72 k20 project

[ryanroo]

i have been working on the rear of the truck. trying to get all the stuff that is way easier to do with no bed done while there is no bed. not the most glamorous stuff, so i dont have much in the way of fun pics. but here are some

i made this bracket up quick one night. not really helping the rear area much, but it was bothering me just dangling aroung



i made up the fuel lines to get fuel out of the tank into the pre-filter and A1000 and on to the hard line on the frame.



i thought i had a picture of the underneath, but i guess i didnt upload it. more on that later.

i also wanted to build the return flex, but as luck would have it i couldnt... i ordered a handful fittings and hose several months back, more like a year probably. it was just some stuff i figured i would need when this all got underway. i went to open my bag of #6 ptfe hose and it was labeled as #6 all the way but i ended up with a coil of #8. so i have plenty of #8 but no return line for now. that order will probably go out today so i can get more of the plumbing done.

these got finished at the color shop



ceramic coated calipers.

here is a box of goodies to go inside whenever i get bored.



finished building power wires for the trailer harness circuits and fuel pump relays.



the fuel sender leads are going to be impossible to access with the bed installed so i made a pigtail with a metric-pac connector to be able to drop the fuel tank without a tether.





loomed the harnesses as well and clamped them in. one is rear truck lighting the other is the trailer harness. i'll build a pigtail for the rear lights. right now it is in a metric-pac connector stubbed out for the split to the lights. waiting on the bed to make the final harness.

this is basically done, waiting on the cover plate i have not bent up yet. still some loom and clamp to do as well.



getting ready to build main power cables, so i set up a pair of circuit breakers to protect all of the power cables.



this hunk of unobtainium showed up



there was a slight alignment issue that caused this to happen



the splines on the bar got out of clock when it was built. i called RuffStuff and they sent me a new sway bar end package that day. its lame that it didnt line up perfectly, but as always ruffstuff didnt hesitate to make it right. they have the bars machined out of house and changed the procedures for the machining after this happened. it only makes sense to replace the arm and not the bar. the bar is a rather expensive alloy and has a 2 week lead time. no biggy and hopefully i'll have the arm finished at the first of the week so i can paint and install it next week.

hopefully i can get most of the loose ends in the rear area tied up soon and get back on the other things i abandoned to work on all this stuff.

in other exciting news, this arrived at work



it is a beast!



it is a DMG/Mori-Seiki 5 axis 50cm table mill. i am excited to see what it makes.

[FRENCHBLUE72]

The dmg looks like a small office

[woodwright]

Nice work as usual. I really want to get back on mine. I go down to work on it and just draw a blank on where to start.

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by FRENCHBLUE72

The dmg looks like a small office

its a baby and it is so huge. they make them so big you could carve an f350 out of one in fullsize. its crazy

Originally Posted by woodwright

Nice work as usual. I really want to get back on mine. I go down to work on it and just draw a blank on where to start.

Thanks! some times you need a project break. i try to keep myself to busy to remember i dont want to work on it. haha

got this thing in



and now it is for real!

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice work on the wiring! Someday I'll get my trailer harness set up like you have. That new toy is awesome! The guy doing your welding is doing a great job too. The sway bar definitely looks bad azz!

[gerfunken]

<sigh> there are days that I look at this thread and just shake my head. There's an amazing amount of detailed work and ingenuity that has gone into this thing.

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Nice work on the wiring! Someday I'll get my trailer harness set up like you have. That new toy is awesome! The guy doing your welding is doing a great job too. The sway bar definitely looks bad azz!

Thanks ryan!

i cant wait to see that thing carve something. hopefully one day some intakes.

i dont know about the welder. you can clearly see a stop start, and that is just impatience. its almost like he was rushing to get it together after a day at work. hack.

Originally Posted by gerfunken

<sigh> there are days that I look at this thread and just shake my head. There's an amazing amount of detailed work and ingenuity that has gone into this thing.

Thanks for the recognition, Scott. i'm sure you will be less impressed when you see it piled all over the garage...

I look at this thread and shake my head too. there was a simple plan at the start. what happened? haha

[Dieselwrencher]

Simple plans are for quitters. And LMAO at Hack. Not quite.

[burnitg]

Beautiful job on the wiring Ryan!

[1985-GMC]

I love the sway bar! I might have to make a low buck hillbilly version of that

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Simple plans are for quitters. And LMAO at Hack. Not quite.

i think simple plans are for people with finished projects, eh Ryan?... haha

Originally Posted by burnitg

Beautiful job on the wiring Ryan!

Thank you! having cleanly routed and terminated wires is soothing for my twitchiness.

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

I love the sway bar! I might have to make a low buck hillbilly version of that

given the cost of this thing, it had better work. but even if it happened not to work at all, the looks are maybe worth it. i dont have any weight on the back but from my initial assessments are that it will be B.A.

i would definately try to get one hooked up on your project. no matter what the method or fanciness level of the parts they are so worth it.


