Auto Rod Tech's Project Thread

Chad.S

Chad.S

Oldtimer
Decided to post a project thread for all of our shop projects. I tend to slack on updates to individual albums and sometimes work on little projects that I wouldn't mind posting but I feel like they don't deserve a full album. Or such items as different tools we have come up with to help us get a project done..

Going to start out with a truck I decided to build for myself to both use as a driver and something to take to shows.

The S-10 I built took something like 5 years to build as I was building it between all of the other things I was working on.. I didn't want to let that happen again for something that I was wanting to get on the streets, so I sold the S-10 to fund the project and make things happen quicker..

Here's the S-10 we sacrificed for parts funding.. lol. There is a build thread on the forum somewhere..



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Here's what was the beginning of the new project.. It was previously wrecked and then re-paired.. In the process of the build someone that tracks these trucks had pictures of the truck from when it was wrecked and matched it to my vin and sent me this picture and a few others.






Here is how it looked when I picked it up.


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The paint job was pretty rough and it rode really bad.. It was very improperly lowered, it had some severe camber issues, cut coil springs, bottomed out on small pebbles both front and rear so some repairs or a sale was in order.. The truck was a blast to drive so we decided to tear into it and build it right.. And in typical fashion.. it snowballed into a bit of a project.

a few tear down pics




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Onto the build!!!
Always use waterborne on bare metal before epoxy!!! Luckily beneath the paint damages were very minimal.


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Started spraying paint a little early in the build process. But It needed to go into my front room for fab work which meant the suspension had to go..


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This is pretty early stages of the underhood metal work.. Wasn't to sure how I was going to cram everything into such a small space.. With doing the suspension work I had to make room for the tires, abs module, fuse box, cruise control and be able to have it look cleaner than what it did originally. This turned out to be a MUCH bigger task than I had originally hoped..







I wanted to retain a somewhat stock feel in the bed, so I wanted to keep the bed ribs going through the bed.




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I didn't have a slip roller at the time so we went with the E-Wheel to roll the rear wheel tubs..


Then the bead roller to roll the edges to get a radius'd edge.





Finished product.
 
Now to start building some suspension.
This first go around had to get changed out with even taller upper control arm mounts and different upper arms to clear my tires.. I went with a 2" narrow track width and it caused some other issues.


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This axle has been a hassle, come to find out this is one of the few models that used a Dana 60 with c-clips, when I went to order shafts I found out that moser and strange do not make axle shafts for these.. Luckily Strange referred me to a company that would custom make shafts for me. Hoping to get them by end of next week so I can finish this project up.



This is a good way to set up you're suspension. Tack it all in at ride height and you can build you're link system without having to worry about the axle moving.









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FINALLY on the ground.. We were happy to get this far.






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Back to some sheet metal work.. Had some clearance issues so we started to modify to make everything fit..


Also wanted a inner wheel well that would keep water and debris away from my wiring and inner inner wheel wells.. lol..


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Spi bed liner gets sprayed on the bottom side of the bed..





Ordered a fuel cell for the truck and it didn't fit, we had to cut the front corner off of it for clearance.. Nothing has been straightforward with this project.. NOTHING




Had to re-locate the abs pump and the evap system as well. Not very fun to have to re-locate.. lol.




We did manage to keep the exhaust exit location the same.. On my S-10 it was cut and dumped in front of the axle.. It was horrible on a dirt driveway, or driving through a show field kicking up dust like crazy.. A lot of little things like this on this truck that will never be noticed once it is back together.



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This may look cheesy but it comes in handy for keeping things from getting sprayed,, works good on tubing and things like brake lines.


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Matte clear on the underside of the hood and also used later in the engine compartment.. Love this stuff.


And more bed liner
 
here is the wiring between the two wheel wells. This is all factory wiring and location except for the power wires going into the fuse box due to the battery getting re-located.


And once the wheel well is in place it's all pretty much hidden and protected from road debris.





