Manufacturers finally started using decent sized brakes. Hence bigger rim sizes
CK5
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'74 K5 build: Smurf
- Thread starter dremu
- Start date
Yeah, I fussed over the powercoating idea as it cost about as much as the wheels proper, but damn, once I saw it in person I knew I'd done the right thing. Black wheels and that truck just didn't work
And yeah, big wheels are the norm any more. I don't know if it's the OEM's going to larger wheels (both my DD's have 18" from the factory, smallest option I could get!) or if it's pimp fools driving the change. Not all the manufacturers make 35-37" tires for a 16" wheel any more, and those that do don't always have them, so for some it was "Backordered Until Hell Freezes Over" kind of thing. The 37-on-17 actually looks right, in my mind, kinda like a 31-on-15 only stretched
-- A
....plus, when you're ready the 17" wheels are large enough to fit portal boxes inside without interference!!!!
-G
They are from GMT400 trucks, so there are no "open ones for the front hubs". You just have to cut the front out. Swap meet, or tire store?
Martin
Duh ... I shoulda thunk of that. I spose it also comes from everybody using discs, no more rear drums (can make a drum wider instead of larger diameter to increase contact area, can't do that with rotor.)
....plus, when you're ready the 17" wheels are large enough to fit portal boxes inside without interference!!!!
-G
Yes. Because a medium-simple build will have portals.
I'd love to have your truck, Greg, but only if you build it for me. I don't have the patience 
Further in the "I shoulda thunk" category. At least I'm good with a Dremel.
-- A
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Haha, no big deal.
You might not even care for it, but I personally like the way it looks.
Martin
You might not even care for it, but I personally like the way it looks.
Martin
Nah, I think I dig it. It's a good mix of the classic and the modern (both terms being relative), and this truck is certainly a mix. [Some might say "bastard", but I prefer "mix"
]I saw some pix in the hubcap thread, including yours. I'm not entirely sold on the chrome look, but donno if I prefer white or black painted caps either. There's enough on fleabay that I figure I can try different visual options and not break the bank.
-- A
There are also gray caps.
Martin
Martin
My thinking was that I'm only limited by my imagination, or at least what Rustoleum offers in terms of color
But an actual color (say one of the Smurf blues) would be too pimpy. Gray or grey might do nicely, and conveniently, I very much like (and therefore keep in stock) a Rustoleum machine grey enamel.We'll see what happens when my burst of Ebay bits arrive.
-- A
Grey.
Martin
Martin
I know you're a man of few words, Marty, but dammit, I wish you'd use complete sentences more often. "You should use grey"? "I prefer grey"? "Why did you say grey and gray in the same sentence?"?
-- A
I know you're a man of few words, Marty, but dammit, I wish you'd use complete sentences more often. "You should use grey"? "I prefer grey"? "Why did you say grey and gray in the same sentence?"?
-- A
Just don't use a ghey gray.
-G
Hey now! I'm equal opportunity, I accept all greys across the rainbow, regardless as to whether they self-identify as grey or gray.
-- A
And David Caruso wore them:
(see what I did there? shades of grey! oh I crack my own corn...)
-- A
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So much ADD round here... Lol
So while I'm waiting on Ebay packages to arrive, I rustled up some pix of other little projects I've done inbetween my annual update.
I wasn't kidding about winching the spare up and down. Synthetic rope is great for this, route it over the hood and through the cage, and saves the back. The black wire on the passenger side is the winch remote; as mentioned, I added a plug in the back for this very purpose.
In retrospect I shoulda bought one of Kert's rear bumpers with the spring-loaded carrier. I really did not get how freakin heavy a 37 is. Live and learn.
I wasn't kidding about winching the spare up and down. Synthetic rope is great for this, route it over the hood and through the cage, and saves the back. The black wire on the passenger side is the winch remote; as mentioned, I added a plug in the back for this very purpose.
In retrospect I shoulda bought one of Kert's rear bumpers with the spring-loaded carrier. I really did not get how freakin heavy a 37 is. Live and learn.
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Somewhere in there I got tired of pulling the trickle charger out every time I took a drive, and hardwired it and mounted it in the truck. Then I got tired of popping the hood to unhook the extension cord every time I took a drive, so I got an RV through-plug and put it in the grille. Simple, cheap (eight bucks, I think), but sooo much easier. (Actually, now that I have TBI, I swear the batteries don't die as quickly. Either starting the carb really drained them, or more likely, I'm driving her more because it's easier to start her.)
