Monday, August 29, 2005, 01:24 PM
Well after much time and effort has passed, the truck has had it's engine and transmission pulled, and the truck taken up to Jim Weimer's Rod Garage in Random Lake, WI. These guys are the best, no pressure...no BS! They gave me a great price and talked to me about powder coating options and some other things.
So here was the shopping list.....
- Boxing the frame from the front bumper to just underneath the cab.
- Motor mounts for the LT1 engine
- Tranny mount for the 4L60E transmission
- IFS front suspension, hub to hub with 11" rotors, matching bolt pattern for the rear end, new calipers, power rack and pinion, tubular control arms.
- Triangulated 4-link suspension installed using my Ford 9" rear end.
- Air Bags all the way around.
The estimated total for all of this is $4,750.00!
The work that I have seen them do is phenomenal! When I was there I had asked what kind of projects that they were working on when I was there....they had a hand built (that they did there) 47 or 49 Dodge truck frame that was nothing short of beautiful! All mandrel bent square tubing, braced, IFS front suspension and a custom shortened Ford 9". The grand total for that was 7,900.00! The prices they charge is nothing short of great, and are a great bunch of people there. I am looking forward to doing much more business there with them.
Prior to taking the truck in, I ran into some dilemmas. What it all came down to is, I have never done a project to this scale. Sure I have done what everyone else has done, your basic engine swaps, rebuilds, tranny swaps, etc. But I have never done a complete frame up build. So when I had called them and was talking to them the price shock was the start of it all. I had figured that I could go to a website like this and buy another vehicle that was partially started. But after talking to a couple of people and some soul searching and listening to what I know, I decided that no matter what I would have bought, chances are I would have bought someone’s half-assed project that they either cut corners on or managed to cobble together to get rid of it and try again. So I decided to stick with my pristine truck and have that one done up. Besides the other point that was brought to me is, how many Dodge trucks do you see built like this with an air-ride suspension? I have not seen any.
So I had managed to pull the motor and trans in 1 day, (4 hours to be exact) and buy a car dolly and trailer the truck to the Hot Rod Shop. The thing that really made me feel like I was doing the right thing is when they came out of the shop to greet me and looked at the truck and said things like "what year is this again?" "where did you find this?" and "boy this is in really nice shape". That was the part that sealed the deal. I knew right there, I was doing the right thing....
The truck was dropped off on 8/25/05 and won't be worked on for 2 weeks after that, so they said it should be done in 3-4 weeks. Once it's done, I will be sure to get pictures on the website!
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( 3 / 689 )Wednesday, July 6, 2005, 08:51 AM
I have been thinking of how to go about progressing on the truck without loosing focus on what really needs to be done, and what I want to do to it.... As a priority, I think what I need to do is finish stripping out the Caprice donor car, scrap it out or sell the parts off of it, pull the engine and tranny out of the truck and get that sold and out of the way, scrape up the $4000.00 or so that is needed to get the frame and suspension work done, and while that is being completed, get some of the work done on the engine. Once the frame comes back, get the engine transplanted into the truck, have the 4L60E transmission rebuilt (that will be about another $500.00 or so) and get the engine running in the truck. And then look into getting a custom driveshaft made and the brakes working on the truck. Once most of that is completed, I guess the focus can switch over to the body work. As much as I want to start on the body work, I need to focus on the engine/suspension of the truck (besides what good is a nice looking truck or car that does not run, oh yes...that's called a show car!). In the last post I was mentioning about a company that makes a system to replace the opti-spark system, that company is delteq. Check it out at www.delteq.com it uses individual coil packs, a module that reads the opti-spark encoder that in turn sends the signals to the coilpacks so that there is no high voltage that runs through the opti-spark itself. (that is one of the reasons that this unit fails). So now the question is do I buy a optispark replacement module and install the delteq setup? or Do I just buy a replacement Opti-spark module? Or just use the Opti-spark module that I have, and install the Delteq setup? Hmmm....
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( 3 / 691 )Tuesday, July 5, 2005, 08:59 PM
Well since the summer really takes up most of my spare time, I have really not had time to update the entries. However I did spend most of the spare time working on the truck. I started disassembling the engine and Kathy (my wife) helped start cleaning the enigne. I managed to find a bad water pump on the engine, and now wondering how far into the motor I should go. I think since it is on the engine stand, I will take my time and not rush this one out. So, new high volume oil pump, new seals, oil pan gasket, intake gaskets, valve cover gaskets, replace the opti-spark and look into a different ignition system (individual coil packs, and still utilizing the opti-spark module). New waterpump, alternator, starter, and anything else that I think might fail. Possibly also the timing gears and chain. With most of those parts replaced, I would suspect that the engine should be good to go (as long as there is nothing major wrong with it, and that I won't find out till I pull the intake and oil pan.) I have put some pictures in the photo gallery and some video of the original motor before it gets pulled, (Yep I think I might have it sold!) so that will make some more space for me that I do not currently have with a 1 car garage! The motor is great, but it's not what I want for the truck. The idea for this truck is to be a cruiser with some horsepower. Something that you can enjoy driving and would not second guess to drive it a long distance and it be comfortable to drive. I will try and put some photos of the engine during the cleaning process on here. I still have to finish removing the wiring harness from the donor caprice and the fuel tank, fuel lines, and whatever else I think I might need![ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 3.1 / 520 )Wednesday, June 15, 2005, 09:05 AM
Well now that the engine and transmission have been pulled, I think it's time to start slowing down a bit and start cleaning and getting things ready. Last night, I put the engine on a POS (Piece Of Shit) engine stand that I had bought. (I will be going back there to talk to them about this) The stand holds the engine fine, but unable to rotate the engine to do any work on it. (I guess that's what I get for buying a cheapie) I will stop in at Harbor Freight and talk to the manager there. Last time I had bought something and it broke, they offered to replace it with another one, and since I had bought a name brand one from another store, they gave me store credit. So I will take my chances. I think the next thing that I will be doing is starting to clean off the engine, and perhaps start some body work soon. I still have the rest of the donor Caprice to gut and get all the parts out of. Hopefully I will get the old engine sold so I can start getting the frame work done and get it over to Jim Weimer's Rod Garage to get the IFS front suspension, Air Bags, Triangulated 4-link rear suspension, and the Motor and Trans mounts installed. Should be sweet. Also need to find someone that will be able to boil the block on the LT1 engine to get it all cleaned out. Perhaps I should stop back at my favorite junkyard and get another LT1 engine with the aluminium heads, and start building that. Or maybe I am just better off working with the one that I had pulled and that I know runs and works fine....[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 3 / 531 )Tuesday, June 14, 2005, 02:04 PM
I got the motor and trans pulled from the caprice on Saturday, and had to leave for work in Atlanta, GA on Sunday.... I got back last night, and could not stop thinking about what I was going to do next....I think for the most part, I am going to get the motor on a engine stand so I can work on the bottom of it and start going through the oil pump and the bottom of the motor. And perhaps start to dissassemble the motor over the fall and winter, getting the block boiled and cleaned. So that leaves the body work. I guess I should start on that once the Caprice is completely stripped of all the parts that I want or need. So that means days and nights of pounding out dents straightening body panels, sanding and priming. I will try and get some photos of the LT1 as soon as I can.
