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The BluJay

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Alright. Second test drive was better than the first. The steering was all over the place after the first drive, figured my caster was out of whack so I added a pair of 3° shims to the front leaf pack and also lowered the front end half an inch. Brake pedal was also super spongy with very little stopping power, so I bled the ever-loving life out of the brakes again and then took the truck for its second test drive. On that drive I performed with the proper bedding procedure for the power stop brake pads and steering was much better also. Better firmness, better tracking, better return to center. Brakes performed better also, though I would still like for the pedal to be firmer. But maybe I’m too used to my wife’s 2018 minivan stopping power lol.
 
Been driving it around over the weekend and tweaking things. Put about 30miles on it. Mostly trying to get the steering to perform how I want it. Gonna put another 1/16” toe in during lunch today and see how it does.

Got a vibration that gets worse with speed starting around 40mph. I suspect I may have screwed the pinion angle up when I added an additional 2.5” of lift to the truck. There’s something like a 5* separation between the pinion and driveshaft angles. I’ll be sorting that out later this week.

On a positive note - this thing rides super level and stable … like almost feels like it’s floating … from a suspension performance perspective. I attribute this to the outboard shocks and sway bar in the rear. Springs are definitely firm, but not dump-truck firm, probably wouldn’t be fun on washouts but as a road warrior, it rides really good.

Lots to do still before next weekend’s camping trip, and as per usual, my attention keeps getting pulled elsewhere, but we will get it.

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Andy
 
Been doing lots of work on the truck. Still have lots of work to do on the truck. But for now, it’s time for the truck to do some work.

Just a redneck doing redneck things with redneck trucks.

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I needed to get my trailer out of the backyard, so I had to pull the red truck out first. Worked like a charm.

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Picking up a large smoker grill tomorrow morning to add a second rack for a friend.

Andy.
 
AugustDiesel said:
Been doing lots of work on the truck. Still have lots of work to do on the truck. But for now, it’s time for the truck to do some work.

Just a redneck doing redneck things with redneck trucks.

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I needed to get my trailer out of the backyard, so I had to pull the red truck out first. Worked like a charm.

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Picking up a large smoker grill tomorrow morning to add a second rack for a friend.

Andy.
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I cant remember, why didnt the hood and fenders get the red love at the same time?
 
Fastereddie said:
I cant remember, why didnt the hood and fenders get the red love at the same time?
Click to expand...

Just hadn’t gotten to it yet. The paint job was born out of necessity. The New Mexican sheet metal was not appreciating the salty Floridian air, so I needed to get it protected. The hood also needs some work before it’s ready for paint and I still gotta do fender trimming before paint as well.

Getting it out in the open sure did a lot to revive my motivation to get it done. When the BluBurb is “done done” my main focus will be to get the RedBurb operating under its own power.
 
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Figured I’d post a report. Truck is serving its current duties pretty well, which so far is just to drive me around within a 5 mile radius. I have about 230 miles on it so far.

I really like the outboard rear shocks and rear sway bar. Those do a lot to stabilize the truck.

Springs are, as I expected, pretty stiff. It’s not quite a dump truck ride, but Rev2 suspension will definitely include ORD springs and higher quality shocks. Gonna wait until I do the engine swap in (hopefully) a year or two. This engine leaks from every crevice, and I don’t expect it to last much longer. I plan on building another turboed 6.5 to swap into it when the time comes, but that’s down the road.

Had to cut the spring perches off and do that over completely. I could not have done the first round more wrong. Wrong angle for the tcase and set too far inward. It’s all good now. Pinion is parallel to the tcase output and axle is centered at 42.5”.

Still have to get the cable shifter for the tcase installed, as well as, parking brake cables, speedometer cable, wire up my subwoofer and power inverter, get my CB and GMRS radios installed, etc etc.

Also found out the bearings in the rear differential are going bad, so can’t really go outta town until that’s done. Wife has me on a spending freeze for the next few months, so it’ll be later this summer before I handle that.

All in all, it’s just nice to drive it, use it, and be able to call it quasi-complete, and start thinking about the next one.

Andy
 
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