[cruizin01]

Not anything too fun to update with but,

The front end is completely in pieces. I had a heck of a time separating everything. The balljoints were pretty well seized. The control arms bushings were terrible. Lots of drilling and air hammering to get those SOB's out. But its done.

I took the subframe and upper and lowers to a sandblaster early this week. Hoping to have those back maybe tomorrow. Im gonna try and do the rest of the small stuff with a blasting cabinet at work.

I ended up having to order new lower control arm cross shafts. Mine were worn badly and they were splitting where they are rolled together near the end. Rock Auto had some for quite a bit less than the TRW ones I found elsewhere. I found the thread on modifying their location to help with caster so I may do that mod before painting everything.

Speaking of painting, I ordered some Chassis Shield epoxy paint from Summit to try. I ordered a cheap HVLP to spray it with. I got semi gloss in hopes it matches the frame closely on the blue truck.

This week decided I couldn't live with the finish on the rear axle. The super high gloss was all wrong and I just wasn't happy with the way the black adhered to the undercoat. It flakes WAY too easy. So last weekend and a couple nights this week I set to removing 2 coats of black and 2 coats of the silver under coat. What a PIA! The black came right off but the silver had adhered pretty well. I could have left it but I didn't want any issues with the new paint. So I set to scraping and scraping and more scraping. Just finished up tonight. Put some prep and etch on it to seal the light surface rust. But its ready to "re" paint.

Ill try and get some pictures of things as they are in the next week days.