Driver on a budget.

[TchncnDen]

The front end is all nice and new again. You wouldn't believe the hassle I had getting the front end aligned. I had a new windshield and back glass installed saturday morning. It took them about two hours so I'm glad I had them do it. The glass shop is very close to my house and I stopped at a place even closer on the way home that does alignments to see if they could fit me in. He said there were three cars in front of me but he could call me when they are ready for mine. About three oclock I still hadent heard from them so I went back to see if I was still in line. The machine broke and couldn't be fixed until monday, bummer but understandable. I went to Pepboy's to get some stuff and asked how late the alignment shop was open, 8 o'clock. They were doing one at the time but told me to come back in an hour. I didn't even have the truck with me so that was perfect. I went back in an hour and there was a different guy. He through a hissy fit. Who told you to come in tonight, there's no way we can do this now. Ugh, ok how about tomorrow. How's one oclock, that's too late do you have anything earlier? Uh, how about ten? I can do that, see you tomorrow. I show up at ten oclock sharp and at 1130 I'm about to go get my keys back when they finally pull it in. The kid obviously liked it and drove around the parking lot a couple of times before pulling it in. No big deal, I'm glad he liked it. After a while I walked by the bays and the kid asked if it was my truck and then told me how much he liked it. Then he started telling me how there are shims in the front end sometimes you have to add them blah blah blah. I tell him I know how to align a front end I just don't have an alignment machine. Oh, you're a mechanic too? Well I can put the shims in but it costs extra or you can just do them yourself. Holy crap you have to be kidding me, I tell him just to mark on the sheet how many and where and I'll add them. Then when I go to pay I ask the clerk for the sheet with the shims I need, I also say it's funny that whenever I did an alignment in the past putting in the shims to align it was what I actually did. He said yeah, the shims are like a dollar extra and the labor is included. My truck was already off the rack, I had a ten oclock appointment and it was after noon, and they didn't even write down what shims or where. I was done. They knocked $20 off the bill but basically I paid $50 to have my toe in adjusted. I could have done that with a string in my driveway in about ten minutes.

He did at least show me the screen before he pulled the truck off. One side was in tolerance at about 1.9* and the other side was just out at 3.6*. Close enough I guess, and not bad at all considering every part but the A arms themselves was new. I decided to take it for a drive and went to my Uncles about ten miles away. I don't have my dash in yet but out on the main road where the flow of traffic is 55-60 I was just barely above an idle. You gotta love overdrive tranny's! I have to go around it with the buffer some more to make it really sparkle and there's a lot of wiring cleanup and little parts to put on. There's a rear bumper at the junkyard in decent shape I'll get next week. My grill and front bumper are in subpar shape but I'm going to put them back on so I can just drive it for a while. I think I'll end up painting the grill the lower color after I'm done taking a break from this thing and my neighbor is going to sew me up some door panels and a seat cover. I keep her car running and she makes a little extra for me when she cooks something good and offered to do my interior. I would guess I have about $200 in reciepts I still haven't added in, but right now I'm sitting at $8760.18 on the spreadsheet. A little material for the interior and some other odds and ends should bring me in well below 10k. I'm not going to end up with my dream truck, but I guess that's not bad for a completely rust free LS powered C10.

This thread is worthless without pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!