68 Burb - Project - GoldMember

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by Mr. D

Thanks Twisted.
I've got dropped spindles along with the disc brake kit for my 68 but I've haven't decided if I want to go with air ride or just go for more of a stock lowered stance.
How do you like the ride of air suspension vs stock?

Nice seats BTW Golden!
Posted via Mobile Device

Thanks!
I really like they way these trucks ride on air, can't wait to get this one out on her maiden voyage!
Here is the Houndstooth material I will be using for the seats.
Thanks to 70shortfleet, he was able to find what is was originally used in.
Looks like it came in a 1972 AMC Hornet or Matador..

Originally Posted by Mr. D

Wow! Great progress Drew! Can't wait to see the pics. That c-notch sounds like a pain without raising the body off the frame. A bit like performing surgery right?
Posted via Mobile Device

Appreciate it, often seems to drag on, especially doing parts of a project like this that don't look like much, but take time.
Surgery is right, Since I won't be towing with this anytime soon, I'm OK with the notch, but if I change my mind down the road, I will re-think on what to do..
Looks like operator error was in play on the camera, however I did manage to save a couple shots.

Here is the completed Notches, just have to tidy up the rest of the frame rails and paint it all. (the bolt sticking down with the nut on it is where the bag cup will attach)


I went ahead and removed the tank, and here is how things look underneath


The tank is in surprisingly good condition as well.



More fun to follow..

[Twisted78SS]

Been a bit sidetracked this week with work, but I did do some head scratching and thinking about how to layout and install the Accuair components..

Here is a first draft:



Will be busy over the weekend on this, hope to make some significant progress.

[Hart_Rod]

Looks good!

[68SWB4x4]

That houndstooth is going to look awesome

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by Hart_Rod

Looks good!

Thanks Rob, I'm a visual worker, might not be a pro drawing but it helps me..

Originally Posted by 68SWB4x4

That houndstooth is going to look awesome

I agree, thanks!

Been toying with the idea of going with some shade of white vinyl, originally I thought about a brown shade, but think the white would look killer.

I also think I might change the interior from the factory argent silver to the saddle to offset the seats and eventual door and side panels. I'll try a sample area to see how it looks, and post it here for some feedback.

I have high hopes for the weekend, lots to do for sure..

[Mr. D]

Looking good Drew!

So I'm curious; where do you plan to install the tanks? Under-cab?
From everything ive been reading about the AccuAir system, it looks really good and I'm starting to lean in that direction.
Where did you buy yours?

Thanks,
David

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by Mr. D

Looking good Drew!

So I'm curious; where do you plan to install the tanks? Under-cab?
From everything ive been reading about the AccuAir system, it looks really good and I'm starting to lean in that direction.
Where did you buy yours?

Thanks,
David

Hey David,
I am putting the air tanks under the Burb in front of the rear bumper and behind the gas tank.
My sone who is home for a few days made a removable mounting bracket that bolts to each fram rail and has cross braces that the tanks bolt to.
I will take some pics as we install in tomorrow.
Nothing super complicated, but it will keep that tanks tucked up high nearly touching the floor and hide them from view.

[68SWB4x4]

Originally Posted by Twisted78SS

Thanks Rob, I'm a visual worker, might not be a pro drawing but it helps me..



I agree, thanks!

Been toying with the idea of going with some shade of white vinyl, originally I thought about a brown shade, but think the white would look killer.

I also think I might change the interior from the factory argent silver to the saddle to offset the seats and eventual door and side panels. I'll try a sample area to see how it looks, and post it here for some feedback.

I have high hopes for the weekend, lots to do for sure..

White for sure, matches the exterior

[Mr. D]

Thanks Drew. Sounds like a great plan. Can't wait to see the pics.

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by 68SWB4x4

White for sure, matches the exterior

Yup, I'm convinced now too..

Originally Posted by Mr. D

Thanks Drew. Sounds like a great plan. Can't wait to see the pics.

Well, things did not go exactly as planned, my son and I were making great progress, got the front sway bar on, finished the tank brackets, and I was on a mission to clean the underside. After several hours of cleaning and prepping the trailing arms, cross braces and frame rails, I was about ready to shoot some chassis black when I realized I hadn't modified the upper shock brackets yet!
Rather than cut more rivets, I decided to modify them in place.
All was progressing fine until I ended up with some fine metal shavings making there way around my safety glasses and into my right eye.