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And waaay back, before the TBI even, I put on these high-zoot Wilwood dual-piston calipers. The ones with the larger diameter pistons go up front, and the smaller ones are for the rear. I found I don't need the adjustable proportioning valve; the different sized pistons set the bias right where I want it.
They're drop-in for the D52 aka GM Large aka K10/K20 calipers, you just have to get them for the right thickness rotor. The blue caliper is a K20 type for reference. They do not have parking brake stuff, they're just plain calipers. I'm using a T-case brake from High Angle so that's fine for me.
We won't talk about how much they cost, but they are purty and the truck does stop nicely. I really should get the rotors resurfaced as they've not been in years, and I might get some of those fancy Ultra Grabby Green pads or whatever they are ... but this works well now.
They're drop-in for the D52 aka GM Large aka K10/K20 calipers, you just have to get them for the right thickness rotor. The blue caliper is a K20 type for reference. They do not have parking brake stuff, they're just plain calipers. I'm using a T-case brake from High Angle so that's fine for me.
We won't talk about how much they cost, but they are purty and the truck does stop nicely. I really should get the rotors resurfaced as they've not been in years, and I might get some of those fancy Ultra Grabby Green pads or whatever they are ... but this works well now.
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Some of the bits of this build are of debatable necessity, and are really just an excuse to weld. What can I say, I like to weld.
I wanted to do bump stops to keep Bilsteins from being crushed and keep my springs from inverting, but the more I researched air bumps, the more my head hurt. As I started looking at poly bumps, I found some Daystar bumps that come in the can format of air bumps, but have poly inserts to do the actual work. They're therefore more affordable and less hassle (no nitrogen and schraders and whatever other black magic). As a bonus, the poly inserts come in a coupla mushiness rates (that's a highly technical term) and so the bumps can be adjusted with tool hands. (No, that's not a typo -- no tools required, just hands.)
http://www.daystarsuspensionparts.com/ku71090bk
I think I ended up using two hard inserts and one soft one in each can, to give a progressive resistance rate (push it a bit, soft, push it more, hardens up.)
As it worked out, the can type was really easy to mound up front, got a set of holders and built a bracket that bolts to the side and bottom of the frame where the factory bumps were:
Then added a stop plate to my U-bolt plates
And mounted up
The back was a bit trickier as the frame is narrower, so I had to space the holders out to line up with the plates. Looks like it needs reinforcement at the top, but the horizontal piece is like .250" wall 2x2 and it's bolted to the frame in both dimensions, so I'm pretty sure it's stable
It did take some readjustment to get the height dialled in. When I fabbed them up I apparently mis-measured the rear -- you'll note the rears are higher in their holders than are the fronts. I discovered that if the bumps are too low, when you go over a dip on the street, one will hit and then rebound, which makes the other one hit and rebound, which makes the first one hit again, and the truck pogos back and forth down the street. Having the ass end of your truck doing the Macarena side-to-side is exciting and makes you release the gas pedal veeeery quickly in hope that your teeth don't rattle loose
-- A
I wanted to do bump stops to keep Bilsteins from being crushed and keep my springs from inverting, but the more I researched air bumps, the more my head hurt. As I started looking at poly bumps, I found some Daystar bumps that come in the can format of air bumps, but have poly inserts to do the actual work. They're therefore more affordable and less hassle (no nitrogen and schraders and whatever other black magic). As a bonus, the poly inserts come in a coupla mushiness rates (that's a highly technical term) and so the bumps can be adjusted with tool hands. (No, that's not a typo -- no tools required, just hands
.)http://www.daystarsuspensionparts.com/ku71090bk
I think I ended up using two hard inserts and one soft one in each can, to give a progressive resistance rate (push it a bit, soft, push it more, hardens up.)