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( 3 / 514 )Friday, June 10, 2005, 09:40 PM
Well today is Friday. Man am I glad. Worked on the donor Caprice tonight, started to disconnect and unbolt everything to remove the engine and wiring harness. I'd say right about now, it's about 85% complete before I yank the engine and trans. I think I can get it pulled by tomorrow night. Sunday morning I plan on getting some fishing time in with a fellow co-worker to releive some of the work stress. And then Sunday night I am off to Atlanta, GA to do some service work for the company that I work for. I should be back Monday night. The wife worked with me on the car and was helpful. She did not complain at all. Actually it seems that she enjoyed working on the Caprice with me. Man I have a cool wife.
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( 3.1 / 338 )Thursday, June 9, 2005, 08:41 AM
Well it's like 80 degress here, and I have to work today. I would love nothing more than to work on the truck, but I have to work to make money to spend on the truck....So I am at work. Right now, I am thinking that this weekend will start the dissassembly of the Caprice and gutting of the engine and wiring, along with the fuel delivery system. I am planning on taking the complete wiring harness and all the extras out of that caprice and installing it into my truck. Yes I know....it seems a little out there, but the end result should be quite impressive. I think I am able to do it, I will just remove, or pull out the things that I do not need or will not use. I guess I will have to find a very detailed manual for the Caprice if I plan on pulling that off! I also need to get some tools to do the engine removal so I don't damage the fuel lines and some other things....Hopefully I will get off my lazy ass and take some pictures of the Caprice before I start tearing it apart.[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 3 / 542 )Wednesday, June 8, 2005, 09:38 AM
Well it looks like I am lacking on getting my entries in my blog. I will have to work on that a little bit more. Over the weekend, I had many friends call me to tell me that the Hot Rod Power Tour was going on, as well as people mentioning that a local burger joint "Georgie Porgies" was having a power tour car drive in. I was a little bummed that I had missed it, but I think that if I had went to that, I would have been more depressed since my goal was to drive the truck across state driving on Route 66. But instead of going to the power tour, and looking at other people's cars, I had decided to stay away from there and get my '94 Caprice donor car delivered and also go nuts and buy a shitload of tools. So I had spent most of the weekend researching the ALDL computer interface that I was building to read the info from the LT1 and also cleaning and getting my tools ready for the eninge removals that I was going to be doing to the Caprice and the Dodge truck. I had finished building the interface on Monday this week and tested it on the car. It works great. I am currently setting up a laptop just to work with the LT1 engine. Right now I am planning on how to go about removing the engine and most of the electrical from the Caprice, and then also looking into some minor modifications to the LT1 engine fuel rails and other things of that nature. I would like to figure out how to put the digital speedometer into the housing of the old spedometer from the truck. It would be slick. Also perhaps doing the same thing to the analog gauges. Since the weather here is really nice, I am wanting to work on the car and the truck really bad. But I have to work during the day, and most of my weekends are so damn busy with parties, people wanting to do things.....it's really tough to try and get some time to get things done. I still have a lot of old electrical repair work that I have to complete (I used to do 2 way radio repair, and component level bench repair) so I still have some of those projects lurking that I have to complete. But now that the weather is so nice, I really don't want to sit in the house to work on that stuff, I really want to be in the garage working on the truck.
I think the next couple things that I need to buy is going to be a load leveler for the enigne hoist, some GM fuel like removal tools, and then I will start buying the stuff to do the spray paint and more body work. (I had bought a portable sandblasting unit and now want to get a big 90lb sandblasting kit). I will have to see now much cash I can scratch up....
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( 3 / 534 )Thursday, June 2, 2005, 02:19 PM
Well today I find out that the Hot Rod Power Tour is here tomorrow and Saturday, pre-registration is going on Friday. I found this out from one of the guys that I work with, and I am really torn. I have a graduation party that I have to go to on Saturday in the afternoon till late at night, a 94 Chevy Caprice that I have to pick up and trailer back that I bought for the LT1 engine (photos comming soon!) on Saturday morning, fishing with another guy that I work with on Sunday, and I still want to get some work done on the truck and start working on the Caprice and removing the LT1 engine......man decisions, decisions..... What is a guy to do?![ 1 comment ] ( 22 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
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