Thursday, March 9, 2006, 04:08 PM
Well the weather is starting to warm up and I can't wait to get into the garage and start workin on the truck. I did make it out to Boyd Coddingtons and Did get a chance to stop by Foose Designs. When I was at Coddingtons, I was watching them tape a new episode of American Hot Rod, it was a Thursday morning and not a lot was going on. They only let people inside the garage on the 1st Saturday of every month, and of course I was there on a Thursday. I asked nicely if there was any way I could get into the garage to take a closer peek as to what was going on, and I was told pretty much forget about it. Well I had spent most of the morning there and decided I was going to get going in a little bit. And while standing by the door, Boyd was walking out through the security door. He stared me down, and seemed nervous that I was standing there....like I was going to maul him or something. Well as he walked out he was still cautiously comming towards me. As he walked past staring at me, I said "don't worry Boyd, I am not here to bother you. I just want to see what's going on in the garage." He looked a little suprised and said "do you want to go in the garage?" I was like "are you kidding!?!" He said no and let me in. Man I was blown away. So I was nice and did not take pictures or bother anyone. It was funny when the gal I had asked if I could get into the garage saw me in there and was like "how did you get in" and when I told her Boyd let me in she was like wow, he must like you or you got him on a good day. After watching the taping and everything going on, I decided to head out and get over to Foose Designs. They only have visitor hours during certan times of the day, and since I was in Ontario, CA and did not want to get caught in the CA traffic I dediced to go, but while I was leaving Charlie (from American Hotrod) was outside Foose Designs and was talking to some people. I just left and went to a couple other places. I stopped in Source One and looked around, and then headed over to TCI (Total Costs Involved) and they were great there, took me around the shop and gave me a tour. Great people there.
After that I managed to buy another Dodge Truck for parts off of Ebay. I got some more great parts for the truck. It was quite interesting. I bought the truck, and before I had picked it up, the person that was selling it on ebay (was also selling it locally and that's how I got it) told me that there was another person that was really interested in the cab only of the truck, and since I did not need it I decided to sell it (before I even picked up the truck!). So I went and picked the truck up, and of course it was Sunny and warm on Saturday. And the Sunday when I picked the truck up, it was snowing and raining. 3 inches total accumilation. I drove into the storm and since it was traveling back to Milwaukee, I drove back through it to get home. After disassembling it and putting the parts inside the mini-van and loading the truck on the car dolly, I drove it to the person who wanted to buy the cab. We dropped that off and headed back home. Total driving was about 12 hours. Man that sucked. The truck frame that was underneath that thing is pretty much worthless. They sectioned out above the rear axle and added some "C" notches in the frame, cobbled in a front IFS and put a newer Ford rear end in the truck (pinion angle is all out of whack and looking down the center of the frame the rear axle is not centered!). Besides my frame is in great shape.
Today I am planning on buying another truck off of ebay. Yeah I know....but it seems that I can't stop now. I sort of have the cash for it, and it's only about 90 miles away. I can't go wrong. Besides there is already a Ford 289 in it with a 3 speed manual tranny and a Ford rear end. I think I will buy it and get it running. Check back here for pictures!
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( 3 / 720 )Sunday, January 8, 2006, 12:28 AM
Well it has been quite some time since I had added an entry. Mostly because of my personal time becomming shorter, the holidays came and went and the weather here just keeps getting colder! Since my garage is too small to work in it when it's closed, most of the winter is going to be doing research and plan of attack for the upcomming summer season. A lot has happened since the last entry. I got the truck back from the rod garage, and they did a great job. I don't care for the trans crossmember that's in it right now (to me it just looks cobbled together and I want to avoid that.), yeah I know no one will see it, but I know that it's there and that it looks like shit. So my current plan for this summer is going to be to remove the cab from the truck, start on the brakes, get the small parts in for powder coat, start on the rear end, get that in for powder coat (once I figure if I am going to replace the rear disc with a current aftermarket brake kit) get the 4L60 in for rebuld (called my tranny guy again, and verified that it's only going to cost $550.00 to have it rebuilt with heavy duty parts and Corvette servos! I asked to make sure that all the parts were new and he said yes. Well he has never done me wrong, so I guess he will be doing the trans.
A good friend of mine has sent me pictures of his project car, they are in the photo gallery. That good friend of mine is Scott. He has been a real big help with some of the decisions that I have made on this project and also guidance. It's a shame that he moved back north of Green Bay, WI. Although it's not like he's that far away, but I was hoping I could count on some of his knowledge on the rear diff. Well who knows, maybe I will throw it in the back of the Jeep and drive up there and spend the weekend or something while we set it up....you never know. Anyway, be sure to check out his Camaro. It is really nice. I do like the Blown BB Chev that's in it along with the dual TH400 transmissions. (yes that's 2 trannys in the car).
The Jim Weimer Rod Garage's webpage is completed. They seemed pretty happy with it, and now it's just a matter of fine tuning it and getting the page setup the way that they want it. I am sure there will be more changes, but it's not a complete build so I will have more time to work on the truck. I really want spring to come so I can start working on the truck. Yeah I know it's only a couple of months away, but I enjoy working on it, and seeing it progress. I just want to get it finished as fast as possible, but I know that I can't make that happen, so like everyone else I will just keep working on it.
Sometime this month or next month, I am headed off to San Bernadino, CA to do some work. I would love to get an extra day and head over to Foose Designs and Boyd Coddingtons, since I am in the area. But with my job, I am scheduled to only be there 2 days (1 for travel and 1 for work) So that does not leave me much time. Perhaps I will see if I can schedule this on say a Thursday or something like that and perhaps get an extra day out of it by traveling back on a weekend. (Hmm sounds like a plan) I will have to see what I can do with that. I did contact Boyds to get some pricing on their rims. I am planning on putting 18's on the front and 20's on the back. There are a couple of designs that I like, and as far as pricing I am looking at about 400-450 for the 18's and 500-550 for the 20's which does not seem all that bad.
I found a pretty decent place on ebay that sells custom billet grill materals to build or design your own. I think I will be checking into them and seeing what I can do with that. The prices seem pretty resonable. I will post my findings on here once I get some more detail. They have some pretty good looking product from what I have seen so far.
Well until next time, hopefully it will warm up and I can start working in the garage again.....
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( 2.9 / 663 )Saturday, October 22, 2005, 07:53 PM
Well I had decided to take a drive over to Jim Weimer Rod Garage in Random Lake, WI where my trucks suspenion is being done. I took some photos and got a chance to finally see it. They ran into a snag with the triangulated 4 link setup. It seems that there was some concern with "roll" as well as some clearance issues that might come into play. So they decided to go with a standard 4 link suspension with a pan-hard bar. It looks good and still gives plenty of room between the frame rails. All the photos are in the Photo Gallery. So be sure to check out the pictures there. I am waiting for the transmission mount to be fabricated and installed, and the motor mounts. Once that is done, the truck will come back home and then fall and winter will set in and progress will slow down until spring. I can work on some of the smaller details and also start gathering parts needed to get the truck running by summer. The frame and all the new parts still have to go in for powder coat and also the body work will start over the coming summer of '06.
All the photos are in the Photo Gallery
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( 3 / 695 )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 |
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