It didn't seem to bad at first, but over then next few hours I knew I had not flushed it all out.. That pretty much ended the weekend fun. I thought I would be ok today, and it is much better, but I didn't get out to the shop at all to finish up.
I did manage to get a coat of paint on before I quit yesterday, more or less looking out of one eye, but I didn't hang the air tanks, nor did I finish the gas tank. My son got it all sanded down, we used the fuel tank cleaner on it to flush out everything, and I did give it a couple coats of tank tone, but it still needs to go back in..

Overall we got a lot done, but sucks to get sidelined so easily..
I also realized we didn't shoot any pictures, so I will for sure take some tomorrow when I get home..

[Hard Luck]

Man. Hope you're OK. I seem to have the same safety glasses, they funnel things into my eyes. Not good.

[LockDoc]

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I've had that happen too, especially if you are laying on your side. Don't take any chances with it, if it isn't feeling better soon go see the Dr.

LockDoc

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by Hard Luck

Man. Hope you're OK. I seem to have the same safety glasses, they funnel things into my eyes. Not good.

Thanks,
You would think after all these years I would be more careful.. Things happen.. sometimes unavoidable.

Originally Posted by LockDoc

-
I've had that happen too, especially if you are laying on your side. Don't take any chances with it, if it isn't feeling better soon go see the Dr.

LockDoc

Thanks,
Doing well now, no apparent residual effects. I do plan on going to have it looked at just to be sure.. At my age I need all all the help I can get.. Being a one eyed willie would not suit me well at all.

I had planned on taking today off to extend the weekend, but my office recently moved and things are still up in the air, so I decided to take care of business first and will pick things up tonight. Pics to follow

[Mr. D]

That sucks!
I've had that happen to me a couple times too.
I'm going to second what the good doc said.
Be sure you got it all out.
unlike a splinter that will fester and work its way to the surface, the eye will actually heal over a foreign object.
I found out about a small metal fragment which had to be removed from my eye just prior to getting an MRI (which I understand could have otherwise ended badly for me) (apparently the eyes don't like magnets installed)

[Twisted78SS]

Finally got myself sorted out, pretty much back to normal.

also got around to shooting a couple pics of the tank mount..

Sorry, the lighting sucked!




As you can probably tell, this is a 3 piece unit. Since I wanted the tanks tucked up as high as possible, my son made this about as tall as he could, but we could not get it into place as one large piece (The angle iron sits on top of the frame rails) So, he cut it in half (more or less) and made a connecting plate to tie them together.

Since it will be up next to the floor, I told him to weld studs in place so when we mount the tanks we won't have to worry about how to tighten the hardware.

Of course you are seeing it upside down in these pics..
Nothing fancy, but is sturdy enough not to flex, especially once the tanks are bolted on.. I know I know.. he didn't drill the angle iron mounting holes yet, that's because I hadn't drilled the frame before I got crap in my eye

Should get some shop time tonight to finish this part up and do a final test fit.. My water traps have not arrived yet, so no final mounting till then

[Advanced Design]

Wow, glad your eye is ok! We can get hurt pretty quickly with this hobby of ours even with proper safety gear.

The tank mount assembly is a good idea and well put together. Looks like there is room on there for the pump too?

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Wow, glad your eye is ok! We can get hurt pretty quickly with this hobby of ours even with proper safety gear.

The tank mount assembly is a good idea and well put together. Looks like there is room on there for the pump too?

Thanks AD, turned out I had one small piece of something still tucked up under the eye lid until yesterday morning.. Nobody could seem to locate it, but I could tell it was there of course.
I did another round of flushing the eye when I got to work, and by lunchtime is was almost like it never happened..

So we tinkered a bit in the shop last night doing a couple trial fits on the tanks and bracket, I think it's going to work out great. The pics do show where I left off on the cleaning/painting, so just ignore that for now Although it make look like there is extra room, once I put the water traps in place I will have to mount the compressors on the outside of the frame. No big deal as there is a huge cavity on the rear driver side.




What you cannot tell real easy in these pics, is that once mounted they will sit about even to the bottom of the frame rail and thus way out of harms way.. I hope!

I also finished mapping out my line routing and wiring, so tonight I plan to run my air lines and level sensor wiring along with whatever else I can get done.

Finished off the night by separating the inner fender wells so they can get stripped painted this week, and making another template for mounting the VU4 and other pieces inside.

More to follow..

[CG]

Looking forward to seeing this at the swap meet in Monroe next month

You will be driving it up wont you?

[Advanced Design]

Looks solid!

Guessing the water trap goes between the pumps and tanks? I have Ridetech system I will be installing and they don't mention a watertrap.

