Out of the darkness, a familiar face appears................Yep, I'M BACK!
I've been lurking almost everyday, but I haven't posted much because work and life has really made it tough to have the time to devote to anything else. Let's see.....Since the beginning of the year, the wife got really, really, sick and after 3 months the doctors are still baffled, the house flooded and did major damage, the septic tank was giving us problem$, the son got head lice from one of the helmets at the local go-kart track, the dog got really sick, and we were down a few guys at work, so I am working 12 hour days (with a 125 mile commute) almost everyday.
I could write a really bad country song with the way my 2010 is going. I believe that I'm just getting all my bad luck for the entire year out of the way early.
Let's see....since I've posted on this thread I've actually done a lot of little jobs on the truck:
The big block has been yanked and a small block is back in. I don't want to build a one-dimensional truck that goes really fast in a straight line only. I'm building this truck to drive the wheels off of it.
The manual steering box is gone, and a power box is going in.
The manual brakes are going to be replaced with a Hydroboost unit.
And, yesterday was a first for me. I am actually taking the truck to a buddies shop to get some suspension work done. This goes completely against my ideology of "do it myself", but what I want done is going to take a pro to do it right. I'm going to be right there with him, but I need his expertise. I like my stuff ground-hugging low, and even with all the engineering I have done, there's no way that I can make it ride nice and have it as low as I like it with leaf springs and coils. So, it got loaded up and it's now over at Exile Fabrication in Apple Valley getting a full air ride suspension.
The plan is to remove the leafs in the rear and build a 3-link set-up with Slam Specialties RE-8 bags. Single 10 gallon air tank, 2 ViaAir 480 pumps, 8 valves. I want a slow-moving, quiet system. All the lines will be hard-lined. The front will get Slam Specialties RE-7 bags. It's not important for me to have the truck lay on the frame rails at full deflation. I just want to be able to raise the truck when I have to go over speedbumps, enter a driveway, or go down an uneven road. I've never had an airbagged vehicle, so this is new territory for me.
While the truck is at Exile, we are going to engineer a way to make the Hydroboost work. With a Camaro subframe and with the master cylinder attached to the driver side frame rail, there isn't any room to route the exhaust. I'm running a 3" exhaust and there is NO room to route the pipes and still have the required air-space between it and the master cylinder. The plan is to move the pedal pivot tighter to the frame rail, scoot the Hydroboost and master cylinder aft, and run a pushrod and pivot assembly.
I'll post pictures of the progress. Mike at Exile is quite the craftsman, and he meets my standard of quality.
Kabwe, OrrieG, Coronas56,Tri5Nerd, and everybody who has posted the nice comments: THANK YOU for your words. They keep me motivated. Even while I was away, I still checked in on you guys often. I did a lot of planning for my project, and I fell asleep in my favorite recliner every night with a catalog in my lap. This site is awesome, and I look forward to a day when we can all meet up and road-trip our rides somewhere and show them off like proud parents.