TA_C10: Stage 1

[cornerstone]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Common problem w/the cheaper door lock kits (light duty solenoids can't pull/push enough). I tweaked your pic to better explain in case others didn't know. Basically the new anchor point is farther away from the pivot making it easier to shift because of the increased leverage. Nice work around!

Dude! thanks for thinking that through. If I were you I'd send their tech department your write up so they could actually know how to make the thing work. They would save a ton of money with less returns that's for sure. The way I see it LMC owes you now!

[TA_C10]

Update - Tailgate Fits

This is a re-pop from LMC. Box says Tri-Plus. This thing is STRAIGHT!! I have heard nightmares, twisting and etc. But I got lucky I guess. Metal seems to be same thickness too.

I will have very little work to do on the sides lining it up with the tail-light portion of bedsides. Everything else is just mud and prime. I'm happy.









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[TA_C10]

Widened tubs. Nope. Wrong.

So I orded widened tubs from Brothers. This was a wish list item. Well they sent me squarebody tubs. So I decided to return them and spend the money elsewhere. SCOTI thanks for talking me into this. I will just fix up my old stockers.








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[SCOTI]

If you change your mind in the future, AMD (available through Summit) has the 67-72 variety in the wider width. They are not quality stampings & would take slicing, dicing, & metal work to be 'nice'. If a guy is just building a beater, they're fine as is.

I guess that's $$ toward a possible wheel alternative?

[jjzepplin]

That tailgate looks nice! I was not aware that they are making them with the lettering stamped. I just bought a new 67 hood on CL for cheap and now I know why, Seems the passenger side is way off. UGH! Oh well. Good to know I can get a good tailgate somewhere.

[derotoreut]

Glad it's working out. I bought a front bed panel from Mar-K. They have good quality parts too.

http://www.mar-k.com/

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by derotoreut

Glad it's working out. I bought a front bed panel from Mar-K. They have good quality parts too.

http://www.mar-k.com/

Mar-K's front panels are prob the best available.

[cornerstone]

8 days with no post..... Is everything ok over there?

[1971Stepside]

What he said ^^^

[1971Stepside]

Hopefully you don't have the Rona! Been quiet here lately!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by cornerstone

8 days with no post..... Is everything ok over there?

Originally Posted by 1971Stepside

Hopefully you don't have the Rona! Been quiet here lately!

No not the rona

I have been working on the crib... Building new cedar fence and double gate. Installing a sprinkler system. Leveling yard with new dirt/sand. And burying gutter downspouts into french drains. Labor of love. Sorta. Getting the house ready to sell in a couple years. I'm anxious to get back on the truck soon though.




















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[MDPotter]

Ahh yes, home projects. I've been neglecting a couple projects of my own.

Looks nice!

[1971Stepside]

Oh man! That would make me miss the truck for sure! My wife would like several of those done, but I keep spending the extra money on the truck

[cornerstone]

I refuse to let your thread be way back on the third page. We all have other projects to attend to, but enough is enough. Just sneak out to your garage, grab a few pics and post em up!

[TA_C10]

Thanks Cornerstone.

And. Actually. I hit the garage yesterday for the first time in over a month. So much going on around lately. But I have the truck bug bad now. I have decided to try and finish my truck by July. So yesterday the wife and I cleaned out the garage big time to get it ready for truck work again. Organized everything. And I even had about an hour to do something so I ripped off the drivers outer and inner fender to match them up properly.





When I fit all the body panels on the truck a while back, I noticed the inner fenders just weren't fitting right. The top 2 bolts that screw into the outer fender didn't line up at all. Reproduction inners were close but no cigar. I basically just assembled them off the truck and figured it out. Had to reshape the inner fender in places to make it work. And also had to grind out some of the holes to make it all work.

I also saw the inner lip in the wheel well was sticking out and would cut the tire if I left it. So I got it all bolted up and took a grinder to the lip that was hanging over the outer fender. Just ground it down until it got close to the outer fender. When I pull them back apart, I will clean up the rest of the edges and call it a day. Probably put drain slots where I built a shelf for the PCM area. Little filler and paint and it's done.

Here are the drivers side pics. You can see the mods I did to both fit the PCM from core support and also the stretch the sheet metal over the power steering box area to clear the fittings.















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[cornerstone]

Glad to see you back at it man! That "shelf" mod on the inner fender looks awesome. How did you get such a clean 90* angle? Who did you get your hardware kit from? I need to order a front end sheet metal hardware kit myself.

[TA_C10]

I made a cut with a cutting wheel and basically pushed the top portion in, made a piece for the bottom, and welded them back together. Still needs hammer and dolly work to smooth it out... I got the big stainless kit from brothers trucks.

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[TA_C10]

The wife took me to summit racing yesterday. Picked up a few things to finish the truck.

[MDPotter]

Sooooooo what's in the boxes?

[1971Stepside]

I sure wish we had a Summit Racing close enough to drive to...

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

Sooooooo what's in the boxes?

Originally Posted by 1971Stepside

I sure wish we had a Summit Racing close enough to drive to...

Having summit close is nice. So it's a local store for us here(remember this SCOTI for my following post, go easy on me pal... )

And in the box is a new windshield and a new radiator.....