As it worked out, the can type was really easy to mound up front, got a set of holders and built a bracket that bolts to the side and bottom of the frame where the factory bumps were:
Then added a stop plate to my U-bolt plates
And mounted up
The back was a bit trickier as the frame is narrower, so I had to space the holders out to line up with the plates. Looks like it needs reinforcement at the top, but the horizontal piece is like .250" wall 2x2 and it's bolted to the frame in both dimensions, so I'm pretty sure it's stable
It did take some readjustment to get the height dialled in. When I fabbed them up I apparently mis-measured the rear -- you'll note the rears are higher in their holders than are the fronts. I discovered that if the bumps are too low, when you go over a dip on the street, one will hit and then rebound, which makes the other one hit and rebound, which makes the first one hit again, and the truck pogos back and forth down the street. Having the ass end of your truck doing the Macarena side-to-side is exciting and makes you release the gas pedal veeeery quickly in hope that your teeth don't rattle loose
-- A
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And finally, I had to replace the tranny pan. The old one had some pinholes, which in no way were caused by dents whose shape remarkably resembled the corners of the toolbox on the tow dolly, inasmuch as there was never any instance of driving the truck over the dolly and landing on the toolbox. Twice 
[Said dolly has since had tire stops added to prevent further incidences of not driving over, since I would never do anything that daft. Twice. 
]
The replacement pan is cast aluminum, which while nice and all, is just begging for damage from toolboxes, rocks, or roving bands of passerby thugs in mall parking lots.
A skid plate, therefore, was in order, to match the existing T-case skids, to protect the tranny pan, and to give me an excuse to weld.
Some leftover square tube was handy. It's only .120" wall, but I think it'll still hold. Some eyeballed bending (hammer time!) and Red Green-quality measurements later, I arrived at this crossmember:
This is the sort of work that real fabbers would toss into their tuition pile and redo, but again, this truck isn't perfect. The tricky thing is all the compound angles, especially at the ends where it bolts to the frame. It also has to clear the exhaust and the front driveshaft on the sides, and the oil pan and such up front. In the end the shape is deceptively simple, and I spent a ton of time getting down on the creeper, scooting under the truck, fiddling with the piece, then going back to the fab table for adjustment, lather, rinse, repeat.
The skid plate proper is 1/4" plate, and while I was able to make the forward crossmember angle to match (that center piece with the captive nuts), I wanted to attach to an existing crossmember in the rear, which is level to the frame. Since because I don't have a brake that can bend 1/4", I scored the inside with the grinder. (By "scored" I mean "cut a big horkin chunk out of")
and then flipped it over, and bent the edge in the time honored tradition of whacking it with the 5# sledge thus:
Thankfully it only needed a few degrees of bend. Then the score is welded back up (I do like me the welding!)
and to get an idea of the final product, here's the skid and the crossmember, as you'd see from the passenger side (crossmember goes forward.)
Though it looks hinky as hell in this pic, the ends of the crossmember are actually parallel to each other and the ends are triangulated inside with scrap of that square tube. While it might not withstand impact of, say, a freight train, it should handle scraping across rocks or import cars.
-- A
[Said dolly has since had tire stops added to prevent further incidences of not driving over, since I would never do anything that daft. Twice. ]The replacement pan is cast aluminum, which while nice and all, is just begging for damage from toolboxes, rocks, or roving bands of passerby thugs in mall parking lots.
A skid plate, therefore, was in order, to match the existing T-case skids, to protect the tranny pan, and to give me an excuse to weld.
Some leftover square tube was handy. It's only .120" wall, but I think it'll still hold. Some eyeballed bending (hammer time!) and Red Green-quality measurements later, I arrived at this crossmember:
This is the sort of work that real fabbers would toss into their tuition pile and redo, but again, this truck isn't perfect. The tricky thing is all the compound angles, especially at the ends where it bolts to the frame. It also has to clear the exhaust and the front driveshaft on the sides, and the oil pan and such up front. In the end the shape is deceptively simple, and I spent a ton of time getting down on the creeper, scooting under the truck, fiddling with the piece, then going back to the fab table for adjustment, lather, rinse, repeat.
The skid plate proper is 1/4" plate, and while I was able to make the forward crossmember angle to match (that center piece with the captive nuts), I wanted to attach to an existing crossmember in the rear, which is level to the frame. Since because I don't have a brake that can bend 1/4", I scored the inside with the grinder. (By "scored" I mean "cut a big horkin chunk out of")
and then flipped it over, and bent the edge in the time honored tradition of whacking it with the 5# sledge thus:
Thankfully it only needed a few degrees of bend. Then the score is welded back up (I do like me the welding!)
and to get an idea of the final product, here's the skid and the crossmember, as you'd see from the passenger side (crossmember goes forward.)
Though it looks hinky as hell in this pic, the ends of the crossmember are actually parallel to each other and the ends are triangulated inside with scrap of that square tube. While it might not withstand impact of, say, a freight train, it should handle scraping across rocks or import cars.
-- A
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