49' Patina bagged in PA

[99 to Life]

yeah just brushed on chassis saver. I get the $1 nylon paint brushes from wallyworld, use em once and toss em.

[99 to Life]

6-30 dang, june is already gone geesh. had my 51' out all weekend and today. Ran outta chassis saver, used 1qt to coat almost whole frame. Have another on the way. I'll be top coating it as well, should be done with it next weekend. finished up the back half of boxing and put some bracing on the perches. I didn't fully weld them to the boxing plate JUST incase something ever happened and I needed to take the perches off to replace or whatever.

Reworked my crappy start stand I made 4 years ago. I cut half of it off and made a new back half so I can run a bellhousing on it. that will allow me to actually mount my headers and its much safer than having a flywheel exposed. gotta put the casters back on it still.

Got my heads torqued down today with some arp's. I gotta do a little port work on the intake and I forgot my lifters so I'll have it on the stand and hopefully all ready for a start up, can't wait crossing fingers. if not next weekend should be the following. Once its good to go and I have frame done. I'll be putting everything back on for good.

I still gotta wrap up the cab, weld, seam seal and I'm gonna go with some Hurculiner for the bottom of it and the fenders.

[IWanna49]

Love all the old tin sittin around. It's all starting to come together. Won't be long now.

[99 to Life]

7-5 Got top coat on half of frame, should have it all done by monday. Got intake on, adjusted lifters, got it on start stand. waiting on replacement water pump to show up, but I have one I'm gonna toss on there and try and get this fired up monday, hopefully. gonna prime it, check cylinder compression and if those check out I'll fire it up. There are sooo many open ports on this intake so I gotta block them off.

Since I'm running the vortec block as well as heads, they don't have a bypass in the block where the water pump mount. So I'll run a temporary bypass on startstand, but when its hooked up in truck I'll have a heater, so that will suffice as a bypass. The whole reason water needs bypassed is so hot pockets don't form in the heads. a standard WP favors one head over the other on circulation.

[Advanced Design]

Good looking stand 99. Good luck with the test start.

[IWanna49]

Henry did you build your start stand?

[99 to Life]

thanks guys, yeah build the stand 4 years ago outta crappy material I had laying around. last week I cut it in half and added the back half outta better material and so I can mount it with a bellhousing. I suggest making them this way because you can actually hook up manifolds or headers and you also dont run the risk of bumping into a flywheel (which I almost had someone do with their knee). its alot easier to mount this too. Once you get the front mounted it will actually hold the whole engine up until you get the back bolts in.

I still want to redo it and make it all collapsable but I just didn't have time. Still gotta make a few things for it, clean up the wire routing etc. But it gets the job done.

I was a bit torn on even putting it on the stand because my frame will be done monday, but would need to dry, so realistically I could have it in next week. I'm just short on space too, thats why I wanted to just start it in the frame.

[99 to Life]

7-7 Finally got final coat on frame. Now I gotta get all my poly bushings, brakes and rotors etc and get it back on its wheels.

Today I spent hours trying to get my engine ready for start up. Man tons of little things that just kill time. Stuff fighting me left and right, only had to make one trip to parts store because luckily I keep alot of fittings and hoses etc around. I primed it with a drill 60lbs so far so I'm happy with that. started cylinder compression test, did one and battery died, so I need to get a better battery.

I still have to deal with radiator hoses and pullies. I def should be able to fire it up this coming weekend, so hopefully all goes well. On a good note my replacement waterpump will be in by then and hopefully its not ruined via fedex again.

[Advanced Design]

I have a lot of those days with things fighting me too. Glad the engine seems OK so far.

[Larry Lindley]

good job,starting back on my 55.1st AD.keep at it.thanks for posting larry

[99 to Life]

thanks guys, I might try and fire it up bf I head outta town tomorrow, the wait is killing me!

[skymangs]

Looking good 99... Be a runner pretty soon!

[99 to Life]

thanks, hopefully I get it going friday. everything is behind so crossing fingers I can a take step forward.

[99 to Life]

7-13 Got engine fired up, so far so good. I got some tuning to do and I'll post a video soon. good oil pressure and vacuum

came up on a great 7.5' brake, can't wait to use it.

[Advanced Design]

Congratulations on the engine and the brake....would really make use of one! Just tough to move one that large.

[99 to Life]

thanks, well here is kinda a crappy vid from the first day, exhaust is terrible I know. practically an open header on the pass side so its running really rich. don't mind the pulley's and belt, those are totally temporary. other than that, I ran it today and camera ran out of memory. hoping to get some more footage. retuned it today, but def need some good exhaust. ran the rpms up a bit higher today, I can def feel some power so I'm pretty happy so far.
http://youtu.be/YZkIBKCT-xg

here is a pic of the brake I have to unload still, its a heavy beast. front and rear suspension out of a jaguar, not sure if I'll use it for a future build or not, up in the air right now. some more projects in the background. The one frame is a 60's 4x4 my friend has been wanted a lifted apache or 60's truck.

got frame back on floor, gonna start getting it back together, wrap this cab up and really start putting this thing together. got rear end coated with chassis saver, need a top coat soon. I'll be putting all new stuff on this later. wanted to be wiring in august, so that might be pushed back to september.