Do your tanks have a drain? I noticed mine didn't. Finally read the instructions which advise to remove the tank annually for draining. Like that would really happen.

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by CG

Looking forward to seeing this at the swap meet in Monroe next month

You will be driving it up wont you?

That is one of my goals for sure!! I told Zachary last night we need to get busy or else... haha

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Looks solid!

Guessing the water trap goes between the pumps and tanks? I have Ridetech system I will be installing and they don't mention a watertrap.

Do your tanks have a drain? I noticed mine didn't. Finally read the instructions which advise to remove the tank annually for draining. Like that would really happen.

Yup the water trap will sit one at the inlet side of the tank, the leader hose from each compressor will go in one side, and the other will connect to the tanks. These tanks do not have a drain either, and if they were aluminum I might not put them on the inlet side, maybe just one between the tank and the VU4 valve. Since they are steel, I think its a must. And yeah, I doubt I would ever drop them annually just to flush them out. I'll be using SMC water traps with manual drain valves, so I'll probably set myself a reminder on my phone to drain them one every few weeks/months depending on how much they actually trap. I grabbed the fittings I needed today at lunch, but according to USPS tracking the traps are not due in until Friday.. Since I have so many other things to get done, it really isn't a big deal.



I also was reading through other threads on best practice for adding proper fusing to the system to handle the compressors, Accuair etc... This one was a pretty good read
I Like the look of this as a means to fuse the compressors,


and will also add a main fuse right near the battery to..

[GAc10boy]

Killer progress! Really glad your eye is okay.

[Mr. D]

Awesome work. It should look and perform great once finished. I'll stay tuned. Thanks for keeping us all posted.

[Twisted78SS]

Originally Posted by GAc10boy

Killer progress! Really glad your eye is okay.

Thanks,
The eye is back to normal thankfully..
Progress seems slow to me only because in my head I should be done already... LOL

Originally Posted by Mr. D

Awesome work. It should look and perform great once finished. I'll stay tuned. Thanks for keeping us all posted.

Thank you,
I certainly hope it does, I can't wait to drive her..

[Twisted78SS]

Well, even though I didn't take a lot of pictures over the weekend, I was certainly busy. My water traps came in Friday afternoon, so first thing I did was to pull the air tanks off the mounting bracket and plumb in the water traps. I decided since these are steel tanks I would add one on each inlet from the compressors, and one on the outlet side that is headed for the VU4 valve. I put it all back together and it's ready to go.

I then worked on creating a mount for the compressors to hang off the frame rail. I looked around the shop for some material and found a couple heavy duty U shaped brackets that should fit the bill. I was able to sit them side by side and mock it all up. Here is pretty much how they will look when final install is done.


I might make a shield for the backside to block more splash or debris that comes from the rear tire. I am also going to extend the air inlets up as far as possible to keep them from drawing any water in if I happen to drive in the rain..(like we have no rain in the Northwest right)


In order to route all the air lines and wiring to where I want the valve setup, I drilled an access hole in the filler neck cover. ( I would gladly thank the board member who's post I saw this idea on, but forget who it is) Found it, it was a thread from 72Mario http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...light=air+ride I want to come up with a way to seal it, will have to think on that.. but for now I have a piece of hose split and wrapped around the opening to there are no sharp edges.



I began to run all the air line and ride sensor wiring, I installed and plumbed the rear bags, routed the air line for the fronts and just have to finish it with some additional loom and clamps.



Not knowing yet exactly where my sensors will live, I left myself enough length for now, but will tidy things up as I go. Next I fabbed up a bracket/plate to hold all the Accuair components and did a test fit. looks like it will be an easy way to co-locate everything. I gave it a coat of primer but forgot to get pics..

While that was drying, I figured I would finish up the chassis cleanup.. I donned my birth control glasses long sleeve shirt, hat and mask before breaking out the scotch brite pads and brushes.. No way in hell was I going to get crap in my eyes this time!!!


Well that took a me few hours to say the least.. I shot some chassis black on everything and took a break..

I turned my attention to the rear axle, I added some friction modifier for the posi, then went about tackling the brake lines for the rear disc.

Again... my bad for not taking pics, but I have one short hard line left to bend up and it will be ready to mount.

More to come this week, I have a short list of stuff to buy, but hope I have turned the corner on the exterior from the tear-down phase to the assembly phase..

Thanks for watching

[Advanced Design]

Your brackets are just why we hang onto "stuff". Never know when you will need it. Good idea on the pump mounting. Wasn't even thinking along those lines for mine. Thanks!
Bucket safety...bwahaha...