Project Big Red

laserjock

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I sure hope so.... I really just want to drive it. The sad thing is that I really never got to drive it much before I blew it apart so I'm itching.
 

laserjock

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Time for a small update. Time has been at a premium around here of late. I managed to finally get my HF sandblaster running. If anyone has ever bought one of the 110 lb blasters and couldn't get it to run right, throw away the directions and search the internet for directions for the Eastwood unit. The HF directions were just wrong.

Anyway, threw down an old tarp and went at some pieces. Loaded it with fine grit black diamond from TSC. Recovery was about 50%. A bigger tarp would have been helpful. Apparently I forgot pictures of this.

Fuel tank skid plates, cab mount crossmember, got the paint gun out finally and shot some tractor supply primer on them.

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Used the 1.8 mm tip and the parts came out a little rough. I ordered the 1.5 mm tip to try. I thought the primer was going to be thicker than it was given what it looks like before you reduce it.

In the mean time, I picked up a compression test set off eBay. Hopefully it will work alright. Picked up oil analysis kit for both engines. Trying to gather what info I can before complete tear downs. At $12 bucks a shot, I figured what the heck. Got to love Amazon.

That's where things are. Hoping the weather breaks soon. This is killing me. I have other vehicles to work on and the garage is stuffed with truck currently.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

junk

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Looking Good! Freshly primed parts always look good. Nice to see everything in one color.

On the primers I'm shooting I tried using a 1.4 and it was darn near dry when it hit the panel. I had to go to a 1.8 to get the primer on wet. Can you reduce the primer your using? I'm thinking the stuff I'm using you can mix Primer, Hardner, and reducer. Thinking some reducer might let it layout smoother.

We just had a 60 plus degree day after a week of sub zero weather. Very nice change.
 

laserjock

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I reduced the primer as per the directions with the reducer they recommend. I'm sure there is some room to play around there. In full disclosure, I did a bunch of stuff wrong mainly I did these out in the sun so I'm sure that didn't help anything. It just seemed like the droplets were huge. I've never painted with an HVLP gun before so I'm working up the learning curve. That's why I broke out the gun on these parts. If its a little rough, who cares. :dunno I'd rather practice on the non-shiny parts. If I can get the tip size and air squared around, I think it will be great. Just need to get some more good weather so I can do some more painting and get the black on everything. Its supposed to be 70 here tomorrow but between work and the whole house being sick, production has come to a standstill. The only useful thing I've done is fix a leak that popped up on the roof... in 20 degree weather....-cuss -cuss -cuss
 

RICHARD CRANIUM

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Very impressive skills and determination. Thanks for taking the time to show the world what you are doing. I don't thank you for making me want my truck to look so good underneath...
 

laserjock

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Update time. I got the garage cleaned out enough to get the other vehicles serviced except the bad ball joint on the half ton. Not looking forward to it so I've been putting it off. Now what you may or may not care about. :D

I got the last of the frame bits off and the frame is now ready for a quick scuff with 220, a light shot of primer and flat black paint. Here's a few shots. Frame horns first.

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After some wire wheel action I hit them with a shot of primer.

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Then I patched the last remaining crossmember with holes in it. Metal welded in for the bigger holes, JB Weld in the pin holes.

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Then a little grinding and a shot of primer.

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Last item of business on the frame were the bumper bolts I cut off on the rear. This was a real problem but luckily I left a little sticking out so a took a piece of square tube and cut a notch in it. Doesn't have to be pretty.

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Then I welded that onto the stubs of the bolts to give me a handle. Again not going for pretty.

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Lots of heat from the map torch and finally got them out. Hit it with the wire wheel and a lick of primer.

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Ready to clean up and shoot the black.

I also primered the previously zinc plated parts.

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Put the 1.5 mm tip in my gun and the finish is better but it still needs some fine tuning.

I made two more leaf spring spacers to replace the two I messed up. They are in the blast cabinet waiting for blasting, plating and paint. No pics of them. I'm hoping that the weather will hold up. Once the frame is black, stuff can really start going back together. Kinda excited about that.

