So 3 weeks ago my daily driver Beretta decided to crap out on me and I was left with no vehicle and starting a new job in 5 days. Well I didn't have the 2-3 weeks that it was going to take to tear down and rebuild the motor (again) and my parents said that since I wasn't gonna tear down and rebuild the motor that they were "repo-ing" my car and I was now on my own for a vehicle. Well I scraped together all the money I had, and bought a new daily driver/work truck. Its a '95 S10 short cab short bed with a 2.2/5speed and 84,000 miles. Its pure bare bones/work truck. Heat only (no A/C), rubber floor, bench seat, non-tilt column, and even a GM rollpan that was a cheaper option than a real bumper. I got a super deal on it and its been a great work truck for the past 3 weeks. Here's some pics from when I brought it home:
What I love about this truck is the POTENTIAL it has. As you can tell, some aspects of it are a bit rough. The front end is smashed, the passenger mirror is missing, the rollpan is hanging by who knows what, the tailgate handle is bent/crooked, etc. etc. But the body is in great shape for being a '95 and a work truck. There's probably a grand total of 15-20 dents on the truck INCLUDING ones INSIDE the bed. My new job is at a bodyshop so a large part of the plans for the truck is to practice/hone my bodyworking skills on it and then paint it a bit nicer color lol. But the front end needs to be fixed, so might as well swap it for a '98 up front end, right? I need a new mirror so might as well get some Street Scene ones... The rollpan is falling off, so I'm thinking about putting a stock bumper on (EVERYBODY has rollpans....who runs bumpers on a custom truck these days? Besides...all the people who have rollpans can hardly GIVE AWAY their old stock bumpers lol). The tailgate handle is crooked, so might as well shave it and relocate it to the inside...
But anyway...not really sure where this truck/project will head but anything that happens with it will go here in this thread.
Love the hood! I think the grill needs to be sectioned down a little though. Also be careful how much fittings to attach to air tanks. If there is enough weight hanging off the tank a brass nipple can snap right in half on a hard bump. It happened to me once. I had all the fittings under the truck and all the air from the tanks blow out. The truck was stuck on the ground 6 hours away from home with a nipple broken in the port.
Thanks for the good words guys... I'm glad about all the positive feedback on the hood. Makes spending $650 on it hurt my wallet a little less lol
Patrick, not sure if you saw it mentioned or not but I will be cutting the top bar out of the grille so that it fits better with the hood. Right now the weight of the hood is pushing the grille down into the bumper so once that bar is gone the grille will come up a bit (plus the hood still has to come down a bit). As far as the fitting, I made a bracket to support the valves/fittings on the other side in addition to the nipple on the tank. They're very solid now and I don't foresee having any issues with it
To update you all... I was able to finish recessing the radiator into the core support last night. The upper mounts are a tad bit ghetto but they work and I know that I'll be tearing into it again sometime soon so it wasn't a big deal to me to make them look real pretty right now. Plus they're easily accessed by just opening the hood, so it'd be easy to change it up at any time. After switching all the clips, etc from the old core support to the new one, I loosely mounted it and then put in the inner fenders to hold it up. Then I organized all the wires and items that sit on top of the inner fenders and connected all the connections so that by the end of the night I was able to fire it up The exhaust sounded really nice (but the new passenger side manifold gaskets smoked like crazy!) I didn't connect the upper radiator hose yet because until the fenders are on to give the core support it's final position I don't know exactly how it will sit, so I ran it for just a short time because there was no coolant in the motor.
I was very happy with the way the EDC mount turned out because the belt was PERFECTLY lined up. I put 12v to the compressor clutch but for some reason even though it spun and is oiled, etc etc it didn't seem to compress :dunno: If anybody has any ideas on what could be the problem I'd appreciate any input!
