55 make over

[dsraven]

I would assume the lighting requirements would be a provincial or state jurisdictional law. I always like to opt for whatever gets me seen better by other drivers. Then the cool factor after that.

[nvrsatisfied]

Originally Posted by slammed57

great fab work. all lookin REAL good!

thanks. your setup is coming along nicely also

[Kevin_C]

Any updates on this build?

[nvrsatisfied]

welllllllll i guess here are some up dates, long over due. so I'll try and keep in order. and yes we are still chipping away at it but feel like the down hill slide is going.

since we raised the fenders as high as we could, it in returned raised the step. i lengthened the step which means the step bracket needed to be lengthened. once those were done i then added some length to fender(s). when said and done the truck will do a 20" in the front and a 22" in the rear. i'm trying to be able to run a good tire on it since we have such lovely paved roads in oklahoma

[nvrsatisfied]

we got her mocked up and ready to get some sun on it and see how good she'll sit. not looking to bad! overall about 9" of lift, so it should still have decent ground clearance..

[nvrsatisfied]

next she was moved into the booth for the first layer of high build primer....TAMCO HP-5311 DTM is what we like to use. it blocks off easy and is easy to show the low spots. i think with setup we did two stages of primer on everything, using a combination of Big Kid blocks, Linear and basic foam blocks until we get it to hash out as nice and flat as we can.

[nvrsatisfied]

and then it was ready for color. the base color is Tropical Glitz "Abyss Black". this is one of the blackest blacks you can get, no browns or blues are used. Colt went in and applied 3 layers of it to give it a good dark cover. then 7 coats of Tropical Glitz "Lucious Green" was applied to give us the green tint we were looking for. the Green is basically a candy coat. the lesser you apply the more black it'll look in our case, the more you apply the greener the truck looks. i think we nailed the color, you have to see it in person to really see how this thing flops through a variety of greens and black! i wanted to break up the amount of green so i wanted a two tone of gray applied to the back of the cab, we also did the visor and engine bay in the gray (Nissan Precision Gray).

[nvrsatisfied]

what you see here is a clear laid with NO CUT AND POLISH PROCESS YET. i forgot to mention we use TAMCO clear HC-4100 Glamour Clear. overall truck has roughly 4-5 coats of clear. this clear does settle thick which i like cause we can knock it down and still have great coverage and depth.

so then the real fun started. once the clear cures out a little we get into more blocking. the entire truck is gone over in this process...wet block sanded in 600grt, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000. then is trizacted using wet 3000, 5000, 8000. once that process is finished out the tedious t process of polishing comes in. is it over kill, i'm sure it is, but it looks damn good when we're done.

[nvrsatisfied]

next move was into the engine bay. the ol Lt1 was yanked and our freshly overhauled 5.3 was put in. so with the motor in the Holley Terminator X harness was dropped in. the one thing i can't stand is wires, it's just my OCD thing, so wanted to build some basic covers i thought that would be simple and not over cover the motor like a few i see on the market.

[nvrsatisfied]

once those done we shot the gray on them. also to make things pretty we went with the CVF LSXM-WRAPTOR mid dressup kit. its a tight fit for sure with the electric fan so we'll see. also installed a Champion radiator CC5559-LS

[nvrsatisfied]

next up was the electric fan cover that was sent. i'm not b!tching, cause i get it that things are made and out the door, but some times modding everything to fit gets kinda old..lol. but the cover was about and 1/8" off from being "squared" and making able to drop on. so i took some 1/4" tape and went around the opening to help fit. once that was cut it dropped in but made a tapered gap across the top i didn't like. so i made a trim piece to help hide that taper.

then the intake tube was the next "fun" part. i will say the big intake opening and pipe look cool but once it came to fitting it the way i wanted those dreams were dashed, so i took another route...lol. the original idea was a 90 down over the alternator and build a ram air box around the breather but it was going to look to clumpy. so i decided the best way to get fresh/cool air was out of the engine bay. long story short the breather will be in/under the fender with a ram air box i'll build around it..

[nvrsatisfied]

next up and making more work for myself, i did not like the way the radiator and overflow canisters looked. so i made some covers to kinda dress up the area and allow for some of the gray to wrap on around the engine bay to help tie it all in. these have a push button latch to open and close and are hinged off my radiator cover piece.

[nvrsatisfied]

painted and going on...this is pretty much the look i was going for was just seeing motor only and not over done with beauty panels. as for the A/C i did hardlines that go down and come up inside the fender well. they run high along the fender with a cover panel i built to help shield them from road use.

[nvrsatisfied]

after and during that was the LOOOOONG and tedious process of wiring things up. pretty much boring to talk about i'm sure but air ride, running all the Holley and overall wire setup has been a chore. since I've located the battery to the rear it makes for a little extra work i was not really anticipating on as much..lol BUT, originally when the first shop ran their main harness, it was ran just wide open and NO loom what so ever over it. even under the driver fender was just open wire. now just about 98% is covered in loom and has been corrected. i have ran a power distribution up front to help shorten some of the runs that need battery power up front.

[Kevin_C]

You have really turned that truck around. It looked like a nice truck until you dug into it. I'm glad you could turn it around for the customer. Great Job!

Mine goes for wiring next month while my new garage is being built.