Few small things that have spiraled completly out of hand

[rjs04]

I decided that I was gonna put my 2600 bags and my new sd upper control arms on my truck. Well that is how it started anyway. Then I decided I wanted to make my lowers look a little better and since I was gonna be having to trim out my frame for the bigger bags I might as well smooth and paint it too. Then I just finally gave in and tore it all apart and I am gonna completly smooth the frame rails, paint all my suspension components, take out the engine and paint or polish everything on it, hide all my wiring and most likely cut out the firewall and build a sheet metal one.

Here are a few pics of my progress the last few days.
Bigger bags finally


frame trimmed out


Random pic of my truck all apart


Lower control arm with a little fab work done to it


Little taste of what the frame is gonna have done to it


other side

[pearl91chevy]

fun stuff.. alteast you dont have undercoating to take off on the frame lol

[rjs04]

I got a little bit done this morning, with my grant bumper on the front you can see the factory bumper mounts through it along with the nasty front of the frame horns that the General put on these trucks. And of course I just couldnt have that ugly mess in view so I reworked it a little bit along with the bottom of the frame rail to make it flow better with the now slanted top rail. I have also decided that I really dread doing all this to the drivers side because its gonna be like starting all over again. ](*,) This is the last bit of progress Ill probably make till monday or tues.

This is said nasty mess I started with


1st thing I did was make the lower transition of the frame horn to make a cleaner more factory look


This is what I came up with, I still have a little bit more welding and A LOT of grinding left to do but I think its gonna turn out pretty nice espically since it will probably never even be noticed or seen by probably 80-90% of people


Another view this will eventually have a lower bumper mount come off of it somewhere, probably a bent piece of tubing

[rjs04]

I hadn't been in the garage in a few days so I went out there for a couple of hours this morning before work and got a good start on the driverside frame horn. I still have a lot of grinding to do and some more around the steering box mount to do. I am very torn on what motor to run, I really want to do a smallblock to get rid of all the wiring. But at the same time I like havin all my gauges working without having to redo them all to manual gauges. I may just end up re wiring everythingto make it look cleaner and painting and powdercoating the engine parts. I need some imput on what to do?? Somebody convience me 1 way or the other I change my mind everytime I weigh the pros and cons.

[rjs04]

I got out in the garage for about an hour and a half this mornin before work and i didn't get a whole lot done but here are some pics of the little bit i did get done.

got the outside of the pass. side frame rail smoothed out from where it was more of a z where the horns were dropped, as well as the unused holes in the frame are now welded up.


driver side holes welded up, bottom of frame rail needs smoothed to give it more of a factory frame look rather than the z


driver side spring pocket cut out for the 2600s


random pic of all the crap piled up in my garage, i need a storage shed

[rjs04]

I haven't got much done at all over the last week because of work but I did get out in the garage for a couple of hours the other day and do a few things to the driver's side that i had already done on the pass. side.

All holes welded up in the frame rail


driver's side rail sloped off on the bottom


Front of frame rail reworked to match the pass. side


My new groundbreaking see thru arms \/


Both arms, driver side still needs a lot of grinding, pass. side is not far from being finished


Why I love a plasma, nice cuts with little grinding

[shane4585]

lookin good i like the lower arms

[rjs04]

Ive been workin the last 2 days since I have had them off work and finally as of about 11:35am the engine is out. I couldn't get any help because all my friends were either workin or at school so I had to do it all by my lonesome so it took a little longer than I would have liked it to. Now I have to start scraping off the 15 years of crap all on the frame then I will start cleaning up the engine if I dont decide to v8 it (which I dont really wanna do but the wiring is such a mess on the 2.2s that it may happen). I am probably gonna pull the tranny as well because I am gonna clean it up and put them back in as 1 piece which is how I wish I woulda taken em out in hindsight.



Nasty mess, I went at it for about 5 mins with a putty knife then decided it was lunch time


The dirty little powerplant(if you can really call a tutu a powerplant)


And another view of the work to be done

[scott9001]

looks like you got a bit of work ahead of you i think you should get the 2.2 all cleaned up i love them polished up with wheels tucked in the fender, with no wheel wells. i think you should do it

[rjs04]

Quote: Originally Posted by scott9001

looks like you got a bit of work ahead of you i think you should get the 2.2 all cleaned up i love them polished up with wheels tucked in the fender, with no wheel wells. i think you should do it

Yea plenty of work ahead of me, but it is definatly gettin innerfenders I already have some just have to put them in

[rjs04]

More progress, some cleaning of the 15 years of crap on the frame and I kinda wanted to do something a little different with the skid plate that ive never seen done.
skidplate covered


another view of the cap thing i made


frame starting to look decently clean, I still have a lot of cleaning left


another view


And I pulled this off another truck so I can clean up my engine bay a bit by doing away with the powersteering pump and hoses

[rjs04]

Well I went out this morn to continue cleaning on the frame and my friend patrick textd me and asked about how close my drag link was from hitting the cap I made for my skid plate and to be honest it was the first time I had thought anything about it being that all the suspension is off. But it hits hard so I guess that is comin back off and will remain lookin nasty just like the general wanted

[SoLowXtreme]

Great work man...look 4ward to seeing the final results

do a LSX swap..with a harness u keep all your factory gauges, prob get better mileage then the 2.2

[GET_LOW]

Quote: Originally Posted by rjs04

Well I went out this morn to continue cleaning on the frame and my friend patrick textd me and asked about how close my drag link was from hitting the cap I made for my skid plate and to be honest it was the first time I had thought anything about it being that all the suspension is off. But it hits hard so I guess that is comin back off and will remain lookin nasty just like the general wanted

Man that sucks!