Before coming in I set the new fenders on the truck to get them out of the way of the door and I snapped a pic for you guys that I'll get uploaded here shortly. I'm pretty happy with how close of a match the factory black primer coat on the hood/fenders is to the gloss black paint of the truck. You almost won't be able to tell that it's an all-new front end
One other (unfortunate) thing I found when I was re-assembling the front end stuff was that when the truck got hit in the hit-and-run it pushed the core support back but in a way where really only the top of it moved, like it just pivoted back on the body bushings. Because of this though, the battery tray got shoved back which in turn bent the inner fender in towards the wheel. So now that the new core support is on, when I go to put the battery tray in theres a huge gap between it and the core support
So I'm not sure if I'll try finding an inner fender at a local junkyard or maybe just take the passenger front wheel off and beat the inner fender back into position :dunno:
Oh one other nice thing... while the truck was running, even though the catalytic convertor and EVAP are gone and the PCV is just vented, blah blah blah, there was still no SES light on in the dash So it looks like the W4M tune is already well worth it
No progress from last night. I didn't get to bed til 2am Monday night and then my wife stayed up til 3:30 reading and then was tossing and turning until like 4:30 so she then turned the TV on (to SpongeBob for whatever reason) so needless to say I didn't sleep for shit and was tired as hell all day yesterday. I napped in my truck on my luch break and I felt a lot better after that but by the time I went to my parents house after work to pick up my wife and baby and eat dinner I was feeling tired again. So I got home and layed around and went to bed early.
Tonight my buddy is coming over and I plan to get the fenders fully mounted/lined up and then connect the upper radiator hose, fill all the fluids, bleed the brakes, and test drive. Depending on if it's raining/snowing I might get the hood on too before the test drive. Then I'll trim the hood to fit around the headlights, get those mounted/wired/hooked up, then trim the grille to fit, paint it, and put it and the front bumper on. After that there's the wiring (for the valves and compressor) which is mainly interior type of work, plus putting the interior back together. Then connect the rear sway bar (have to build frame mounts for it), put the bed/bumper/tailgate back on, and she's DONE
Then Sat morning I will take it to the emissions place to get those done and my plates renewed, then probably to the car wash to get it cleaned up and detailed, then I'll head to work. After work Sat I'm hoping to move out of my last storage unit so that means the '91 will be coming home Check out the update I just made in that thread for more info
It's alive! After bleeding the brakes, filling the diff, coolant, trans fluid, and fully mounting the fenders/core support/inner fenders/hood plus doing a bunch of other little misc BS I was able to drive it around the block
Here's how it sits right now
I could use to buy some body shims to get the fenders to line up better but for not having any at all they line up decently, as does the hood. I didn't get to bed until 2:30am so I'm not sure if I'll be up to working on it tonight, but the garage REALLY needs to be cleaned/straightened up. There's still a little bit of underhood work to do yet as well as run a few more wires (for the pressure switch), put some interior stuff back together, hook up the rear sway bar, and of course, put the bed/tailgate/bumper on. But the end is definately near and I can taste it! I think I should be ok to get it tested for emissions and get my plates renewed Saturday morning
I can't for the life of me get the Sanden SD7 EDC to work I've done everything that I've read in every Sanden thread on here such as running an oiler with SAE30 oil in it on the intake, having a 1/2" inlet leader and a 6' long 3/8" pressure leader, tapping out the head, filling the case with some SAE30, running a check valve at the tank and a water trap, etc etc but for whatever reason the compressor won't compress higher than 10psi
I unhooked the line into the tank and ran it and it was pumping air, so I know that it works, just apparently not to the level it's supposed to. I also hooked a quick-connect fitting onto the intake leader and filled the tank from my shop compressor THROUGH the EDC. When removing the air line, the air that was in the leader hose between the EDC and the check valve slowly bled back out through the intake side of the EDC. Would this mean that the compressor has bad valves or bad piston seals, etc? Do I need to get a new Sanden?
I'm getting frustrated with this situation because not having a compressor means the truck is immobile and after all this work I've put into this thing to get it driveable the last thing I need is to not be able to drive it because the compressor doesn't work
And Patrick... I have a ViAir 480 that I was wanting to save to use to put train horns on my wife's TrailBlazer, and I had thought the other day that until I figure out the Sanden I could use the 6ft leader hose and all the wiring from the Sanden to hook up the 480 under the hood to get me by until I got the Sanden working. But the more I think about it the more I think I'll actually mount the 480 under the bed and hook it up permanently so that I have a full-time compressor right now, plus then under the hood isn't all ghetto because there's a compressor chillin there, and I'll have time and room to get the Sanden figured out