When we last left the project, at the end of my 5 day truck marathon, I had
gotten the cab moved onto the new chassis, and gotten the cab bodywork done.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rborder/truck/5days/5days.htm
<http://home.earthlink.net/~rborder/truck/5days/5days.htm>
In the week that followed, I got the cab painted yellow, and the clear coat
shot. It's not perfect, but I'm fairly happy with the results, and it's
probably better than anything else I've painted on the truck.
The next step was to move the motor over to the new chassis. As some of you
will remember, I thought the engine had gotten sand into it; and so I opened
it up to check things out. As suspected, it did indeed have traces of sand
throughout- and I quickly came to the conclusion that a total teardown,
probable hone, and possible bore (ie new pistons) was going to be required
to get things back in shape. My goal of driving this thing in early-mid
July was starting to look like a stretch.
Did some serious thinking about the motor and what I wanted to do with it.
If I had to throw the money and effort into a rebuild- was my smallblock 350
really the motor I wanted to make this investment in? In the end, the
answer was no, and in fairly short order I drug home a 454BBC to drop in the
truck.
The first thing I did with the new motor was place it in the chassis, to set
up my motor mounts. It's a tight fit- even tighter than I expected, but I
did manage to squeeze it in between the MustangII cross-member, and the
unmodified firewall. Here is a picture of the motor in place:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rborder/truck/bb.jpg
<http://home.earthlink.net/~rborder/truck/bb.jpg>
I must note that the air-ride chassis has been really nice to work with- I
can set the ride height where I want (with air-pressure) regardless of the
load- no guessing at how much springs are going to sag under load, and
trying to estimate resulting mounting angles and such.
Next step- motor prep. My goal with the motor is to get it back together
on the cheap- and just drive it for a while. This will give me time to
decide what I really want to do with it in the long run (a little voice
keeps whispering :"871 871"), and time to evaluate what, if anything the
motor really needs. Towards that end, I'm going to replace main and rod
bearings, replace the bum piston with an OEM unit, hone the cylinders,
re-ring it, clean and paint the block, and button it back up. Haven't torn
into the heads yet to decide what they need in the short term. For now,
the motor project is stalled: I'm waiting for parts; and for my friendly
local machine shop to get a new piston on the rod for #3.
I'm also waiting for parts on several other fronts. For the brakes, I've
got the dual-circuit power assist master (along with proportioning and check
valves) coming from NoLimit Engineering. I expect that stuff anyday. I'll
have a local shop do braided brake hoses for me; which should allow me to
tie the whole system together, including the Lincoln disks out back with
their wierd hydraulic fittings.
Ordered a power Mustang2 rack from Ziggs- that should also be here soon.
I'll breathe a sigh of relief when I bolt that in and see the input shaft
clear my (modified to make additional room) left motor mount.
In the mean-time I've been doing other little projects- boring stuff that
has to get done. For instance, last night I cleaned up the under-bed
cross-members, re-located their "perches" drilling new mounting holes to
accomodate my narrowed chassis, and painted them with POR-15. I also got
my garage cleaned, got all of my shop-lights up, finally mowed the yard,
etc.
The old rolling chassis should go out the door this afternoon (more room to
work)- I hope I've got everything I need off of it. My welder friend also
shows up today to bead in my shock mounts, motor mounts, track rod, etc.
Further updates as time allows and progress dicatates.
Ryan
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