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71K5 - BP71K5's Just for fun build

Overview Gallery Discussion
Greg72 said:
There are places that will make you a steel wheel in any size/width you want.

Not thinking Stockton Wheel (too many complaints from what I've seen) but there is at least one other company that does the same type of work.
-G
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I did find weldcraft wheels which appears to do similar work, but seems to be more focused on wheel repair. I may call them to check. It also seems that Stockton Wheel is under new ownership. I read something about the former owner taking his own life?
 
Update: 02/27/12

As I'm working in the passenger side rocker I am remembering that my repair skills started with this side of the truck. Theres more than a few places where I just welded up some sheet metal patches without attempting to line up the edges or replacing all of the rusted metal. Ugh...

Here's one area that was completely useless since rust had eaten all the way through in spots and was no longer structurally sound. This is the area at the rear where the rocker meets the bedside. I cut out the rusted part to help make a replacement.
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I can't believe I left this in there.
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I'd have taken some pics of the replacement but it's just an L shaped piece with a couple weld nuts on the back. This flange is part of what holds the 2x4 slider tube to the rocker so it needs to be intact.
768fb766.jpg


And another picture of the front of the rocker area trying to clean up another one of my earlier messes.
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I ground away as much rust and scale as possible and then sprayed some rust convertor in the crevices I couldn't get to. It took me a long while to figure out why the brown rusty looking areas wouldn't turn black like they should after being sprayed with convertor....


It's an earlier coat of brown primer I used when I first repaired that area. :doah:
 
Greg72 said:
I always thought a set of stock-looking white steelies with factory hubcaps would look killer with larger, modern tires.
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Those would be awesome. I looked half heartedly for a set of factory style steel wheels in 17" but had no luck. Which is too bad 99.9 of aftermarket wheels are so god awful it's sad. Few things ruin the look of a nice vehicle faster than replacing a nice looking set of OEM wheels with hideous aftermarket wheels.

Martin
 
I admit the stock look wheels would be cool. Maybe I'll at least give a few places a call and see what can be done.
 
Update: 03/10/12:

Just spent a few days getting this other side put together enough to test the door fitment. I also received word my new tires were ready so I trimmed down this new structure to get ready to make sure the bigger tires would not interfere with it.
passengerrocker009.jpg


There's still a lot to do underneath, but this has been enough to make sure the doors align with the body well enough to put them back on. This was the whole purpose of tearing the truck down again so it's good to see things going back together, even temporarily.
passengerrocker012.jpg


Here's the new tire bolted up on the back. Eeesh, the front of the wheel well is going to need a lot more than just a little massaging. I have an idea for trimming it that might work and still make it look "sorta-factory" rather than just cutting off what rubs. We'll see how that works out later. On the same note, the 18" wheels are a little large. Still not sure if I like them but I'm going to run them anyway.
passengerrocker003.jpg
 
Lookin' good Brian. Working on the slider area kinda gets old, Huh? Up and down, up and down all day long.

Do you have a hole through the 2x4 to mount the bottom bolt for the fender or a welded nut back there? I sure like the "play" in that area for panel alignment.

How about using a zero rate on the rear to move that rear axle back? I know cutting into the quarter takes a ton of time to keep the lip.


Keep up the great work..:waytogo:
 
NorCal69 said:
Do you have a hole through the 2x4 to mount the bottom bolt for the fender or a welded nut back there? I sure like the "play" in that area for panel alignment.

How about using a zero rate on the rear to move that rear axle back? I know cutting into the quarter takes a ton of time to keep the lip.
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Yea, I'm kinda tired of working on it so that's why it's taking longer than normal. Lots of tedious welding too.

I do have several spots with holes in the 2x4 to tie into the fenders both front and back. It helps to have weld nuts back there.

Also, the axle is already moved back 1.5" using Kerts spring plates. I think the tires is centered about right, it's just that it's too large to fit now. I may hold off on that part to fix the rest of it and get this thing back on the road as long as the rubbing doesn't damage anything.
 
Looking really good man! The front of the rear wheel wells were less than fun... I opened mine up and tried to save the lip but it didn't come out that great. It can be done, but I didn't have the skill/patience to pull it off this time. Mine look fine from a couple feet away, but you can tell I messed with them if you get up close to it. But, if I hadn't done it I would have trashed the whole bedside just driving it around I think.

Keep it up dude, you're almost there:waytogo:
 
Yea, I'm not entirely sure what to do yet about the wheel. I'm pretty sure 37" is the biggest I want to go but I said that after 31", 33", and 35".

I'm also stuck in what to do about tying the cage and sliders to the frame. Some of my earlier ideas aren't looking realistic after I really analyzed them so I'm trying to back off a bit on the modifications and go slower while I figure it out.

I'm also looking at possibly getting a tube bender since there's now more than a few things that could use it as paying to have it done is about the same cost as the bender tooling.
 
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Update 03/19/12:

Minor setback and restart. After welding up the passenger side stuff, I put the door back on and found that I got a little too aggressive with my door-spreader bar and I pushed the firewall about 3/16" too far forward. The door did just not fit anywhere near where it was supposed to. The gap at the bottom of the door was nearly 1" at the back. I didn't take a picture of how bad it was because I didn't feel like admitting such a dumb mistake. But I ended up learning something so I'll share.

