[nox]

Well my truck has been bagged for about 11 months now, and I finally have a garage to put it in. Overall I am happy with it, but there are a few things I want to redo so here begins "Project: Mulligan"

This will be my first non-bolt on project that I have done completely on my own so I'm sure there will be plenty of questions.

First off here's some recent pics of Black Betty:

and a pic of the original bed setup:

Mulligan plans include:
*Moving rear shocks to a more functional location (You'll see what I mean later)
*Moving the air tank under the bed.
*Ditching the AZ for a pair of Viair 480s
*SD Control arms (upper and lower)
*Power Performance steering linkage kit
*Clean up the frame and paint it

I'll be working on this as much as possible but A) I don't weld at the moment and B) My job is like 50-60% travel.

Here we go....

 

[kevdog]

Nice! I'm definately subscribing to this one.

 

[nox]

Bed off that I ****ed up dragging:

Result of a body shop taking advantage of a college kid:

Up yours Abbot's Precision Collision in Lafayette, Indiana, Farabee Drive across from the Post Office. :rant: :madfinger

I'm still torn between fixing the bed and filling all the holes in the floor or finding a decent one and starting over, but thats months away.

 

[Slow01S10]

good luck with the redo

I say leave the bed till last to fix, take care of the suspension. Keep looking for a decent bed to replace it with and if you find one along the way, buy it. If you plan on having your entire air setup under the bed, it wont be an issue of taking it apart again to swap a bed.

 

[nox]

Here's what I got done last night (Don't mind the AZ, I just dont have anywhere else to put it at the moment.):

That 8 gallon is tight as hell in there, but it looks like it will work. I may have to notch the bed for the tow strap buckle through.

You can also kinda see how the rear shocks are pretty much useless here. I eventually want to move them up into a more normal bridgebar type configuration.

 

[nox]

good luck with the redo

I say leave the bed till last to fix, take care of the suspension. Keep looking for a decent bed to replace it with and if you find one along the way, buy it. If you plan on having your entire air setup under the bed, it wont be an issue of taking it apart again to swap a bed.

Yeah the bed has lowest priority right now. I also forgot to mention that Abbots didn't put anything on the backside of the rollpan, just welded it on and painted the frontside. Left the back bare metal. :rant:

 

[lower90xcab]

looks good dude.....have fun with scraping all the undercoating off. I found that mineral spirits or any kind of sovent works well. I also used a brided wire-wheel on a grinder to get the frame clean. Keep the pics coming and call if you need any help.

 

[Slow01S10]

Yeah the bed has lowest priority right now. I also forgot to mention that Abbots didn't put anything on the backside of the rollpan, just welded it on and painted the frontside. Left the back bare metal. :rant:

if you get a new bed, ill try to make the trip to purchase yours for a project i will be doing, since what im doing is going to require a lot of modding...

 

[nox]

Got a few hours to work on it tonight, since the wife had to work late.

First, heat! On sale at Menards, and I already had the LP from the grill.

Pics of the tank to bag clearance:

I was able to get a little more room by moving it forward, but I dont want to get too close to the rearend.

And now its about time to cut out the stock xmember. I'm thinking I should probably brace the frame first, but since I don't have a welder do you think I could put a towstrap between the frame rails and put some tension on it?

Hopefully get some work done tomorrow night because then I get to leave to spend the next 5 days (including the Super Bowl) @ a site in Bowling Green. Not that I'm a Colts fan or anything....

 

[layinbody31]

meh....Bears will win anyway lol j/p project looks good so far

 

[Slow01S10]

do you have anything you can use to bolt together at the farthest back point of the frame to use as a brace since you dont have a welder?

 

[nox]

I don't have any metal that long. Maybe a ratchet strap would work?

 

[Slow01S10]

possibly, but the tension holding it in place could pull it together once you cut the support out
you can do what i did and only cut half of it out and use the rest to brace it

 

[nox]

no pics from tonight, but I got the rear shock tab thingies cut off and the rest of my old drag bar cut off and the welds ground smooth.

I really need to make with welder learning because I'm way better at taking stuff apart than putting it back together.

Oh and I also started taking my rear suspension apart. While I've got the bed off I'm going to get everything powder coated. Can't decide if I should do it in black or blue though. (I have some blue accents in the cab and blue displays for my radio, dash gauges and bag gauges)

 

[nox]

Yeah I thought about doing that, but the tank needs to go pretty much right where both of them are. I just left it as is for now.

 

[Pewter01]

You better move that crate before I come over to hang the plywood on the walls

 

[rmrider]

sweet, subscribing to this one!

 

[SHROP]

looks good man.. how long till this should be done?

 

[nox]

who knows. I am out of town most of February but I hope to get the tank and comps at least mocked up next week when i'm home for a few days. I thought of way to do utilizing the stock frame layout and a little bit of extra steel.

The powder coating and frame cleaning will probably take the longest, plus I only work on it when the wife has to work late, since we barely see each other as it is.

I don't make deadlines anymore because that just leads to me swearing and getting pissed off. Hobbies are supposed to be fun.

 

[SHROP]

good attitude