slow ride (redux)

[Dubnova]

WOW! Nice job and great stance.

[joedoh]

thanks!

made it a little more bearable to drive today, the window felts and rubbers were just GONE, so the window banged around in the big gap and the wind just did what it wanted. got the 65 dollar kit from bowtie bits and found it fit perfectly, the longest part was the felts. You just take the wing window out like you are replacing the main glass, then the wing channel gets a nice fitting gasket and the door channel gets another.








the new clips on the felts need to be crimped shut slightly to fit and snap in, I broke two clips on two felts before realizing this. You cant take the old clips off the old felts because they are clipped to the metal backing of the felts and there is no way to punch those holes correctly, it must have been done in a machine similar to a stapler. I crimped the clips a little and was able to snap them in.


on a scale of 1-10 I give these a 9, it only took about 15 minutes complete per side. the windows are so smooth now and dont rattle at all. My regulators seem to have trouble giving that last 1/4" up but it still seals well.

then I mounted the tank gauge

and the errant corner gagues


I started taking the seat out for the carpet but ran out of daylight. more to come.

[joedoh]

well we have had snow and snow and more snow, not that I am complaining.



I got the carpet laid in today

It is about 2 inches shy of the rocker, I will look at the sill plates and see if they will cover it if not I bought extra carpet and will seam it in.

got the little larrys and new gauges hooked up. its nice to know the pressures, the MIC gauges didnt work very well.

I also picked up some krylon ivory paint, I wasnt a big fan of the giant rusty patches on the hood, the ivory matched perfect

washed the seat


I ran out of daylight but I switched out the turn signal switch for the new one I had and it seems to have fixed that short I was chasing in the turn signals and headlights. I also put in the glovebox door and moved the heater controls inside the glovebox. I drilled the holes for the 66 back up lights, painted the custom cab stripes down the sides.

[chevycowboy1985]

Is that stock carpet

[joedoh]

its a stock carpet for a 1998 s10 ext cab, which is what the floor pan is out of.

I got it from stockinteriors and I couldnt be happier, I knew it might be short on the sides but I wanted the carpet to match all the floor "bumps" of the s10 floor. I got it for an ext cab so I could cover the back wall, it worked out great.

[TJ's Chevy]

Looks good! Like the picture of it sitting in the snow...no plow needed just use the bumper.

[joedoh]

thanks! cant do much plowing wit the summer tires haha

Well I was going to take it to lunch but the seat was still damp. I'll let it dry another day.

[joedoh]

so I figured out the headlights today, it is now a 24hr vehicle instead of daylight hours. right now it is low beam only though...

and I know the reason why. that doesnt sound astounding when I say it but believe me there was a lot of rejoicing when I actually figured out what was going on. I looked up the wiring diagram but it didnt tell me anything I didnt already know, just verified that everything was wired correctly.

there are three states of headlights, drl, low beam, high beam. sounds simple, but there is a BCM in there. what was happening was, the low beams would come on with the drls, and the high beams would come on with the low beams. I looked all over for shorts, none, found a couple grounds that were off in the rear but wasnt optimistic that would fix anything. I started by metering out the individual wires and found out that...

ground is controlled by the BCM.

this was a revelation. In most everything DC and even some AC, ground is ground. you wire the 12v through a switch or relay or transistor or whatever and ground is just there. "plane" old ground. in an s10 with a bcm though, depending on the state, ground or power both can be switched. the DRL circuit for example, battery voltage to high beam + and only -11vdc to high beam -. I didnt figure this mattered much to me because the light I am using have an HID for low beam and H3 for high beam, with separate wires for each. I have the HID relay hooked up to the low beam wires, no problem there, and a big separate ground for the ballasts, and the high beam two wires wired to.. the... H....... ah crap. H3 bulbs dont HAVE a separate ground. I turned on the headlights and disconnected the grounds and sure enough, they stayed on. a couple screws confirm my suspicion.

so that means the "plastic" housing on these headlights isnt plastic at all.

nope, aluminum. there was the short I was chasing, I was pushing -14.4vdc alternator voltage back through the -11vdc BCM circuit. nice.
I will pick up some plastic screws tomorrow to isolate the h3 "ground" from the body ground. But for now I can drive the **** out of it any time day or night.

here are the pics of the glovebox I shooped de dooped yesterday.

[joedoh]

seamed in the carpet, looks a lot better now.

beeps helped finish some of the outside

installed the gauges a little more permanently, I still plan to put all the steppers in the original cluster but this is a great stealth install and hole filler.



then I washed it and went cruising. I should have put the wood bed in but it was so gorgeous today, and I have the next three days to do it and the side trim install too. stopped for some photos, I like how that ivory paint really blended the different colors and rusty spots









edit: this was today

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by joedoh

H3 bulbs dont HAVE a separate ground. I turned on the headlights and disconnected the grounds and sure enough, they stayed on. a couple screws confirm my suspicion.

so that means the "plastic" housing on these headlights isnt plastic at all.

nope, aluminum. there was the short I was chasing, I was pushing -14.4vdc alternator voltage back through the -11vdc BCM circuit. nice.
I will pick up some plastic screws tomorrow to isolate the h3 "ground" from the body ground. But for now I can drive the **** out of it any time day or night.

plastic screws did not reliably isolate the ground, so I was stuck for a minute. I hopped on google and found out there was a type of H3 bulb called an H3C with two terminals, but it did not tell me if the base ground was isolated from the bulb ground. I found an ebay auction for some H3C for 13 bucks buy-it-now and free shipping, not a lot to risk, but WAIT, the auction happened to be ending in 3 minutes, and they were only $9.99 if you were the lucky bidder and no one else bid. The guy had multiple auctions so the only thing I had to lose was 3 minutes, but I did not lose. 10 bucks and a week later:
they showed up today, note the two terminals instead of the single terminal of the H3

so I had to find out if one of the terminals was common to the base...

