck otherwise.
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98chevy2500SS

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Truck looks good! Needs front and rear smoothie bumpers now. :waytogo:
 

Skeletal

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Started working on my truck bed yesterday, I like the looks of the older truck beds with the wooden floors so I started making one for my truck.
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Skeletal

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I've been eyeing a set of Air Lift SlamAir helper bags and I finally pulled the trigger on them, they should be here tomorrow or Saturday. I also ordered a Belltech c-notch which will be here Monday or Tuesday. Lots of progress coming up soon.
 
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