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[TA_C10]

Update - Another Radiator

After my wife takes me to Summit I ended up bringing home another radiator. It's a griffin. I have heard both good and bad things about this radiator. I wanted to go grab one from the local auto parts store like suggested from a couple of members but a couple things steered me away from that approach. First, I don't like the looks of those radiators. Plastic tanks, etc. And while I'm only building a daily driver, it's morphed into a really nice daily driver My second reason, and probably the most influential were my fans. On my original radiator purchase, it came with really nice dual fans built into a custom made aluminum shroud. I really wanted to try and re-use that setup and I didn't want to have to modify it too much to make it work. The OE radiators I didn't feel were going to make that easy on me. A third reason too is the location of hose connections both being on same passenger side. Didn't want them opposite of each other.

Something else I want to mention about my original radiator purchase. I'm pretty sure it was my fault that it started leaking. And if it wasn't my fault, I'm pretty sure I damaged it anyway. I failed to flush the LS I bought before hooking it up. And that engine sat for who knows how long. And it was FULL of rust and corrosion and what not. When I went to flush it after finding the fluid turning brown pretty quick it was already too late and it was clogging everywhere. I pulled it out and dumped it and tried to flush best I could. Then I re-installed and ran 2 different times, 2 different flush agents through it. I was only ever using distilled water, but I would add the flush agent to that and let it run for a while. I would take it around the block. Do this for a few days. Then I would drain everything again.

So after doing this twice, I finally got everything flushed. But there was still this milky white stuff stuck to all the internal fins that I could see through the filler port, that stuff wasn't coming out. But by this time, the radiator had seen so much crap go through it I just didn't feel right about getting a replacement. So I called the company back and asked them about all this. This is when the guy told me about the possibility of current in my water and electrolysis. And he didn't hesitate about all the stuff I talked to him about going through my radiator. He just said he wanted to take a look at it and simply replace it. Maybe he didn't care. I dunno. But it still bothers me I did all that. Well I never heard back from him after all this corona mess. Still no radiator returned. Not answering phone calls or emails. He may have went out of business.

This griffin was cheap enough and locally available with a good enough warranty I should be able to make it work. If it goes south, it's my own fault going this route and I will accept that, but I refuse to believe that all these radiators are junk. They have been around too long and have too many people using them. Time will tell.

Alright, enough. Here is what I did and all the pictures.

I needed to bent out a flange to mate to the new radiator. Minimal work to make my fan shroud work with new radiator. I ended up welding a couple flat plates on an old wrench and just went to town. I also used another pair of pliers later and scarred up the aluminum a bit but whatever, I can smooth that out another time. I'm just trying to get this thing done and on the road.

I didn't feel comfortable using self tapping screws in this new radiator as they would drive in too far IMO. So I carefully drilled short holes in the outer aluminum flange and used rivets to attach the fan shroud. Worked out pretty good.

Before:








After:











Next came mounting the radiator. And SCOTI(if he hasn't given up on me yet), I know man... is probably shaking his head at this point after reading all that above, but just wait, after reading what's coming next he will probably decide to reply to this post lol, it will be too much. I ended up having to fab a lot more than expected. And using the OE radiator I probably wouldn't have to go through this. So I only can say.... But I didn't want plastic tanks on my radiator.....

In the instructions it has a warning, it tells you to support the middle of the radiator at core support mounts if you have only the 2 saddle mounts(which is exactly what our trucks use). So I had some really nice dense packing foam that worked out perfect for the job. I made the foam a 1/8" taller than saddles to make sure it would support properly. I have a feeling this step was missed by many out there and that is the reason the radiator failed on them.










And I had to spend a couple hours on the upper mounts, had to cut and re-shape them to lower them for proper fit. The radiator sat too tall for them. About 1/2" too tall. I only got one done so far. Still have the second one to do tonight. Yeah, I'm gonna have 4-5 hours in fab work for this radiator.


Before pic, sitting really high off the core support:





Mods:

[MDPotter]

It's crazy how many different radiator options there are and how many positive and negative experiences with each of them. If I've learned anything on my truck, it's that you get what you pay for. Griffin seems to be middle of the road price-wise, so I bet it works just fine for you. But let us know!

[TA_C10]

Another small update I did last week. My steering wheel adapter "post cover" was too long and ended up rubbing my steering column. It marred up the paint pretty good so I had to touch that up. No big deal.

I ended up using a belt sander and just took about 1/16" material off. Clears just right now. Looking at HD pictures I can see the color is mismatched, but looking at it in person, you don't really see it that much.... Oh well. Got the button installed now too. Another issue I had was when I installed the first time the truck had never been started before and during the break-in process for power steering pump the steering wheel ended up being way off of alignment so I fixed this too.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

It's crazy how many different radiator options there are and how many positive and negative experiences with each of them. If I've learned anything on my truck, it's that you get what you pay for. Griffin seems to be middle of the road price-wise, so I bet it works just fine for you. But let us know!

x2.

Also.... Small vs. large radiators use different top mounts. So depending on how the manufacturers build their radiator for vehicle 'X' might require you to do extra to make it fit.