Starting to try and decide if I'm going to fix my cab or pick up a clean southern crew cab. That might be more than I can handle right now but dollars wise, it's a toss-up. Probably a little more work to fit the crew on the scab frame but it would be a step closer to my end goal. Probably will just fix it and drive it a while as is. I do have a few southerners poking around for me just for the heck of it. :D
 

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Looks like a nice starting point, that truck looks pretty solid and straight, so that shouldn't be a real problem.

The core support thing, heck, if you had decent metal fab skills, and a tubing bender( a small one, capable of square tube can be had from Harbor Freight, Northern Tool, Eastwood, TP Tools, etc. for less than $200) could make easy work of making the lower loop under the radiator, and could be used for MANY things on that rig( trans cross~members, brackets, frme reinforcement, etc).

The axle plan sounds good, though if you wanted, a D70 or D80 might suit your desires as well, or even a Ford/Sterling 10.25 or 10.5 rearmight do it( they were in one tons and duallies, so....).

The power thing, well, those numbers should be reasonably easy to accomplish with the parts you've listed, or pretty close.

The reliability thing, it sounds overly-simplistic, and like a 'duh thing to say', but go through and remove the weaknesses, one by one, the more weakness is removed, the stronger the truck will be. Everything that might be a problem or is a known problem, like you said about the wiring/electrical stuff. Not that this bit helps much, as it doesn't.

About the costs, that is a pretty good budget I'd think, though watch out for the 'nickel and dime' stuff, the nuts and blts, and belts and hoses and all that can and WILL add up quick. Though since if you're gonna go through and rebuild this rig, you'd probably be better off by not painting the frame, but rather using a product like Eastwood's 'Extreme Chassis Black' or Bill Hirsch's Miracle paint, or even POR 15 to really protect the frame. Not to sound too overly simplistic and stupid here again, everything you wanna do to this truck, it's gonna be built on that frame. I mean with auto paint costing easily $20 a gallon, the extra cost of say $45 a gallon, you might be better off doing it, as you'd only need like maybe 1-2 gallons, I'm not sure about the coverage rates and such. Or maybe even use something like that 'spray-on' -type bed~liner product, because you'd do well not under-estimating the value of the coating on the frame.


The time-line thing, as long as you keep that pace, you might make all your goals.

The comforts thing, it looks like a good place to start, so that might not be too hard, though I don't have a good idea on how appointed your 2001 truck is, so....

If you have decent metal-fab skills, and you didn't like the looks of that year group, you could fill -in the headlight bucket areas, then blend out all the bodywork there, then incorporate something like the poster above said with Jeep-syle round lights, or even put something like a 'Dodge Challenger-style' of recessed headlight/grill area. Or you could also ut the front from an older 'slant-nose' style on there, though I'm not 100% on all of what would be needed for that one.
 

laserjock

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Thanks. I really thought I had a better starting point than I had because as you pointed out the body was really straight. I thought some floor pan work and the cab corners and everything else was a little pressure wash and paint. The bed is actually really good. It needs a little work of the wheel arches but it is nothing like the rest of the truck. The more I dug in the rougher things got. It all came to a head when I pulled it in the garage and lost the brakes due to the classic rupture of the rear trunk line. Then I started really looking hard at things and realized to make the reliabity, it had to all come apart... and then the snowball effect set in.

Like you said, its the small stuff that adds up. It seems like the magic number is $200. Everything is $200 for some reason. I don't think I'm going to make my budget unless I can do well recouping money on the remaining parts. I have a few goodies that won't be used that I know will turn into cash but a lot of stuff is hit and miss and I don't know what my tollerance is for sitting on stuff forever to get rid of it.

For comfort my F150 is an XLT with basic equipment but the seat are comfy and I have done a few little upgrades for creature comforts but nothing serious.