Been doing a lot with power cables since a bunch of that is under the bed.



uber mega terminals that have a pound of copper and tin in each crimped and soldered in place

and the goo filled shrink tube that is S.O.P.



as luck would have it, i burned the power cable on my jeep this week due to some poor planning when i did that. it is now repaired to a much higher standard than the 23 y/o version of myself installed. i dont plan on having any issues like that on this truck.

this is the 1/0 that runs to the rear bumper area. it will be the power for the winch and eventually it will there will be a jumper cable connection hiding back there as well.





also ran some 1/0 to the starter.



we remember this chaos.



i bent up a quick panel cover out of 22ga paint lock. paint lock is zinc coated similar to galvanized but the coating is very receptive to paint. basically a zinc primer.



i painted it black, of course. maybe the best paint job i have done with a rattle can on this truck yet. then, naturally a moth landed in it and proceeded to flap itself to death in my nice paint. whatever...



i ordered these cables built to order from CEAutoElectric. this is the place i have ordered all of the cable and terminals from as well as a handful of other electrical components. the nice thing about ordering from CE is that you know its the best stuff. they dont mess around. and they hold a high standard of customer service.

anyhow, the terminations need to be crimped properly and i wasnt looking to buy that crimping press so it was way easier to have Tony build them. i needed the flag terminals so i didnt have to loop the cable all silly. i can crimp the barrel style, but these are open barrel.



they get loomed too. i also adjusted the routing.



i also received a discouragingly small order of parts for how much it cost and got the fuel return line built.



the fuel lines will most likely be covered in loom to keep any rubbing to a minimum. but i like to look at it for a while as the shiny version first.



this one you can see the dead moth i left in the paint as a warning to others like him. its on the panel cover in the top left. and the VSS wires i havent terminated yet.



and finally, this thing is attached.





it needs the touch applied to the swing arm, but it finally is on the truck. ive been ignoring this for a while

[Billhilly]

Looking very sharp Ryan! Nice detail work. I hope to be starting on some wiring soon. Will have to keep the standard up at my end! Your whole rear end/bag setup looks sooo slick. Oh, and I'll bite, the last two pictures are?? Something else I need to buy?

[ryanroo]

Thanks!

I've been thinking about that damn thing for so long I guess I just figured everyone knew what it was... Haha it's the height control valve for the air bag. One day I'll plumb that in too...

[Billhilly]

Ahhhh, that makes sense! Icing on the cake. I was worried it was a fancy brake proportioning valve (looked to big) that I'd have to learn about!

[mcmlxix]

Your attention to detail continues to amaze me. Great job!

[rgreathouse]

Ryanroo what are the turbo specs? Hx35/hx55 is what I think I remember. I have few laying around and haven't decided what I'm going to do. Originally I was going to run a hx35/ht3b compound setup but fitting the 3b has been interesting. I also have a hx55 but don't see to many people running 35/55 combos.

[Dieselwrencher]

Your electrical engineering is very nice. Great work.

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by mcmlxix

Your attention to detail continues to amaze me. Great job!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by rgreathouse

Ryanroo what are the turbo specs? Hx35/hx55 is what I think I remember. I have few laying around and haven't decided what I'm going to do. Originally I was going to run a hx35/ht3b compound setup but fitting the 3b has been interesting. I also have a hx55 but don't see to many people running 35/55 combos.

it is a 35/55. they arent the "cool" thing to run these days. there are more modern turbos to compound that are good for more power and all that, but for what i was looking for these are fine. the two pair well and it limits me on how much i can wring out of it... hopefully keeping it sort of reliable.

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Your electrical engineering is very nice. Great work.

Thanks mister!

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

i think simple plans are for people with finished projects, eh Ryan?... haha

Yep, for sure. I can't argue that much. Even my done projects are still getting changes. Haha

[1985-GMC]

All of your wiring looks amazing and the thought of doing something like that myself scares the crap out of me

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

All of your wiring looks amazing and the thought of doing something like that myself scares the crap out of me

Thanks Tony! I've definitely gotten better at the wiring over time, but I've worked on so many rigs that have shoddy wiring that I vowed never to do that myself. I didn't know my ass from my elbow when it came to wiring a car ten years ago. It's like all the other things, the more times you have to fix your own screw ups the better you get at not making them!

[gerfunken]

So, two things.....

It was great to finally meet another board member, you're a heck of a guy Ryan. (Adding a mental note that I should actually spend some time meeting some of the local guys....)

And, the truck is amazing up close. The attention to detail in every aspect was amazing. The pictures really don't do it justice... still astounded.

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by gerfunken

So, two things.....

It was great to finally meet another board member, you're a heck of a guy Ryan. (Adding a mental note that I should actually spend some time meeting some of the local guys....)

And, the truck is amazing up close. The attention to detail in every aspect was amazing. The pictures really don't do it justice... still astounded.

Thanks Scott! I was happy that we had the chance to shake hands and that I got to meet your celebrity wife as well!

Thanks for the compliments!

[ryanroo]

Ive had less time to devote to the garage in the last several weeks, but i have been able to do a few things.

my sister in law was recently married and the venue was less than a mile from our house, so we had a lot of traffic through the house that week. i had a bunch of clean painted metal in the front room of the house to keep it safe... anyhow, i figured it would be much less safe around a bunch of wedding crazed womenfolks and hauled it to the garage. only one place to put it in the garage.

the passenger front fender is at the paint dood to get a fix. but i hung the doors on the cab and stuck the drivers fender on.



this is OEM paint. i wanted to leave one part of the truck just like it was. kind of cool for me since grandpas hands touched this who knows how many times.



then i put enough of the bed together to get this out from behind the couch...





then i decided to finally finish this project.









i also decided the caliper parts were in my way and shoved them in the calipers.

[Last_Paladin]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

Ive had less time to devote to the garage in the last several weeks, but i have been able to do a few things.

my sister in law was recently married and the venue was less than a mile from our house, so we had a lot of traffic through the house that week. i had a bunch of clean painted metal in the front room of the house to keep it safe... anyhow, i figured it would be much less safe around a bunch of wedding crazed womenfolks and hauled it to the garage. only one place to put it in the garage.

the passenger front fender is at the paint dood to get a fix. but i hung the doors on the cab and stuck the drivers fender on.



this is OEM paint. i wanted to leave one part of the truck just like it was. kind of cool for me since grandpas hands touched this who knows how many times.



then i put enough of the bed together to get this out from behind the couch...





then i decided to finally finish this project.









i also decided the caliper parts were in my way and shoved them in the calipers.

Looking good. Chevy Dana 60 front? Late model calipers?