Bonnie 1971 SWB LSX

[clay68c10]

Awesome! Saturday was a nice day for it. It looks great.
Good to be able to bring dad along.
I can’t wait to get mine together again.

[Curtb1971]

Ok haven't done much to the truck with moving up north of Denver and getting a new shop. Oh yeah, I started my very own electrical contracting recently also so I have jumped into the fire head first I did get the shop setup enough to start work and gave the dusty girl a spit bath. Very soon I'll be wrenching again

[boynton]

Well you have to take care of what pays the bills. Just slow and steady wins the race with the new business! You will be glad you jumped out there in 5 years. Truck still looks great I can’t wait to see some more progress!

[Ol Blue K20]

Congrats on the new business. What kind of electrical (residential, commercial or industrial)? Truck looks good and so does the shop. I'm hoping the new year treats ya well.

[Curtb1971]

Originally Posted by boynton

Well you have to take care of what pays the bills. Just slow and steady wins the race with the new business! You will be glad you jumped out there in 5 years. Truck still looks great I can’t wait to see some more progress!

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Congrats on the new business. What kind of electrical (residential, commercial or industrial)? Truck looks good and so does the shop. I'm hoping the new year treats ya well.

Thanks guys, I've been nervous and exicted at the same time. Everyone words of inspiration have helped me get it together
Dale, I've been in the trade for 10 years and have experience in residential and commercial. I mainly ran commercial jobs for the last 5 years but now just getting my feet wet I've been doing small residential service/remodel work until I can build it up. I'd like to get into some small commercial builds by mid year but I'll just test the waters and find where my niche in the market will be.
I'm digging the new shop. Nicest place I've ever had just trying to get settled in and remember where I put that darn 10mm wrench
Merry Christmas guys

[toolboxchev]

Moving on is moving up....funny that dam 10mm wrench!

I worked for a timber farmer years ago and whenever things needed fixing it was always that 10mm had found its was under a bush or leaf.

[Ol Blue K20]

The 10 and 13mm are the sneakiest.....lol

[Chevys4life]

I'm in..........nice build Curt.

[Curtb1971]

OK guys, finally found my 10mm and can get back to work Had a tune/dyno scheduled last week but had to cancel due to snowy weather. So dad and I took a day (the whole day) to put in the grill. I bought a steel chrome grill instead of the aluminum oe style and used stainless carriage screws instead of rivets. Really glad we used the carriage screws because there was a lot of adjustments to be made through the process. I can say it was a fight with the aftermarket grill but with a little patience we won in the 10th round We gotz grillz yo

[MDPotter]

Originally Posted by Curtb1971

That would be fine by me. I'm headed out of town for the weekend but next week I'll be back. I'll shoot you a pm with my contact info. Be a good excuse to knock some carbon off and talk chevy trucks.

If I wasn't on the other side of the mountain, I would love to come see it. I also have a 6.0 and am slowly gathering LS swap parts. Do you mind sharing how you did your hydroboost setup?

[Curtb1971]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

If I wasn't on the other side of the mountain, I would love to come see it. I also have a 6.0 and am slowly gathering LS swap parts. Do you mind sharing how you did your hydroboost setup?

Anytime you're on the side that flows to the Mississippi feel free to give me a shout. As far as the hydroboost set up, it is out of a early 2000's astro van that was disc up front/drum rear. I ended up getting a new astro van master cylinder but used the proportioning valve out of the junkyard set up. I bought the mounting bracket to the firewall off captianfab here on the board but with that style bracket I needed to enlarge the hole on the firewall. Also I had to modify the rod from the pedal to the hydroboost by cutting then running a die to put on a all thread couple.with stop nuts on each side. I did that for a little adjustment if needed and a mechanical connection.
The astro van prop. valve uses the same style brake warning light as the truck did so a simple wire connection was all that was needed. For the pressure hoses off the pump and hb to power steering gear I think I used 09 2500 hoses. I needed to make a tube line with the 45 degree inverted flare to adapt to the late model hoses so took the two piece to a hydrologic line shop and they hooked me up with a weld a crimp. Kind of wished I ran a small power steering cooler in series with the return line back to the pump but I don't think I'll have overheating issues with the pump, only time will tell. Lots of work in the hydroboost set up but boy does it lock em up

