My son's first truck

[dieseldawg142]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I hope you fix up the stepper too but both are great looking red shortboxes

thanks
with our little windfall, i had seriously thought about re-doing the stepper, but man it needs a lot. of course we do have some sentimental attachment to it, (29 yrs worth) but i need to be realistic. even if i fixed it up, it's still an almost 400 000 mile (not kms) truck that has seen some serious use. i bought the new truck cause the last fews months one thing after another after another was hitting me with the step. and it won't really "die", it will live on in our new truck..
and i been thinking, we have 3 trucks already, why not get what i want, another blazer, but maybe gmt400 style, or a 2dr tahoe, fairly modern and reliable but easy as $hite to work on

[dieseldawg142]

my son and i pulled these off the rear leafs today-bit of a chore, sure glad i bought that 1200 ftlb milwaukee impact the other month...
half a inch thick the entire length. rear susp could'nt move it was so stiff. now it flexes nice. seeing how it was a parts chaser for a hot rod shop, guessin' they put them in for hauling home engines, axles, etc.


one shock of 4 showed up today. other 3 are coming in 2 more boxes (?!)


we mounted up the new tires on my old stepper rims today, just to see how they will look. plus we can mount them on his truck this weekend so we can decide how high to lift it


stepper is looking even more forlon now. 3 different tires.
pass fr is a 245/70 16, dr fr is a 285/75 16, and the 2 rears are the old tires and rims from wifey's 'yoda, 245/65 17

[dieseldawg142]

[dieseldawg142]

spent like half a day cleaning my old stepper rims. literally the first time they been cleaned in about 10 or so yrs...


kid bought some chrome valve stems, luggies and center caps for contrast...

[dieseldawg142]

we finally got all 4 rims done


the blocks for the rear came the other day


didn't have a big enough (frikkin) metric impact socket for the u-bolts, so i tried a regular socket on my 1200 ft lb milwaukee impact....ripped it right in half, so before we wrecked anymore sockets, we said the hay with it and zip wheeled 'em off in 3 mins


in and sitting a bit taller.

[dieseldawg142]

the keys came in yesterday, so we spent half a day whacking on stuck torsion bars. also left my cam in wife's 'yoda, who was at work, so had to wait till she got home for pics.
now it's looking like a truck and not some girlie play toy...


approx 2" clearance at the front of the fender cranked hard over, and about 1 1/2" clearance at the back of the fender cranked over. for a piece of mind i also zipped the inside corners of the fender flares off

[dieseldawg142]

kid is a little upset no off roading till the rest of the shocks get here, but no sooner had we mounted the tires and 2 young girls, 16-19, my son's age, walked by and commented they liked the rims...i was like there, quit complaining you got a chick magnet truck now...
really liking how our driveway is shaping up now, i drive a lifted truck, my wife drives a lifted truck, and now my son is tooling around in a lifted truck....the only thing missing and needed is a lifted blazer or 2 dr tahoe.


i have come across 2 very interesting tahoe/yukon's for sale, gmt 400 flavor. one is stock with some goofy rims and has 55 000 miles and is a beauty queen, which would pain me to drag thru the bush, and the other one is a LS swap, nvg 4500, hi pinion dana 44 sas with a 14 b rear axle. i'm really liking the sas tahoe just for the fact it's a 5 spd. only prob is finding time to go check it out before it sells- it's 3 1/2 hrs from me