Started to put interior back together and started to work on audio.. These trucks don't have room for a double din so some dash modifications were in order, I wanted full gps, back-up camera.. etc etc.
I primed the face plate tonight but didn't get any pics.


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Well this is about all I have for now.. Hopefully get it wrapped up within the next few weeks so I can start driving it....
 
Where you done the c notch for the rear frame, did you use separate pieces of metal? I've thought about that myself in order to build frame sections and stagger the joints so it would be stronger.
 
steve38;37742 said:
Where you done the c notch for the rear frame, did you use separate pieces of metal? I've thought about that myself in order to build frame sections and stagger the joints so it would be stronger.
Click to expand...

Yes.. a top, bottom and 2 sides to each notch..
 
Nice fab work! did you make your own front control arms?
 
I like your thread. I don't know anything about new cars or trucks, but you sure have all of the bases covered on this project. Very informative.
 
Bob Hollinshead;37746 said:
Nice fab work! did you make your own front control arms?
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No I didn't,, had this place make them for me..
http://michiganmetalworks.com/store/

They do a lot of custom type arms as well, going to have him make some arms up for a Buick we are building.

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keith;37750 said:
I like your thread. I don't know anything about new cars or trucks, but you sure have all of the bases covered on this project. Very informative.
Click to expand...
It was a learning experience for us as well with all of the curve balls that got thrown at us, but we try to learn something on each build.

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mitch_04;37753 said:
Stealing the u-bolt idea!
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Go for it,, that's what these threads are for,, I had the lowering kit all off to the side to sell on Ebay and as I was sitting there looking at it trying to figure out how I was going to hold the axle still, it came to mind, was worth the sacrifice for sure..
 
Starting to feel better about my color choice after putting some more panels on..
It seems I am always nervous about the color until I start bolting body panels up.



Had to do some cutting to get this to fit but I wanted to have DVD, GPS, and back-up camera, and I surely didn't want a flip up..
 
Been busy working on the truck the last few days.. With the axle here we were able to move forward again..

Mounted the air ride controller in the overhead display panel


New custom floor mats have arrived



Last shot of the frame work before bed installation.


At last the bed is on and everything fits really good.. Plenty of axle clearance, now time to bolt on some ground effects.


 
That's a fun truck. I like the srt vehicles. I had a 06 srt8 Cherokee and loved putting a hurt on newer (muscle) cars from zero to 100 that thing got out of a dig so well with awd.
 
The AWD SRT's have to be a blast.. I was looking at a wrecked challenger that was awd that a local shop had,, guy was wanting to get out of it but in the end he decided to have it fixed and keep it.

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I need to shorten the inner tie rods, has anybody done this.. Actually I just want to have my uncle put them on the lathe and add about a half inch of thread onto the end, but we don't know if tie rod ends are hardened or not. Anybody know??

Also trying to find a inner tie rod that has the same specs but a little shorter.. That seems impossible by search engines,, going to give a call to rare parts and moog tomorrow.
 
That looks killer. The inside of the bed looks clean.

How's the Matt clear lay down? Does it have UV protection?

Plan on doing matt clear on the intire inside of this build I'm doing. it's a huge inside 77f250 crew cab.from corner to corner it's like 8 feet

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I would guess the tie rod are hardend. .
 
Thanks, I really wanted a cleaner bed than what I had on my last truck, just took a little more time but it was worth it..

I love the matte clear, really sprays nice and works really well. I think it has the same uv as the production clear but I never asked Barry so it was just a assumption. Good question.

I talked to a tech at Rare Parts company and he told me to cut them and get a sleeve machined to go over them and weld it back together. He was pretty helpful and said that is what he would suggest if it were his.. He gave me a few other options with other tie rods but the threads were different and the rods were a little shorter, so i would have to machine a new coupler and add length to it to make up the difference..

He said the tie rods are forged, and somebody else I was talking to this about had a going point.. How many tie rods have we seen in collision related accidents bent.. A fair amount.. I think they are not hardened to help absorb the hit in a accident. If they were to hard they would probably also just shear off.. but that is just my opinion.
 
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