[oldman3]

99, engine sounds great, nice response on the throttle. Frame and rear axle look good.
Would love to have that brake...Jim

[99 to Life]

thanks jim, tried embeding the video but have no clue why its not working. anyway, I'll post some more footage tearing up the rpms with some exhaust, should be a little snappier cause its really running rich right now. the brake is a god send, I'm working it off on my friends 54' panel that I should be starting on soon. he moved so I gotta finish his rig for him.

[99 to Life]

7-20 Got my pullies finally situated. what a nightmare. If any of you are familiar with a serp style pulley with vbelt you'll know the hunt can be frustrating. I like the simplicity of it and reliability, not full serp, not full v. nice happy medium. These came on 87-89 trucks and also some other random stuff.
not sure if I'm putting on my polished waterpump or not, kinda like the black one, alternator is getting changed most likely too.

tried getting my bushings out of lower control arms, another nightmare. Just bought a 20ton shop press so I'll be pressing them out tomorrow. putting in poly bushings. Should be a roller by next weekend.

[TheBlueBomber]

Sounds awesome. Making me wish I went with the Vortec 350 instead of LS. Keep up the good work!

[Advanced Design]

Looks good! I like the black water pump.

[99 to Life]

7-21 Well, my dumb #$s drove two hours round trip to buy a shop press and some other things of course and yeah didn't take into account my control arms wouldnt fit under it. So long story short, I couldn't press out the bushings, so my buddy came and grabbed them, got all 4 out in an hour, what a great friend. He didn't even torch em out.

Got gas tank coated. Top will be coated silver, bottom will be herculiner.

Got first coat of chassis saver on bottom of cab, gonna seam seal it then coat with herculiner, prolly spray it on. Top half of firewall will be epoxy primed and painted.

Got rear end back under it. Bags keep leaking down, I suspect these crappy plastic lines with fittings, need to soap n' water them. I'm going to run copper hardline on final install.

Up on the list is full stainless exhaust, clutch, put engine in frame. Going to be hitting this cab pretty hard in august, get dash back in, steering, pedals, hook up brakes, driveshaft, inner fenders need repaired and prepped for paint, start wiring hopefully in October, get it running driving, then work on interior, bear claws and all the little odds and ends, full air system etc.

here is engine link again. took plugs out to check gap as I was in a hurry and couldn't find my gapper, well dumbo move. I got plugs for a 99' vortec, bad move. came .060 gapped, I bumped em down to .42 or so. Carb I have which I'll tear into later is a 1405, not 1406 like I though, so its a little different and is know to run richer. So I put carb spacer on and I'll fire it back up for some tuning next week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZkIBKCT-xg oh, ordered up a fuel pressure regulator and gauge, retarded for not having it on there in first place.

[oldman3]

Really taking shape...Jim

[99 to Life]

here the bushings outta the a-arms, should have the arms coated and all put back together this weekend. so the trick my friend used was drilling out the bushing with little drill holes, then he was able to punch the center pin out. Then he used a chop saw to cut the bushing retainers down. Then he took a punch and mushroomed the retainers and chiseled them out. Took him about an hour to do all 4.

I'v seen guys and I have tried the ol bolt through and washer technique which when you tighten the bolt, pulls the bushing through. well that wasn't working out. If I had oxygen in my tank I coulda torched them out, but go figure I didn't. So anyway, little quick tip if you guys plan on removing the rubber bushings, which I highly recommend doing. I got the poly ones with sleeves and bushing retainers from summit for like $50.

[99 to Life]

well, I take that back about the bushings from summit. matter of fact be cautious when ordering s10 bushings from them as you wouldn't know if they were for 2 or 4 wheel drive by the title alone. So lesson learned with that and is the second time I'v ordered something with an incorrect title. So guy at summit was cool and sent me out the 2x4 bushings, go figure they are 75$ a set as opposed to 50, but he gave me ten bucks off and free ship.

Got some more parts coated and top coated, hoping to get control arms on monday. Got some stainless exhaust in, going for a full stainless setup including headers, though the mufflers I'm leaning towards some thrush but it never seems clear on which ones are stainless with them.

Got brake booster in so I can work up the pedals once I wrap this cab up.

Speaking of cab, jeesh fabbed up this inner cab corner piece. worked on the outer a little bit, I'll get more pics monday.