As far as styling, this is my prefered style. That's a large part of the reason I bought this truck is it was one of the cleaner brick noses I had looked at. As bad as this one is, I looked at worse for the same kind of money. I really think I'm going to end up putting this one together and driving it a while to see if it really is what I want. If it is, I will probably start hunting for a clean western or southern truck to put my goodies into. We shall see. For now, it's charge ahead and get it done.
 

laserjock

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Update time. So originally I brushed on the tractor supply primer. That worked okay but I wanted to take some of the brush marks out so I hit it with a little 220 down the long flat sections and hit it with a good coat of primer from the gun. This was a good move because the brushed on primer had a lot of pin holes. Note to anyone who decides to use this stuff. Thin the primer slightly more than recommend. It will go on smoother.

Here she is gray.

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Then I wiped everything down and 1/2 gallon of matte black later...

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Got to get my bushing kit and some hardware then it gets serious. Diffs are ready to clean up and paint. Not too far from a roller now.
 
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junk

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Looking Awesome!!! Yeah you get it back to rolling and things get exciting.

You got a new brake line kit for it? I put a Stainless steel kit on my crewcab for like $225 bucks. Money well spent especially in areas where rust is prevalent.
 

laserjock

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Yeah, I'm pretty excited now. It's on the short list. Pretty much what grounded the truck and started me on the road to disassembly was the rear brake line blew in the typical place as I was trying to ***** the level of rust in the cab from underneath. Luckilly it was in the garage when it happened. I was actually considering putting on the road for a while which is why I was going over stuff a bit. :eek: Glad I didn't. I want to do stainless and will but I have not been able to find a stainless prebent set for the super cab. I assume it's just an extra joint in the line to the rear. Speaking of brakes, I'm really hoping the RABS valve on the donor truck is good because mine was an unholy mess. Fittings wouldn't even start to come out which brings me to my question, do you remember if your kit came with the lines from the master down to the RABS and over to the T at the left wheel? Those lines look good on the donor (read not rusty) so I'm trying to judge how careful to be with them of just take the RABS out as a unit with the lines attached except the bit to the rear.
 

junk

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My brake kit was actually for a regular cab truck. I figured out the difference between a regular cab and crewcab wheelbase and ordered an additional piece of stainless line with ends on it and two couplers. It worked fine for me. Biggest issue I had was I did some stainless brake lines from the frame to the axles. I had to reflare one line for a different size nut and it seems to have a small leak.

The kit was complete with all lines from the master cylinder out to the wheels. So in order to use the whole kit you would need to pull the lines off the RABS. Try some PB blaster or Aerokroil on the fittings to see if they will come loose?
 

laserjock

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Not a lot to show but a couple important things have happened.

I bolted my Dorman rear spring hangers on. I'm actually reasonably happy with them.

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They came with new shackles and now a small dilemma. The shackles came with rubber bushings installed. I have new urethane bushing to go in them but I hate to change new bushings. I guess I'll see how hard they come out.

In other news, I pulled the d60 out of the donor truck.

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On closer inspection, looks like it's got a slight leak at the pinion seal. It's going to need new tie rod ends I'd say at a minimum although one of them is a Moog replacement. Trying to decide if it needs a complete tear down. I was trying to avoid it but I'm just not sure. The more I see, the more I wonder. Guess I'll clean it up and get the dually adapters off.

Stuck the D50 back in the other truck to start making it a roller again. That was fun. Like putting knickers on a snake as my dad would say. Luckily he was here to lend a hand. Not used to having another able body.

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Well, got to get some more stuff cleaned up now. I did get the new bushings in the rear leafs and sprayed a coat of TSC plow paint on the metal spacers I have ready. Now I have a bunch more of that stuff to do. Need a hardware list and I'll start bolting all the stuff back on. Oh, and repair the rear lift blocks.... List goes on and on.

Thanks for stopping by.
 

junk

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Glad the dorman spring brackets looked good. I need a couple of those for my 93.

If you don't already have them sold make sure you post the dually hubs if your not using them. Seems like guys are always looking for a set of front dually hubs.

I would probably try to take the rubber bushings out and use the urethanes. Unless it's going to be a complete hassle to get them out. Being they are new I hope they come out well.

Looking good. Everybit helps.
 

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