spare parts truggy build

[big dan]

Ill start this off with a little background information. 10 years ago (I was 15) I was looking for my first car. Wanted a chevelle but my mom brought home an issue of Four Wheeler magazine with Toby Harrel's big orange blazer and the next week I owned an 84 k10. The next week it had a 2 inch lift and 33s. Through continuous modification and more extreme wheeling (thank you ck5) the truck ended up on its lid. I got another truck and transfered all the parts and left the body and frame sitting in my mom's yard while I went off to college.

While in college I started buying and parting out wrecked chevy k-trucks. Used the money and some parts to build my dd. I also ended up with a lot of spare parts.

I also met a friend in college with similar interests, and jokingly one day I mentioned putting all my spare parts on my frame and building another truck. Now my friend gets an idea in his head and nothing will stop him from doing it and he is real persuasive. It took us 6 days to take a bare frame into this:

The only parts I had to buy were a cab (got complete 86 3/4 ton 4x4 $200), shocks ($120, oreilly employee discount) and lights (about $30)

The cab had very little floor left and lots of dents and the bed was rust held together with bondo. The fenders were in pretty good shape and the hood was gm nos

 

[big dan]

At this point my dd, which was a nice looking truck, was well on the path of my first truck. It was starting to get dents and I didnt like it. The plan was to build a wheeler out of the spare parts rig, on the cheap of course

Ill provide a little disclaimer before I start into this;

First, I dont make things look pretty, dont have the patience and where I wheel there are lots of trees and most of the people I wheel with drive jeeps and still hit trees regularly. That being said I dont feel like I should waste my time making things look too good.

Second, I have no fabrication skills. Never messed with any tubing or metal fabrication of any kind. In fact when I started I didnt even know how to weld. But I tried to have the motivation of my good friend and do what I wanted.

First thing I did was remove the good fenders and hood and replace them with some I had that were already cut.

And while I was at it I got hit by the narrowing bug

Took 10 inches out of the front on each side and 12 on each side on the rear

I was also so excited about the project I neglected my yard duties as you can see

Moved my front spring hangers for 52s

and added the 3/4 10 bolt from the $200 truck

and the 9.5 14 bolt rear

Looks funny with skinny tires

and threw the bumper on to show how narrow it was

Got some hummer wheels and tires for $200 and tried every way I could (despite what people here said) to make them fit with buying anything

But it didnt work so I got these

and cut these with a torch

And since I didnt trust my welding I had friend weld them in

Mounted tire

Tires on the truck, at this point it starts looking a whole lot better. Those skinny tires and wheels were really ugly

Spent a little time on making it look better

My brother-in-law was bothering me all the time about when I was going to let him paint it so I gave in

 

[big dan]

First trip

Finally got to go wheelin at a local offroad park

And with my brother-in-law a few times

This tree got stuck on my rear diff at the bottom of a long steep hill climb

Got a little body damage

After a couple months of goin wheelin almost every weekend the truck was in need of repair and lots of stuff I wanted to change

First off I bent my tie rod and stock steering sucks with 52s up front and a welded diff. My shocks worked as limiting straps though so it couldnt flex too much

Tie rod out

And crossover on

Had one of these laying around

And ordered on of these for $85

Tapped my steering gear

 

[big dan]

All finished with steering, remember I cant weld yet so the ram will have to wait till I can get help.

Next on the list was ground clearance. The truck is pretty low and fairly long for what I do so clocking the t-case was in order

Clocking ring on and a regular yoke on the front output so I can use a longer driveshaft with no cv. For those that wonder, the yoke came off the rear output of an np203 and uses the seal for the 203 rear output as well

T-case installed, I never realized how low the crossmember was till I looked at this pic

Next on the list was my crappy running free 305. I forgot to mention that the first wheelin trip killed the motor. I picked up this 305 and stuffed it in after the first trip but it wasnt running so good. I had an idea that it was the timing chain. I had a cam and lifter set with a new timing chain and a factory aluminum intake so I swapped it all around. Turns out the timing chain was stretched so far that I took it off without unbolting the gear first

After all the mechanical work was complete I wanted some body mods. First was rear inner fenders. Spin the tires over once and you cant see out the back glass so that needed to be fixed

I hammered a flange on the bottom and used sheet metal screws to hold them in

Made some headlight bezels as well

Got it ready to go again but all my friends still had broke jeeps so I did some yard wheelin

Then I went to my dad's farm and played around on some rocks. Came home with tranny fluid everywhere and found this

At this point I almost junked the whole truck and quit. I spent several months completeing repairs and this happened on the first time I went somewhere.

But with a little motivation from my friend I kept going and decided to lose some weight and shorten the wheelbase down to 110 inches

 

[big dan]

Hummer wheels are heavy and I wanted to get away from 16.5s so I sold my wheels to a member here, still cant believe he was willing to pay the shipping but according to him it was still a good deal. I hope he is happy with them and glad I could help someone else out.