[Putzer]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

If I wasn't on the other side of the mountain, I would love to come see it. I also have a 6.0 and am slowly gathering LS swap parts. Do you mind sharing how you did your hydroboost setup?

would like to see this as well. will be doing mine shortly

[MDPotter]

Thanks for the info Curt! It'll be awhile before I get to the hydroboost, but I'm doing a lot of research up front.

[Curtb1971]

Well, I'm doubling down at the shop for a little while. A new recruit arrived yesterday. Here is a sneak peak a my dads 68 we're building. Eventually l will do a build thread on this truck as he is a hell of a bodyman and did some way cool stuff that needs shared here. I'm enjoying these days that I get to spend tinkering on trucks with him. Going to have a glass guy pull the windshield from my truck and install in his because looking through the top tint strip isn't the best for visibility and install one with no tint strip on mine. I need to get the vintage air setup finished by making an adapter for the lines to the LS compressor. I have a new saden compressor with relocation brackets but heard they can cause vibration and I would have to start over on the upper radiator hose.

[Curtb1971]

Got some time yesterday and installed the front and rear bumpers. Had to install the front fender cup trim before we could put on the front bumper. I ended up restoring the oe bumper bolts and polishing them up. Earlier last week we had showtime glass swap the shaded windshield out of my truck and into my dads. With the new buckets and being tall I was looking right out of the shaded part. Also changed the door rubbers from Precision to Steele rubbers. (In pic Steele rubber on the left Precision on the right) WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Had to slam them both before and now they shut easy breezy. Pictures or it didn't happen

[Curtb1971]

Over the last few months I installed most of the interior and have been buttoning up the vintage air. Also a few various things.

[Curtb1971]

Just because everyone likes pictures

[boynton]

Looking good!

[1971Stepside]

Truck looks great! I see this and it motivates me to keep going. Thank you Thank you.

[Curtb1971]

Bit the bullet and I'm trying to button up the air conditioning. Had to use the kwik mount for the sanden compressor because I would have had to hack way too much of the frame out to make the stock ls comp work. Also I had to make a upper radiator hose out of a couple different hoses to clear the new brackets. Its a battle but hey my truck has inner fenders again Hopefully can button it up in some spare time this week.

[72 tigger]

Very nice work! Like what you’re doing

[Curtb1971]

Well darn, I'm back to making the stock ls compressor work down low. The upper radiator hose had an up then down to clear the brackets and compressor. That was giving me fits trying to fill/burp the system by trapping air. I could have added a filler cap splice in the hose but just wanting it to look clean. The kwik brackets work but I needed to shim the idler pulley out and grind down the back side of the tensioner. I didn't like the idea of one long ass serpentine belt running all the accessories. Sooo.... demo out the kwik system, put the stock compressor back and ordered some more ac fittings. Round two...fight...

[TBONE1964]

I have noticed some of the newer cars with electric power steering, all under the dash power steering units.

It would be really cool to have a electric motor controlled ac compressor, no belt, you could mount anywhere and still have ac

Who knows, they will come out with one soon.

Otherwise, I am sure you will figure it out to be functional and clean looking.

Nice work Curt,

T

[Curtb1971]

Hack, whack and don't look back. I finally got most of the parts in and used a variety of stuff to make the vintage air and denso 10S20F mesh together. Waiting on one more fitting and I'll get the suction hose made. Hopefully I'll have some air conditioning just in time for old man winter.

[clay68c10]

It’s looking great Curt!
Nice job on the compressor. I’ll be doing the same low factory mount. I’m collecting wrecked car hose ends so maybe I’ll end up with something I can use.