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Project Resurrection: The s10 truggy.

In the frame yes. Its gotta carry the cage load. On the doors its 14ga on the top and bottom to lose a little weight and 1/8th on the sides since i hacked them open.
 
O and I picked up a chevy 27spl 241 and a TBI 305 for $150 this weekend. Im gonna have to find a 32 spline input for the 241 but for $50 I just grabbed it. The plan was to do an at home hone and rebuild job on the 305 but if the bottom end is as spotless as the heads Im just gonna shove it in.

NEED TO FIND TRANSMISSION!!! :haha:
 
Attacking this some more this weekend. Threw a flood light up outside the door of the shop to keep things going and took a break to patch the roof up so I can stop coming to the shop to puddles on the floor...

Got the core support all mounted up and the front frame legs somewhat welded on. 7in past the core support for the winch. Im going to make the grill around the winch. I also need to find a legitimate headlight replacement housing. I want to use round lights so I was thinking jeep HIDs or LEDs but Im not sure how they are classified when theyre acceptable everyday headlights and not "offroad" lights.



Im planning on pulling the fenders tomorrow to paint them, maybe even the doors and cab too. We'll see how far 10 cans of camo tan gets me. I also eyed up the lines for trimming. The core support will also be heavily trimmed so some added fender mounting holes and some custom inner fender work will be in order.




Ive been trying to get in touch with a guy a couple hours away that has an LT1/nv3500/np241 listed but after 2 phone calls and a text Im ready to throw the towel in... I just dont get how you can want to sell something and not reply to someone after days??? O and I have no interest in the POS lt1 btw.

Hopefully early next week I'll be adding an awesome new addition to the shop, a like new grizzly overhead mill/lathe combo. Could pass it up, less than half the cost of new and I get to make payments on it to my speed shop guy :D
 
hey bud.......






























:haha:

Yeah Im excited to learn some new equipment. Ive always wanted a lathe...






Headlights Im going with.

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Classy fender chop all done other than boxing in the other fender. Tire clearance was substantially increased. Also mocked up the winch and got a good idea of how to do the bumper. I also measured for the engine and have quite a bit of room even with a long water pump.












I hate sheet metal lol.





Winch




I might dig out a 2wd nv3500 I have laying around and throw it on to mock up the motor. Not sure if thats a good idea though because I guess my engine angle is going to be determined by achieving the flatbelly with the transfer cases on.
 
the new black...



or is it orange these days?














Ryoken red over Ryoken green FTW!
 
Why not use the LT1?

Martin

There's not enough drugs in the world to get me to put an lt1 into anything Lol. With how cheap a 5.3 or 4.8 is now a days if I was going to spring for a harness it would be LS. Plus the optispark would need to be deleted for of road and then that's custom coil packs and a custom tune. Not very budget.
 
I started building brackets to mount the dana 44 spindles on the 8.8.

First I rough cut them out of 3/4in plate on the plasma at work.



I also cut a 1/4in piece of plate that is solid with the bolt pattern pierced through it and a center hole. I also used this piece to transfer the bolt pattern on the 3/4 plate since you can just punch a tiny little locating hole through 3/4.




Then I faced and gun drilled a 1-1/2 chunk of solider stock and bolted it through the center hole of the 1/4in template. And welded them together.



This gave me my fixture in order to true my adapter/bracket off of the bolt pattern rather than the OD/ID cut in the 3/4 blank. I faced this piece since it was obviously warped from welding the solid stock to it.



I left off bolting up a blank to it, which fit perfectly, and began truing the outside.



I quickly realized the tool steel cutters really dont like the hardened surface from the torch cut, so I little grinder prep will be necessary.
 
Spent 6 hours on the lathe today. What a learning experience :waytogo:

I came up with 2 spindle pockets/brackets. One of them will be for the spare tire carrier. Simply because I got over ambitious and hogged too much out of the interference surface for the spindle. Its ok though because I was planning on making one for this anyway. So my spare tire will have a full outer that will work at all 4 corners underneath it. Complete with a spindle, wheel bearings, wheel hub, locking hub, and maybe even a caliper.

Last night I got my jig all done to mount the blanks. As I said the jig was important because it allowed me to true the piece off the bolt pattern.

First step was to true the outer diameter. Because of the nature of how a plasma cuts material so thick I had to transfer the pattern onto the piece manually and drill. So it was slightly off and also tapered on the cut. I struggled with the first piece but between the slight out of round to the pattern and the hardened area from the torch scale the angle grinder quickly came out to knock the serious material off while things spun.

Heres the OD trued to the pattern.



The ID was significantly easier to cut. Im not really sure why. Maybe its because I changed my approach to cutting it from starting on ID to simply beginning a cut on the face and allowing it to push through. Regardless the ID was cut down to 3.25 for the axle tube. Then .475 deep was cut open larger to 3.70 for the spindle to seat in for an interference fit.

First piece.



As I said everything was good except the interference. I got way ahead of myself with hogging it out after how long cutting the tube ID took.



The first one took about 4.5 hours. The second one a mere 1.5 and it was dead on.





Very happy. One more to make. To me this was a big undertaking for the first thing Ive ever done on a lathe. Further complicated by the issues with the hardening from the plasma. Needing to manually transfer things and true off the bolt pattern. The method worked good. After making the first one I though to myself "omg I could never sell these this takes forever" lol. Then the second one took just over and hour.

O and this makes a damn mess lol.




 
Lately its been like throwing a dart blindly when I go to my shop as to what Im working on. What end of the s10, what facet of the end of the vehicle lol. Today I decided I was sick of constantly almost knocking my bed off the frame. Got the height figured out. Originally had it 4in over the frame but it was way too much. Brought it down to 2 and it looks perfect. The frame itself is just tacked on right now since I still need to weld in the back wall of it and paint what will be against the cab before welding it in for good.

I also plan on adding to said mounts since the cage will be mounted to this. Probably 45* from the corners against the cab and some tube stanchions here and there for more strength.

The angle between the cab and the bed definitely is wrong. Either the back of the bed needs to go up, or the front of the cab to get the body line and the bed line at the same angle. Im thinking Im gonna cut up some aluminum spacers and get the cab up a hair in the front since I could use the room by the booster anyway.










I also finished my other front fender and shot them tan. I'll be away next weekend selling soap with the wife. Hoping here business takes off so we've got some more money. Finish up the loose ends with my projects + the house and get here a scout.


O and Im doing square tube rockers on a zj at work and am totally sold on adding these to the s10s hood.

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