This is where the project gets interesting. I have no experience with tube but wanted a roll cage so I picked up an s&w race car cage. Occasionally they have free shipping, I was lucky enough to inquire on said week and got my dom cage shipped for free

Then I messed up and the sawzall got hungry

and this was what was left of my truck

And the resulting tube work

Picked up an sm465/np208 with a hydro bell and all the clutch parts for $100. Turns out the 86 cab was originally a 4spd truck and already had the clutch pedal setup and holes in the floor so it was an easy install

Threw on some fender skins and mounted the hummer tires on factory steel wheels and was ready to wheel again

 

[big dan]

Took it on various wheelin trips

Found some red clay

My wife on the far right and two of her younger sisters. you can tell who was with me

And because my welding skills werent all that great this scared me into reworking the cage and all the tube work

 

[Deuling]

This looks like fun! I like it!

 

[big dan]

Cut it all apart and started over

At this point was getting pretty good at welding. Making good penetration and even started making some that looked good. After completing all the welding I went around and ground down every weld and rewelded them until I was satisfied that all of them were good and could be trusted in a hard roll. I also added some new sheet metal

And did some more yard wheeling to show my disrespect for lawn care

Found some bucket seats and electric fans

And finally got something better than those balding hummer tires

Took sheet metal off to paint all the tube work so it didnt rust any more

And did the final trim and fit on the body panels

Moved the fuel tank and tool box towards the back so I could add an extra seat. I call this the picture taker seat, cause any time we get to a major obstacle this passenger has to get out and take pictures. Its for their own protection

I got thick metal welding down pretty good so I thought I would try welding some sheet metal and welded the cowl/firewall to the tubing and filled in the gaps with sheet metal. Also added an underhood battery tray

 

[big dan]

Started on a front bumper

Got my tires mounted finally

Seats and seatbelts are mounted, started primering

Finished the front bumper

and the rear

Built a fan shroud for my electric fans

Found some 37 inch boggers on the way home from work one day and had to have them

 

[big pappa b]

You've defintely been putting it through some changes.

Does the sister in the middle really have crazy eyes or was it just in the picture? She looks like she could be psycho ..in a good way

 

[big dan]

I still needed to address the front driveshaft after putting 52s on. Sometimes Im slow about things. Ive had a square tube shaft before and didnt like the slop or the weight but the basic idea worked great. Since my dad is a tractor mechanic I have access to lots of tractor parts and found some pto shaft parts that worked.

I couldnt find a piece of the larger splined section to make the whole shaft out of but I had a piece of heavy wall tubing that it fit perfectly inside of and I had the cv head already ground out for more angle and it fit perfectly inside of the larger spine. I welded the splines onto the cv head and then inside of the tube and welded the other piece of spline inside the other end of the tube. With a 1310 yoke welded to the smaller spline this is the end result

Now if you remember way back I drilled and tapped my gear box for hydro assist? Well I finally got it put on.

Used the radiator hose reservoir for now

And some more yard wheelin

 

[big dan]

Ive been wheelin a couple times in it now and love it. This is my first time wheelin in a rig that is this light and it makes a world of difference. It is also completely street legal in Arkansas believe it or not and I drive it to most of the trails we go on

Ive got plans of reworking the windshield area as Im not to thrilled with how it turned out and Ive got a big sheet of polycarbonate to add a windshield. I also want to clock my t-case back up. After I swapped in the manual I left the tcase in the factory position because I had a lot of trouble with driveshafts with it clocked flat.

Hopefully this will inspire someone as I have been inspired by many here

and yes the sister in the middle has crazy eyes

 

[big dan]

One more thing Ill add is that Ive got less than $2000 in this whole project. Most of my parts and money came from parting out wrecked and junk trucks.

 

[Deuling]

So how much do you think you have into it?not including all. the stuff you had initially laying around? I so want to do this for a trail rig so i wont be tempted to destroy my blazer. Edit: you beat me to it lol.

 

[swettysblazer]

Awesome build, I love it!

 

[big dan]

So how much do you think you have into it?not including all. the stuff you had initially laying around? I so want to do this for a trail rig so i wont be tempted to destroy my blazer. Edit: you beat me to it lol.

Definately find a junk truck if you want to do this. Your blazer is way too nice

I have a very tight budget for this rig because of student loans/rent/new car and trying to fix up/maintain my other truck. Craigslist was the best thing that ever happened to this rig.

 

[Deuling]

Definately find a junk truck if you want to do this. Your blazer is way too nice

I have a very tight budget for this rig because of student loans/rent/new car and trying to fix up/maintain my other truck. Craigslist was the best thing that ever happened to this rig.

Heck yah! Soon as college is over id love to start somethin like this. Ive been waiting to see more of this rig since i saw you post a pic of it in the "xx" tire "xx" lift thread i think a while back.

 

[jt512]

Great build man I really like the end result especially for the $$ you have into it, I am getting ready to start my own budget, multiple purpose, wheeler, work K5 so I like seeing what others have done , and yours looks great .

On a side note, it's always interesting to see what someone looks like, you kind of get a mental image of what they look like from reading posts, then you see a pic and it's completely not what you expected. I pictured you looking completely different and much older

 

[Deuling]

On a side note, it's always interesting to see what someone looks like, you kind of get a mental image of what they look like from reading posts, then you see a pic and it's completely not what you expected. I pictured you looking completely different and much older

His screen name is very sneaky lol.

 

[82355]

I like this. I also don't care about how stuff looks.

Martin