Maybe you could half round where it touches so you can still leave that skid plate on, i relly liked it!

Truck is lookin good, i can agree the 2.2 does have a lot of wiring, i am sure yours has more then mine does.

[rjs04]

Quote: Originally Posted by GET_LOW

Man that sucks!

Maybe you could half round where it touches so you can still leave that skid plate on, i relly liked it!

Truck is lookin good, i can agree the 2.2 does have a lot of wiring, i am sure yours has more then mine does.

I tried to figure out a way to modify it to leave it covered but it is way to close esp. when the steering turns so I just had to cut it out. I really would like to do an lsx swap but I think I will prob just go with the good ole carb setup because I have a smallblock out of my old camaro and a 700r4 to throw behind it and the main reason behind me doing a swap would be to clean up the engine bay and get rid of some wiring. I also have a lot of random smallblock parts so it would be very cheap to just throw that in it and I am not really worried about milage because I only drive it about 5-600 miles a year it tends to stay tore apart to much to be driven
And here are some pics of the frame after a couple more hours of cleaning this morn. before I had to come in to get ready to go to work. I estimate I probably have about 6 or 8 more hours of cleanin on the frame before I paint it, maybe more? I still have to get the brake booster pulled outta my way to get to the drivers side a little bit better. Thanks for the comments guys keep em coming.

[rjs04]

Yesterday I got one of my friends (na_xtreme_s10) to come over and help me pull my dash out. We got it out and then I tackled the wiring behind the dash, I decided rather than spend countless hours seperating the wiring harness out I am going to order a new wiring kit from somewhere (keep it clean, painless, summit or ????) and rewire the truck from front to back. I think it will clean things up a lot especially after the smallblock goes in. Here are a couple of pics of it stripped out and firewall will be cut out one day next week and I am going to start building my new one asap.

[na_xtremes_10]

hey rj, all this talk about the few small things that have spiraled out of control and I think that my truck was included in the process... I can't get it started now and maybe would need some help figuring out what it could be this week or something.. I am planning on riding the bike most of the time if it doesnt rain that is... I can bear the cold... haha..

[Wicked Mayhem]

just cut that little skid plate off completely

[rjs04]

Quote: Originally Posted by na_xtremes_10

hey rj, all this talk about the few small things that have spiraled out of control and I think that my truck was included in the process... I can't get it started now and maybe would need some help figuring out what it could be this week or something.. I am planning on riding the bike most of the time if it doesnt rain that is... I can bear the cold... haha..

Ahh man we will get it fixed, I really think it is something simple. It has to be a ground somewhere.


Wicked Mayhem, I thought about cutting it off but I really dont like the idea of there being nothing under the steering stuff especially if I am dragging and I think once I get the smallblock in there its gonna be hidden anyway.

But on to some progress this mornin i got the last couple of holes welded up on the pass side frame rail and started smoothing in the upper control arm mount.
The inside of the rail all holes welded and hit with some 80 grit a little.


The upper control arm mount, still needs some more grinding and work but it is getting there.

[rjs04]

I went out to the garage for about an hour or 2 today and got one of my shock brackets recessed into the frame rail. It still needs some grinding and the top where the shock is going to be bolted to still needs to be fabbed up.

[83LOWrange]

i know all about getting out of control! lmao...

i went fron just installing trailer fenders and a galaxie dash, to a small block swap, then to SFBD frame! hahaha

its lookin good though man

[rjs04]

Quote: Originally Posted by 83LOWrange

i know all about getting out of control! lmao...

i went fron just installing trailer fenders and a galaxie dash, to a small block swap, then to SFBD frame! hahaha

its lookin good though man

Its funny how that always tends to happen, but I guess its what keeps us building these things

[rjs04]

Not much of an update today but I did drive to my grandpa's house to get one major item yesterday. It is out of the 86 iroc i had a few years back. The guy I got it off of said the motor had been freshly rebuilt, but at the time I didnt really care because I already had a motor built for the car so this one came out as soon as I got the car home. So I am hoping that this week when I tear the motor down he wasn't lying and I dont have to do a full rebuild on it. Honestly I'm not expecting much; but we will see. My grandpa also gave me a carb (the guy did tell me that the carb on the motor had been acting up when I got it) and a water pump that he had laying around from when he used to race late model.

Nasty old 305


Carb and water pump