New project! The "Red Herring"

[junksaver]

In the picture of your driveshaft installed it appears that your yoke is set a long ways into the transmission. I don't know if that is just the camera angle or not. You may want to double check that because it will need to go in farther as you load down the rear of the truck.
Nice progress on the truck. I'm sure your glad to have it rolling again.

[FarmerSid]

Is there a rule of thumb of how much you should leave the yoke out of the trans tail housing?

[solidaxel]

Originally Posted by FarmerSid

Is there a rule of thumb of how much you should leave the yoke out of the trans tail housing?

My driveshaft guy tells me to shove it all the way in the trans and pull it out one inch, measure center to center on the yokes and call him with that number!

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by junksaver

In the picture of your driveshaft installed it appears that your yoke is set a long ways into the transmission. I don't know if that is just the camera angle or not. You may want to double check that because it will need to go in farther as you load down the rear of the truck.
Nice progress on the truck. I'm sure your glad to have it rolling again.

Originally Posted by solidaxel

My driveshaft guy tells me to shove it all the way in the trans and pull it out one inch, measure center to center on the yokes and call him with that number!

Thanks for the words guys!

On the driveshaft, solidaxel is right about where I'm at. I pulled it out an inch and maybe an 1/8th ... there's a little rubber dust boot on there which makes it look a lot smaller, but that collapses about 7/8" or so.

That said, there isn't a whole lot of change in the geometry as the rear end goes up - I thought about that, but now you're making me doubt myself

[JJorgensen52]

Rear cross member is finally finished. I must have gone through two dozen iterations of installing and removing this thing!




I'll clean and paint it at some point My Dad wants a trailer hitch on the truck, so that forward most bolt through the lower flange is going to be the rear bolt for the hitch, I will re-drill to accommodate the larger hardware when I get that far.

I spent some time today thinking about how I'm going to go about refitting my front clip - I decided I'm going to use the inner fenders as my starting point (since I'm replacing my originals, which are rusty, anyway) and then install the fenders, so I can "drop in" the core support and see how much trimming I'm going to have to do. There's going to be a little interference on the steering box, but not enough (I don't think) to require tipping the radiator forward. Though for fan clearance I may want to do that anyway.

[JJorgensen52]

Rear bed cross sill is in and bolted down, lets me get everything squared up and check for fit. I need to start working on the tailgate here relatively soon.


View from behind. I'm going to be hanging custom brackets for the rear bumper off this cross member as well.


Today I went parts shopping at the boneyard, to look for a way to connect my steering column to the box. I don't like rag joints, but I also wasn't all that impressed with the last Borgeson/Flaming river combo I used, so I decided to go hunting. I had read somewhere that Jeeps had longer DD type shafts with GM ends on them, so that's where I looked. I pulled three shafts in all, one from a '98 Express Van (a tad short and DD on the column end), one from a '90 Cherokee (DD on the column end) and one from a '98 Cherokee (fits '97-'01 classic style Cherokee):


I had to trim the little pilot nub off the steering box for clearance, and file one tooth off the steering column (the Jeep U-joint is keyed), but for 10 minutes of dremel work it bolted right up like it was meant to be there. (For reference: It's 3/4"-36 spline top and bottom, bottom fits standard GM saginaw box. It is almost too long for my application, I have about 3.5" of compression available. I can measure full extension if anybody is interested.)

This shaft has a vibration dampener built into the upper U-joint, you can see here. I have about 1" of clearance between it and the #7 exhaust runner (I can get my hand in there easily). Should be fine with the ceramic coating. The shift linkage is really in the way, though. That definitely needs to be reworked.

I've also found a Jeep fuel tank that should work, they weren't expensive so I ordered one, will be here Wednesday as long as FedEx doesn't lose it. We shall see.

[lower50's]

Good hunting for the steering shaft!! As for the shifter linkage I heard that Lokar makes a universal shifter cable kit.

http://www.lokar.com/product-pgs/col...shiftlink.html

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Good hunting for the steering shaft!! As for the shifter linkage I heard that Lokar makes a universal shifter cable kit.

http://www.lokar.com/product-pgs/col...shiftlink.html

I've been mulling that one over, actually, but I'm not sold yet. I may see what I can do by modifying/eliminating the bellcrank assembly and bending the rod around to better suit the shape of the floor (as you can see, it goes WAY far forward of where it needs to go).