Nope! freaking sweet. Its raining in my garage but I will give them a shot in a couple days. If it works, I will order some that arent hyper racer blue.

Also, one of the taillight housings has a short now. Bowtie Bits is local and has new complete housings with bulbs and lenses for 35 ea, or LED taillights with wired sockets for 58 pr. I am going to buy two new housings so I dont have to worry about it later, so thats 70 bucks, or save 12 bucks on the LED. I dont know if the LED type would look too modern on the truck.... I saw this truck in the LED thread and thats what started me thinking.

[Cooper197]

Originally Posted by joedoh

Also, one of the taillight housings has a short now. Bowtie Bits is local and has new complete housings with bulbs and lenses for 35 ea, or LED taillights with wired sockets for 58 pr. I am going to buy two new housings so I dont have to worry about it later, so thats 70 bucks, or save 12 bucks on the LED. I dont know if the LED type would look too modern on the truck.... I saw this truck in the LED thread and thats what started me thinking.

Hey that's my truck!
I couldn't be happier with the LED's.

[joedoh]

they look nice on your truck but I think I like the hot spot single bulb for mine. I think tomorrow I will just buy new buckets.

[joedoh]

well picked up some taillights

and got my helper

changed them out


and fixed the turn signal problem and the right rear parking light problem, but not the fast blink right turn signal. The taillights are grounded to the buckets so its not a ground problem at the back. I looked over ever inch of the harness, I spotted what looked like a spider in one of the tag light sockets and it turned out to be a broken bulb so thats what was blowing the park light fuse, but cant find a problem with the grounds.

I tried installing the H3C lights too and they were too deep, hit the headlight bucket so I have to clearance that.

after messing with it a while, beeps and I went cruising. I didnt take any pictures today but here is one I like from the other day.


I did drive it to sonic tonight to hang out and have a cherry limeade, nice to drive it at night. need to adjust the low beams though.

[joedoh]

amazing what I can do on the highway with no headwind.

could have gone even faster but the area is lousy for sheriffs.

but with a headwind, I top out around 71. so I made the decision to order some gears.

got 4.56s. the 3.73 I have now with the big ass 22s is like having a 3.23 rear end and it just gets smacked trying to climb the aero load. the truck needs some torque multiplication. I would have ordered 4.30s, that would have brought me back to a 3.73 effective, but they were literally twice the price. this way I get a 4.10 effective on the overdrive, which should help even more.
I will have them installed when I shorten the driveshaft this week (assuming they show up in two days like they say)

[joedoh]

I was out cruising and my wife asked me to stop by her uncles house and check on him. he was fine, his street has a funny little cul de sac and it was golden hour so I shot a few pictures. I wish the backgrounds were a little less cluttered but hey, it was just a spur of the moment thing.







gears will be here friday so I will start pulling the axle tomorrow. there hasnt been any wind the last two days so cruising around has been effortless, but there is still a big gap between third and fourth that will be made small and between fourth and fifth.

[dwcardfan]

The truck looks sweet!!! Nice job.

[Palf70Step]

She looks good!

[tinydb84]

Truck looks great. How do you like the Little Larry valves? I like the simplicity and dependability of manual valves and the lack of junctions on those makes me think they wont leak as much.

[joedoh]

thanks guys

tiny, so far I like them. I have a small leak at the fitting for the front left bag I will need to tighten up, but otherwise, perfect.

I used MIC manual valves for years, in fact I have about 12 MIC valves just in the garage. Used to be able to rebuild them with some o rings but my last set has gotten sticky. time to move on haha

forget about using 1/2" line with the little larrys, the port spacing wont let the fittings, uh, fit. I was using 1/2 supply and dump and 3/8 bag lines, had to switch to 3/8 everything. but having it fit up in the ashtray area is super nice, better than under the dash, and the piano key switch extensions are easy peasy to use.

[tinydb84]

Thank you for the info. I was going to buy them then saw another member having issues with his set up. I plan on running smaller lines anyway. I only plan on airing up and down for parking really.

[joedoh]

for simplicity, they are impossible to beat. All my air lines are hidden and they work great


did some night cruising. all the poke and stretch guys were at central and west but I wasnt into that tonight. I'll give it a couple weeks and the minitruckers and old schoolers will dust off their stuff to bring it out, it was still a little cold in the 40s tonight.

[BC Toy chest]

Nice ryde!!

[joedoh]

thanks!

I started figuring up the bed wood today. I think 8" boards with 6 1/8" side boards will let me use 9 boards and 8 stainless strips

[joe dirt]

don't suppose you have some pics of your bed hinge setup,...im thinking I may do something similar to yours

[joedoh]

there are some pictures on page one, you can see everything but the actual pivot bushing. you have to have a tilt setup or some way to pull the rear tires.

funny story about that. we measured for shocks and figured out that some jeep rubicon unlimited shocks would fit perfectly, so I hit the local craplist and found some brand new takeoffs. the guy didnt just upgrade shocks though, he upgraded springs and lower control arms too. believing in the native american mantra of "use every part", I sold the springs on to a guy building a SFA toyota and we used the lower control arm bushings as the pivot bushing. I figure if it can hold up a 4000lb jeep, it could hold a tilt bed.




not bad for $50. oops I sold the springs for $25, so not bad for $25.