Free Candy Inside: 63 Long Panel Build

[Free Candy Inside]

Not a ton of progress to report. I have been working on the wiring which has been a bit of a pain. Making a little bit of progress with that.

Around thanksgiving Michigan Metal Works ran a name your price sale. I was able to work a deal with them and have a set of control arms on the way. With this being as low as it is, I needed to bring the wheels in narrower. I wanted the Porterbuilt arms but the price was way better for the MMW ones.

Other than that I managed to pick up a space heater for the garage. I also bought a lincoln 180hd welder and a Thermal Dynamics plasma cutter.

Being a teacher and going on winter break here in the next week, I hope to get a decent amount done on the truck.

[jhama78]

Killer truck man, sub'd for updates

[Lokin4AReason]

looks like a fun little project =0)

[77lesabre]

Cant wait to see more progress on this! definitely following closely!
My 61 is currently at Bonified Customs having Dave install the Porterbuilt front and custom rear bag setup. Just dropped it off this week and can't wait to see it laid out like yours!

[Ornery37]

very cool panel!

[Free Candy Inside]

Originally Posted by 77lesabre

Cant wait to see more progress on this! definitely following closely!
My 61 is currently at Bonified Customs having Dave install the Porterbuilt front and custom rear bag setup. Just dropped it off this week and can't wait to see it laid out like yours!

Nice... I havent been down there in a week or two to see what Dave is working on. Are you building a truck or a panel? The Porterbuilt stuff is the way to go if you can afford it (which obviously you can). Now I'm curious.. Looks like I'll be making a stop by there tomorrow.

[77lesabre]

Originally Posted by Free Candy Inside

Nice... I havent been down there in a week or two to see what Dave is working on. Are you building a truck or a panel? The Porterbuilt stuff is the way to go if you can afford it (which obviously you can). Now I'm curious.. Looks like I'll be making a stop by there tomorrow.

Im building a truck, but would love to do a panel in the future. I just dropped it off this past week so it will be there for awhile. Mine started out as a budget build but The Porterbuilt stuff looks great and having the torsion bar suspension in mine, it was definitely the best route for me to go.(took a little extra saving for sure)

[Free Candy Inside]

Here are a few pics of the wiring mess.

[Free Candy Inside]

I'll try to get some update pics soon.. Nothing really good, jut trying to work through all this wiring rats nest. I had cut a hole in the firewall to put the newer harness (95 RV donor) through. I made a template but somehow things turned out ****ty. After messing with it Friday I decided to rip all that out and start over. The original harness came from the drivers firewall went around and exited to the other side before going to the computer. I started looking at it, and there isn't many wired that go to the engine so I decided to rip it out and I'm going to weld up the hole in the firewall that I already cut. Originally I was planning on setting everything up like it was on the RV but I just have so much extra length in wiring that it isn't needed. So that's the goal this week, get the wiring cut out and finished. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

[Palf70Step]

Man and I thought I had a wiring mess to deal with!

[Free Candy Inside]

Spent most of the day wiring. Got pretty close but still have a little more to go.

[FrankyV8]

Man when i look at your wiring pics I get the creeps, because I still need to finish mine
Good luck

[Free Candy Inside]

Originally Posted by FrankyV8

Man when i look at your wiring pics I get the creeps, because I still need to finish mine
Good luck

Hey if I can do it so can you. The scary part is I haven't used any wiring diagrams. Lol. I did have to post in the 88-99 or whatever to ask what 3 parts were. Lol.

[RainH2O]

Very Nice Panel

[Free Candy Inside]

Basically finished up the wiring still have a few that I want to clean up but Im going to wait. Bought 200' of color coded wiring to run to the tail lights. I decided to run a ground all the way to the back (not a fan of relying on body grounds), reverse light wires (my panel has no reverse lights,figured maybe I would want to add something later), and a constant power wire (might add some lighting inside later). Tail lights are actuay LED circuits from a standard Harley tail light. We had a huge box of them at the bike shop I used to work at and they fit well. I painted the inside of the tail light chrome and added some reflector tape. I think I posted a pic of them a long time ago. The pic is of them as a taillight. They are even brighter as brake lights. Figure I might as give the police one less reason to pull me over!

[Free Candy Inside]

Scored a chop saw on Craigslist with a new blade for $40. Decided to try it out. Worked well. Made this thing. Still have to clean it up a bit.

[Free Candy Inside]

And what that thing was for was to mount my gas pedal and the bread tie looking thing is to hold the cable. I just cut up a factory one and welded it. Now I just need to position the gas pedal and weld this set up in. Figure I'll cover it up when I put floors in the truck.

[Free Candy Inside]

Got a snow day today (teacher perks) so I headed out to the garage. Started working on mounting the body. Made an outboard mount

[Free Candy Inside]

Got it mounted up

[Free Candy Inside]

Then I started working on mounting a tank. Picture looks off, but everything is straight and level. Lol

[Mjminino]

How come my teachers couldn't have been this cool?! What grade do you teach? Thermal Dynamics plasma cutter ain't no chump change. Maybe I need to do a career change!!!!!

[Free Candy Inside]

Originally Posted by Mjminino

How come my teachers couldn't have been this cool?! What grade do you teach? Thermal Dynamics plasma cutter ain't no chump change. Maybe I need to do a career change!!!!!

Haha. I teach high school health and phys Ed. This is my 5th year teaching. I actually got the plasma cutter really cheap. Like $200ish chea (I got it in a package deal with the welder I got off craigslist). Problem is the guy didn't have 220 at his place so I couldn't test either one. Took my chances. Welder works great. Plasma won't stay lit/cut. It just sparks the whole time. I changed the consumables but it didn't make a bit of difference. I took it to a buddy's house thinking maybe it was a power/air pressure/moisture in the line but it did the exact same thing at his place. A buddy took it to his work hoping to fix it.

[Free Candy Inside]

Got another snow/too cold day. Got the tank mount finished. Also got the other side outboard mount started before I ran out of mig wire. Cleaned up the garage.

[65sub]

Cool build so far. I am curious about your gas tank. On a SWB suburban the filler is behind the rear wheel. Is your tank between the frame rails or outside? Do you have pictures?

[Free Candy Inside]

Originally Posted by 65sub

Cool build so far. I am curious about your gas tank. On a SWB suburban the filler is behind the rear wheel. Is your tank between the frame rails or outside? Do you have pictures?

On this one (c20 or 30) the gas tank was mounted right behind the drivers seat outside the rail. I decided to leave it in the same spot but made/making a custom stainless tank.