Drop it like it's hot

So much got done the past two weeks!

Thus far disassembly of the truck has been very straightforward, and without major issues. I say that because on numerous occasions Rich has commented on how easily the nuts are coming off of the bolts. He is used to rusted out cars from the north-east. We don't get much snow here, and when we do the road isn't treated with salt - so that really saves the cars here. We've taken some parts off of a truck he has from upstate new york, and those nuts and bolts just crumble when force is applied to them.

While taking the front end apart, we were discussing the height of the truck. I believe in a past blog I discussed the stance I envision for the truck. I envision a somewhat lowered truck. Taking from the gas monkey frankenstein ford, I can tell they lowered their truck, but I cannot tell how much.

A year or so ago I was in a les schwab ( tire sales and brake repair) and they have a computer that I could see a 3D model of my truck. I could paint it the color I want, put nice wheels on it, lower it and raise it. I chose to lower it. I lowered it six inches, and that was way too much, it looked more like a lowrider. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate lowriders, they're just not my thing. So, I moved it back up to four inches. That was a close guess - I wouldn't make up my mind, really, until we started cutting into the coil springs.

Yes, I did say we were cutting the springs. I understand that there are 'some' out there that don't believe that this is a safe practice.

However in my case, and in the application there is no issue with taking a coil to a coil and a half off of the spring. Beyond two or so coils that it would be better idea to go buy a smaller shock.

We ended taking a coil and a half off of the spring.

With a coil and a half removed, this gave us two inches of drop. I know I said earlier that I was thinking around four inches of total drop, but we were doing these measurements without anything back into the engine bay. The engine alone is about 450 pounds. So that will bring the total drop to about four inches once everything is installed back into the engine bay.

So, as I was saying before I derailed myself, disassembly of the front end was without incident. We didn't do anything major. We replaced several bushings, some of which were not a lot of fun to get out. I had to use a hammer and chisel to remove the bushing housing from the control arm. We have purchased the front disk brake conversion kit, however we should not receive that until April some time, that was ordered in January. There is a shortage on spindles that fit my truck, so they're back ordered.

In the last blog, if you can recall, we finished up the prep in the engine bay. All of the sanding and grinding was completed. Rich wasn't happy with the way the battery box sheet metal so he added some bondo to make it look more presentable (even though it won't be seen, we know it's there). Once all of the metal prep was done we then washed the engine bay down to remove any dirt or dust caused from the sanding. Getting all of the dust, dirt and grime off is very important. We then used the air compressor to blow out any excess water that remained after the truck was washed. Now we had to tape up the areas of the truck that were not be primed today. Now since everything was off the truck this wasn't a huge task, we did tape off where the windshield would be. The main functions of the primer are to act as a leveler and protector, and to make the base coat of the paint easier to apply.

Until Next Time