Got a fire lit under my butt to do some updates to the truck. I haven't really touched it since the initial build, aside from the motor swap, which it's been two years since I completed.
Things to do:
- Bought new manifold gaskets, new V band so I can cut off/weld on a new one on the passenger manifold. I cooked it when I initially welded so it's warped and leaks lol
- Adding catalytic converters. The exhaust smell is a lot on long drives, especially now that I'll have my son riding along in the future. It's a stock 6L, so I doubt I'll feel much of a performance loss.
- Maybe modify the exhaust so I can finally get a front driveshaft made
- Add door bars. I've always felt confident in the cage rolling side to side, but am sketched out fore and aft. I don't have door bars or tubes from the top of the cab to bedcage, which I feel add a lot of strength in that scenario.
- Rewire all accessories: I did everything very hastily with red and black wires, so it's a terrible mess of spaghetti under the center console leading to an amazon switch panel. Replacing it with an 8 gang AUXBEAM unit and dedicated wire colors for each circuit. Also, proper, insulated pass through into the cab for the wiring. Not worth burning the truck down because a stupid 12v wire chaffed. 3D printed a nice bezel for the AUXBEAM. Thinking about also 3D printing a dome light. Idk.
- Bed area paneling/built in storage. Aesthetically, there's too much open space when looking at the back between the bedcage and fenders. Gonna close it off and add storage compartments to get stuff out of the cab.
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@Exploder_M has my skidplate out for polishing
- Finish designing/build dual swing steering
- I need to order uniballs for the beam pivots. I think I heard the stack heights with misalignments are odd to fit in the pivots. Does anyone know what size uniball/stack height is needed for D35 beams?
Things done since last post:
- Paint fiberglass with color matched rattlecan. Looks better than before
- Displayed in the BLGT Offroad Expo booth
- Mostly empty the interior for cleaning and in prep for rewiring.
- Cinched down the cords under the PRP seats/replaced broken cords with paracord. Hopefully this keeps me from sagging too low and curving my back on long drives.
- Rebuilt passenger front bumpstop
