My Drive-way Build - '65 short pants

[DPowers]

Sorry haven't checked your build in awhile. Adapter looks good. What carb you thinking?

[rickoner]

I actually bought a used professional products powerjectionIII that I thought I might try. Since I bought it, I've found out that they seem to be hit or miss. So I'm not sure at the moment. I think that if I could sell that unit I'd go a different route.

[rickoner]

Oh my how time flies!!! Just realized it's been 2.5 yrs since I've posted anything about my truck. Like so many others that started a thread, life happens and priorities change. For me, we now have a beautiful daughter (2yrs old now). I also bought my first house. Long story short, it was a bad purchase. Ended up gutting most of the house. I worked on it for a year and a half before we moved in this past March. It came with a 30x40 building. So I'm no longer working in a gravel driveway. Last month I put a lift in so life is looking up. Haha, pun intended. I haven't worked on the truck that much but now that we're settled in I'm going to try to make some progress.

I'll try to catch everybody up to were I'm at now. Before the move I sold the previous efi kit and picked up a forced induction compatible fitech efi kit. Also started fabbing up a turbo kit.






While a boosted efi'd 292 seemed like a cool idea (it still does to me) I decided to go the ls route. This truck will hopefully be a driver. So I wanted reliable power with decent fuel mileage. Plus parts are everywhere when something breaks. A coworker offered to trade me a complete lq4/4l80e swap for my fitech setup. So I jumped on it.

I switched out the old style frame mount brackets in favor of some square body clamshells. It's taken me a while to find the sweetspot for the engine. There was some interference issues with the crank pulley hitting the drag link. This is because I raised all of the steering up when I pancaked the crossmember.

Test fit...


That brings us to today. I decided to cut down the engine mount frame brackets and make a simple mount for the top bolts of the crossmember. This was to make more room for header clearance.



Well, there you have it. Hopefully one day this thing will actually go down the road.

Until next time gents...

[KenAdams]

Nice, I like the work. I'm in the same boat, just picked up back on mine after it sat for 18 months.

[rusty76]

Glad to have you back.

[orngsikL]

sweet build!

[CousinTone]

Welcome back. I bought my project, let’s just say “ a while ago” and started buying/stockpiling known parts, like CaptainFabs power steering plate, a complete (no crossmember) a arm to a arm off a 87 with the PS box and linkage. I’ve got 4 engines, one is a 55 V8 with three speed with OVERDRIVE. But I’m sticking to the 292 it came with but I’m ditching the 3 speed for the 3speed overdrive. You’ve got me going and I’ll start my thread soon and we’ll see how it goes. Good luck and welcome back. You got me all fired up.

[rickoner]

Originally Posted by CousinTone

You got me all fired up.

Right on. Abandoning the 292 is a choice that wasn't easy to make. I like the unusual stuff. Guess that's where the turbo, efi setup came from.

I've only been able to sneak into the garage for a little bit the last couple of nights. Nothing to exciting. Just cleaned/degreased the trans. Just wanted to give it a quick "rattle can make over." Think it turned out ok. I didn't get a good before pic, but went from...



To this...



I'm only going to get 1 day off this weekend, but I'm hoping to clean and prep the engine for a splash of paint. And if that goes good, maybe through a hd2 shift kit in the trans. I'll probably run out of time, but here's to hoping. *cheers.

[rudyyloverboiii]

you just solved my problem for my pancaked crossmember. I couldnt figure out how to put or center my 292!! thanks man!! u made my day haaa
I guess simplicity is better. Back to basics!

[rickoner]

As usual, I haven't been able to accomplish what I wanted to. I was just going to do the transgo shift kit but that snowballed into tearing the trans apart to do a true "dual feed" mod. Here's after the tear down.



Apparently it had a rebuild. Everything inside looked great. There was a 2012 date written inside of the bellhousing. So I'm assuming that's when it was done. While doing the dual feed I also rollarized the output while it was apart. Here I'm checking the end play. It's set at .005" now.



I'm still waiting on a couple of parts for the trans to come in so I can button it up. I'm also going to drill out the plate for shift firmness. Does anybody have any recommendations for sizes? Currently it's going to have a stock converter but once I know engine and trans are solid I'm going to do converter, cam, and possibly heads.

I also haven't got to painting the engine either. The trans has been occupying the engine stand. I did give it a rough cleaning while hanging from the picker at least. Once the trans is back on the floor I can hopefully get to that.

[rickoner]

Well it took way longer than expected (what hasn't?) but the trans is all back together and the engine has a f-body pan and a new water pump on it. I was also able to do a quick spray bomb to it. Anyways, here's a few pics of what I was able to get done and where I left off.











So that's how she sits now. I'm debating whether to make a harness or just pony up and buy a plug and play one

Thanks for looking guys.

[rickoner]

Last night I was only able to sneak out into the garage for less than an hour. Did manage to test fit the headers. The good news is they fit pretty good. They cleared the frame rails (barely) and only needed to cut the ear off of the trans on the passenger side. The bad news is they hit the brake lines that I ran earlier. So... i guess i get to do that over again. Better than cutting up new headers i suppose.



Onto tonight. Again only got about an hour of shop time. I have a hard time getting motivated to head out there knowing I'll only have a short time to get anything done. I try to tell myself that I can get this thing finished by just plucking away. So my next task is pretty intimidating. Going to rework the harness to stand alone. I know that I can do it.... eventually. It's just going to take a while to complete. I know that there's companies that make really nice harnesses but I just can't bring myself to shell out 600+ clams. Plus I can put everything where i want them. With that said i was hoping to put the ecu inside of the cab. Can anyone share how/where they mounded their ecu? Maybe glovebox area?

So there's a quick table I set up and harness layout that i got put together tonight. I'm anticipating this to take some time so we'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. Haha

[rickoner]

Haven't had to much truck time but I have been been picking away at the harness. I've pulled all of the loom and weeded out what I believe I won't be needing. Also settled on mounting the pcm behind the glovebox. I'm not entirely thrilled with the spot but there's really not much room under there. Since I'm using a van harness, I bought new pins so that I can shorten most of the harness at the pcm connectors. Then I can rewrap it all back up.

Here's the pcm mounted. (I used rivnuts for the first time. How awesome are they!!!)


On a side note, I'm still doing some house work too. This weekend was spent making this walnut mantel. There's no finish on it yet. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I know there's some experienced woodworkers on here. Does anyone have any suggestions?