[JJorgensen52]

Today was a "Make it look like a truck day!"


Happy with wheel placement, all those bazillion times the fenders came on and off during the splice pay off now.


A tad snug in here

And DEFINITELY here


Contemplating a remote reservoir setup. I saw one in an Express van at the boneyard yesterday I might go grab.

Now comes the part where I'm scratching my head.


Both sides are like that. Did my hood grow????

In all seriousness, none of the literature I have covers how this is supposed to fit at the nose. My pictures from when I bought show the passenger's side lined up nicely and a little overlap on the driver's side, but not like this. Do I need to move the fenders forward? Not sure how I would, they're adjusted pretty much as far up and forward as they'll go.

[7dee2]

Thought I would check in? Uh oh spaghettios I'll check back later.

Oh, before I go it looks like from the pic below that the front of the fender/grill assembly is perhaps a smidgen to high?

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by 7dee2

Thought I would check in? Uh oh spaghettios I'll check back later.

Oh, before I go it looks like from the pic below that the front of the fender/grill assembly is perhaps a smidgen to high?

The first part of your post had me alternately laughing and scratching my head all afternoon!

But yes, you are correct. I took another 3/4" off the inner fenders to let the clip sit down lower and wala!


The driver's side alignment is pretty good all along the hood


Passenger's side still has a big gaposis at the back near the cowl... I've done some fiddling and adjusting, more to follow I guess. More important right now to get the core support cut down and mounted ... it runs into the steering box in a BIG way.

Also, gas tank is here:


It looks tiny because... well, it is! 15 gallon capacity. It takes the same sending unit as the 20gal Blazer tank does, and fits nicely.


Depth will end up being around 7" below the frame by the time I'm done. I was concerned about that, until I checked how low the spare is on my '71 ... then I was not!

[7dee2]

Excellent! It's just the opposite of your GMC K30 build, that one you needed to raise the front to bring your gaps inline. Really glad it was nothing to serious you had me going there for a moment. I was trying to lighten your mood hopefully it worked. Wish I knew these trucks better and maybe I'd have a suggestion for the right side. I do know you've really had to fight these panels at times and I think the truck is turning out amazing sir!

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by 7dee2

Excellent! It's just the opposite of your GMC K30 build, that one you needed to raise the front to bring your gaps inline. Really glad it was nothing to serious you had me going there for a moment. I was trying to lighten your mood hopefully it worked. Wish I knew these trucks better and maybe I'd have a suggestion for the right side. I do know you've really had to fight these panels at times and I think the truck is turning out amazing sir!

Your purpose was successful indeed Thanks for the kind words!

And yes, I am beyond frustrated with the way some of the panels fit ... but it doesn't matter, I'll make it work!

[JJorgensen52]

I noticed last night while I was fiddling with alignment, that the front edge of my hood (passenger's side) actually has a hole worn in it on the inner lip, from rubbing on the grill surround ... is it suppose to be offset by a gasket or something? Or maybe the rubber bumpers are just squashed from age...

[steve aleve]

The truck is looking great! Congrats on all the good work. I have looked back in the thread and I cant seem to find what type of steering column you are using. I know you have an S10 steering box, and a 98 cherokee steering shaft. Any help would be appreciated! I love the look of the column and the fact that everything can be found at the junkyard. Thanks in advance

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by steve aleve

The truck is looking great! Congrats on all the good work. I have looked back in the thread and I cant seem to find what type of steering column you are using. I know you have an S10 steering box, and a 98 cherokee steering shaft. Any help would be appreciated! I love the look of the column and the fact that everything can be found at the junkyard. Thanks in advance

Thanks, man! The column I ended up with is a '65 Pontiac fullsize tilt (So Bonneville or Catalina). As far as the splines are concerned, any '60s GM column should work, they all had the same splines. The Pontiac column was attractive because it already had a bearing built into the bottom of it, so I didn't have to do any conversion to run it with the S10 box.

