Project: Recycle

[TA_C10]

I absolutely love my rebuilt tilt column. It started life as a van column as well. Shortened 2" was just enough at 6'5 along with lowered seat brackets. I will eventually do bucket seats and cut into that back sheet metal just below the rear window to slide them back as far as possible, but for now it's pretty decent.

The column was completely rebuilt with all new internals like stock. Tilt. Hazards. Column shift. Gear indicator. Turn signals. All new. And I added the turn signal indicator from a newer model GM for cruise control. And of course, no mods required to connect to steering gear. But you don't care about that lol. It looks good. Works great. OE safety and stability from OE parts was my biggest concern. A member on here did all this for me for half the cost of IDIDIT. Painted it for me too. But like I said, only thing I don't like is there isn't a steering column lock. But I will live without it. There are other measures I can take.

Maybe you can look into figuring out if you can add a lock to these OE units...

.

[Inverter]

Scot, here are the units we were discussing. The assembled pair are the correct sized 14” +/- Mounted and 750 lb 10”

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by TA_C10

I absolutely love my rebuilt tilt column. It started life as a van column as well. Shortened 2" was just enough at 6'5 along with lowered seat brackets. I will eventually do bucket seats and cut into that back sheet metal just below the rear window to slide them back as far as possible, but for now it's pretty decent.

The column was completely rebuilt with all new internals like stock. Tilt. Hazards. Column shift. Gear indicator. Turn signals. All new. And I added the turn signal indicator from a newer model GM for cruise control. And of course, no mods required to connect to steering gear. But you don't care about that lol. It looks good. Works great. OE safety and stability from OE parts was my biggest concern. A member on here did all this for me for half the cost of IDIDIT. Painted it for me too. But like I said, only thing I don't like is there isn't a steering column lock. But I will live without it. There are other measures I can take.

Maybe you can look into figuring out if you can add a lock to these OE units...

.

If you would, please PM me the forum member that did your rebuild if you don't mind. I do like having options especially when it allows using recycled parts

[SCOTI]

So.... I have updates but not much advancement. I am getting much better @ the 2-steps forward, 1-step back thing though

I pulled the Pass side apart to prep the brackets for welding & got them tacked together. At that point I decided to go ahead & weld the inner portion of the vertical/horizontal attachment points of the bracket base. I pulled the tacked bracket off & in-turn tacked that to a steel platform set-up so things wouldn't move w/the heat.

Due to the vertical portion of the brackets reducing height (it's taller @ the front of the a-arm vs. @ the rear), I had to spacing things to keep everything as aligned as possible. I welded short-ish sections (2-3") & waited for each section to cool to the touch to keep things from wanting to move around.

I cleaned up & put the bracket back in place. All good.
Test fit the horizontal hardware. It fit like before.
Slapped on the hardware & cinched it up. Then I went to slide the upper arm shaft studs through & it was a no go. It seems I made my template for locating & drilling the holes w/the pieces just sitting in place vs. locked-in. This required going back through & clearancing the holes slightly.

I continued ahead on that side & worked toward minimizing the footprint of the lower brackets base plate. The idea was to utilize the existing hole (for securing the lower end of a bag) & add two more so they're in a pyramid arrangement. Because of the arms shape & the location of the C/O's center-line, that base plate is an odd shape. It took a couple of in/out, in/out maneuvers trimming away each time. Once that was finalized, the plate & the arm got reference marks to easily align until the other holes were drilled.

This is where I swapped in the temporary C/O jig to align the top & bottom mounts. I got things together w/o much fuss & was happy so I tacked the upper/lower shock mounts in place onto the base plates. I then went to remove the hardware so I could plot out the additional holes on the bottom plate & found ANOTHER issue. It seems I had not attempted to remove/install the hardware w/the new & different lower arms. The hardware would not clear the tube portion of the new arms

PIC1 = Original RideTech bracket/s used for the lower mount
PIC2 = Tweaked bracket on the lower base-plate
PIC3 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (RideTech arm)
PIC4 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (Porterbuilt narrowed arm)

[SCOTI]

So, Plan-B. I decided to add height to the lower & see if that would work. Nope...

So after trying to figure out how this was overlooked & then getting the measurements of the two different arms I realized where the over-site occurred. I based everything starting w/the RideTech arms. I then switched to the narrower PB arms & just swapped the parts over as assembled & everything fit. With each validation after, I was able to pull/install the entire set-up (upper brackets, mock-up C/O, & lower bracket) as a unit. I never thought to test the hardware on the bottom w/the new arms.

I already had parts enroute & I really, REALLY, wanted to have the entire set-up mocked-up w/the actual shocks in place this weekend. I did some on-line searching & found some brackets by QA1 that were the exact dimension I needed. Laser cut. Ready to go. I checked & Summit Racing in Arlington had them in house. I purchased a set-up & picked them up on my lunch break so that when the C/O's arrived Friday, I would be ready to go....

[SCOTI]

Friday. FRIDAY. FRIDAY!!. Tracking said the package would be delivered Friday. Since they left Austin area on Tuesday night the 22nd @ 9pm & were only going to Dallas, seemed legit.

I worked getting the new lower mounts aligned & verified. They worked well. I even verified I could get the hardware out as suggested by more than one person close to me

Once that was done, I yanked the lower mounts base plate from the Pass side for another round of clean-up/footprint reduction & then used it as the template for the Driver side bracket. With both now made, I was able to make some nicer appearing borders & get them both uniform.

I got the drivers side apart & went through the same steps as the Pass side. Things went much easier on the Driver side. Base plates installed. Mock-up shocks installed. Dialed in the placement & shock angle. Tacked the lower mounts in place. Removed & installed the hardware on both sides for validation. Everything comes apart & assembles w/no fuss.

7pm Friday night (the 24th), still no shocks.
I check tracking again & it still shows the 24th as the delivery date but says it's still just running late. I notice however there is no update as far as location since the 9pm 7/22 log-in???

I check again this morning. At 6am they showed to get logged-in @ the main Dallas center only to be transferred over to the Coppell distribution center. I'm guessing (hoping?) to maybe have them by Monday night.

Oh well.... I ready for them @ least.

[SCOTI]

The shocks finally arrived on Tuesday. That was frustrating for both of us as we clearly both did our job & did exactly as we said we would. In the end, all is good & the quality packaging job ensured there was almost no possibility for damages LoL….

I didn't have much time Tues night but when parts you've been waiting for arrive, you 'gotta take a quick peek right?

[SCOTI]

When I opened up the upper bag mounting plate for C/O clearance, I only removed the bare minimum of material. My plan was to remove the minimum & creep-up on what was necessary so I didn't remove more than what is required leaving as much structure as possible.

With the quick install, I needed to start the trimming. I had previously marked out where I anticipated the end of the bracket would be. I took a grease pencil & sketched out the rough shape I had planned for the remaining edges of the bracket once trimmed. For this initial C/O install, I cut half-way to that anticipated point. This allowed the C/O to physically bolt-in to the mounts for alignment validations.