I unbolted my big slider tube and brackets to see if that would loosen things up a bit. It didn't though! I used a ratchet strap, and a few other tools to pull the windshield back a bit but it wouldn't budge at all so I did a bit of studying on how it is put together.

Take a look here at this picture and see the small strip of metal that connects the 4-bolts area to the vertical part of the firewall. If the firewall was going to tilt back at all, it was going to have to pivot right at the center of the 4-bolts area. So I put a slit in that section of metal to see if I could free things up a bit.
passengerrocker007.jpg


Once that was cut I was able to climb in the passenger seat and pull the firewall back with 15-20 heavy pulls on the windshield frame. Each time would close the gaps just a bit. You can see in this close-up that the slit is now tapered a bit after the firewall is back where it needs to be. It's a total of less than 1/16" but the movement way up by the top of the windshield was nearly 1/2".
passengerrocker006-1.jpg


Now the doors fit just about right at both the windshield and the rear quarter. Big sigh of relief over here.
passengerrocker003-1.jpg


passengerrocker002.jpg


I also pulled the trigger on a tube bender which will arrive tomorrow. ProBender was having a pretty decent sale over on pirate 4x4 so I ordered one of the pro3 bender and a 1-3/4" die. I convinced myself that this would save me money by not having to farm the bending out. We'll see if that holds true when I'm done. :)
 
Update: 03/24/12

I had to finally get around to removing the cage plate that was welded onto the floor. I started out trying to just cut the welds but it quickly became clear that I was going to do as much damage as just cutting it out. So I just cut it out to save time.
69b40be1.jpg


Then the same process as always, cut a patch, grind, test fit, repeat. Nothing fancy.
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I had to feather the bedliner out so when I recoat it it'll blend in better.

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Also got started on the a pillar body mount support. It's just plated with some 1/8" sheet and will get a bolt to hold the slider against it.
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Lookin' good, Brian. :waytogo:

I bet that bedliner smelled pretty good grinding it back from your patch area. :wink1:
 
Update 04/07/12

I haven't done much the past week or two except acquire bender parts and was able to paint and assemble it.

I ordered up a package deal on a probender3 which comes with a 1-3/4" die. I actually didn't realize it came unassembled or would require welding, but I didn't mind. It comes with the main arms, pivot arms, and a couple "feet" that you use to create a base by welding some 2x2 rectangle tube to.
bender001.jpg


It gave me a reason to break out the welder again and acquire a nice new hvlp spray gun along with paint and primer.

There's the base after welding it together.

bender002.jpg


I do have a tip for anyone else using this bender. I tack welded the base together after assembling everything to make sure it worked ok.
The big bolts on the bottom use some round tubing as shims to keep the two arms the correct distance apart. When I disassembled it for paint, I couldn't get the tube spacers back in because of the paint buildup. So I needed to grind the spacers down a bit which took a long time to get right. I'd put a extra washer in the assembly next time before welding to reserve some space for paint.

bender005.jpg


If you can believe it, I haven't had a chance to try it out even once yet...Still working on the slider stuff and started coaching my sons t-ball team which is a lot tougher than it sounds.
 
There was a special over on pirate which came to ~$750 shipped. I had to add the jack which is just a harbor freight item. The owner is super helpful as well. I was missing a piece of all-thread in the shipment and he sent one right out. Also, a couple of the big bolts were about 1/8" too short of engaging the entire nut and I thought I had assembled it wrong. When I asked he said people were complaining that they earlier bolts were too long. I guess once you get into 3/4" bolts, they are only easily available in 1" increments. He sent me some longer ones at no cost. I did hook up the air line to my compressor to test the motion and it looks like I can get a full 90 without pulling a pin. I just need to smooth out the edges on the dies before I do a test bend hopefully in the next few days.
 
Nice! I'll have to remember that once we move back to the states. I'll be in the market for a nice bender then.
 
bp71k5 said:
Update 04/07/12

I haven't done much the past week or two except acquire bender parts and was able to paint and assemble it.

I ordered up a package deal on a probender3 which comes with a 1-3/4" die. I actually didn't realize it came unassembled or would require welding, but I didn't mind. It comes with the main arms, pivot arms, and a couple "feet" that you use to create a base by welding some 2x2 rectangle tube to.
bender001.jpg


It gave me a reason to break out the welder again and acquire a nice new hvlp spray gun along with paint and primer.

There's the base after welding it together.

bender002.jpg


I do have a tip for anyone else using this bender. I tack welded the base together after assembling everything to make sure it worked ok.
The big bolts on the bottom use some round tubing as shims to keep the two arms the correct distance apart. When I disassembled it for paint, I couldn't get the tube spacers back in because of the paint buildup. So I needed to grind the spacers down a bit which took a long time to get right. I'd put a extra washer in the assembly next time before welding to reserve some space for paint.

bender005.jpg


If you can believe it, I haven't had a chance to try it out even once yet...Still working on the slider stuff and started coaching my sons t-ball team which is a lot tougher than it sounds.
Click to expand...
was the base the only thing that required welding? how much was the ram from hf? im looking into buyin a pro4 bender
 
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