[Advanced Design]

Really looking like a truck JJ! Maybe need a hood stretcher? Guessing the hole you mentioned is due to a flattened rubber cushion.

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Really looking like a truck JJ! Maybe need a hood stretcher? Guessing the hole you mentioned is due to a flattened rubber cushion.

Hood stretcher, I like it Thanks! Here's the hole in question:


Made a junkyard run today, and I acquired the remote reservoir setup from the Express (it was an '04 5.3 van)


And while I was there, I also saw this shift linkage in a '90ish GMC Safari:


It struck me as something I could modify to work.

I will say, after a bunch of tinkering and iterations, I now have full shifter functionality and happily, the TH400 gates in the column have *just* enough room in this setup to grab all four drive gears.


I had to shorten the bellcrank and the pivot mount where it hits the frame, re-clock the lever arm on the bellcrank, and shorten the linkage. But it works! I'm on iteration #3 for most of the parts, and I need to re-clock the bellcrank a few degrees for it to be perfect, but I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. About $12 in parts and a few hours of my time

[JJorgensen52]

Okay I lied
After I adjusted the bellcrank angles, I can't get into 1st anymore. No matter, who needs that anyway

Completed linkage:

All kinds of clearance for the exhaust now



Whacked the bottom off the core support:



I'm going to build a framework to carry the radiator such that the bottom is kicked out enough to clear the steering box.

I'm going to build a stand right where the board is sitting on the spacer block in this photo:


Like this: (don't mind my hen scratch)

I'm using a '67-'72 style mount, turned wrong side up.

Debating if I want to notch the stand, so I can slide the bolt into it from the side pointed up, or if I drill an oversize hole into the frame so that I can just put a nut underneath and have the bolt stick through. Thoughts? My inclination is to not drill holes in the frame, but there's really nothing being supported up at the front there.

[JJorgensen52]

Original chassis is gone!

Headed up to New York to go under a '53 GMC being restored.

Didn't grab my camera today, but I was out of angle iron so I started working on my seat mounts:


That's 304ss 3/4" sch.40 pipe - it's just over an inch in diameter, and my calculation suggests that it can carry 1200 lbs without issue in this configuration.

[JJorgensen52]

Test fitted the radiator today:


It's from RnD Fab here on the board - turns out the core is about an inch narrower than stock, which gave me just enough room to offset to passenger's side and clear the steering box no troubles:


However, since I'm lazy and I didn't feel like swapping my welder back over to mild steel wire, I kept working on the seat mounts


My stainless welding looks a little ropey, but it's plenty strong so I'm pleased with it:

The mount plates are drilled and bolted and both the cross-bars are fully welded down.

Tomorrow, hopefully it won't be 100 degrees out and I'll work on getting the seat bars made for the mount, and the tabs to actually bolt the seats and seatbelts on. Given the way I've been progressing, that will take me until Thursday, when I'm supposed to get a big ol' box from Columbia Mandrel Bending to start working on stainless exhaust

[oldman3]

Nice looking radiator...Jim

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by oldman3

Nice looking radiator...Jim

Thanks Jim! I'm honestly debating if I keep it shiny/polish it, or if I want to paint it matte black ... it looks kind of showy to me right now, but I suspect not a whole lot of it will be visible once it's all put together. We'll see.

Got the cross bars welded into my seat mount tonight. Well, as welded as I can get them without pulling it out of the truck. Lot of bolts to do that I don't have a tubing notcher, so I coped all the tubes using a half round file ... my hands hate me.


And here's a shot with both seats in position. I have another set of nice charcoal seats which will be my final. Also working on an idea for a center console that I think will look super if I can get my idea to be reality

Tomorrow, hopefully I'll get the tabs made to bolt the seats down and then on to the next task!

[Advanced Design]

The seat mounts look good JJ. You filed the notches by hand...wow, determined!

[lower50's]

Nice job on the seat brackets. I like how you said " and then on to the next task!" That's how you have to build, so you don't loose your head.