Thanks guys, and G&R’s57GMC: Thanks for the tip about those caps, but I am OK here. The photo makes the filler tube look kinda hidden, but in fact I have all the room in the world to take the cap off and place a fuel nozzle in.
The air filter was giving me fits due to the tapered front end of the truck. Space was at a serious premium, and it took a while before I found something that would fit. Thankfully both K&N and Spectre have very good dimensional lookups on their sites which made things a lot easier. I was still having trouble getting the best fit due to the weird size of the S10 MAF inlet (3 ¼ inch), but I found a posting that said to just get a 3 inch filter and hit it with a die grinder (thanks Joedoh!). I found a stubby cone filter (Spectre Model 8168) that fit nicely into the corner where the hood, inner fenders and rad meet. I also noted that these filters are called “racing filters”. As a youth I constantly read magazines like Hotrod and Carcraft, so I just know that filter is good for an extra 25 horsepower at the rear wheels (geez the crap I used to believe!!!!!!). Anyhow, that filter is interesting as it also has an interior cone to provide additional filter surface area (likely to make up for its small overall size):
It also fits 3, 3 ½ and 4 inch inlets by the use of adaptor rings that are included with the filter.
The adaptor rings are rubber, and I discovered that the 3 inch ring can easily be stretched over the 3 ¼ MAF. Then the 3 ½ inch ring can be easily stretched over the 3 inch one. Then the 4 inch ring can easily be stretched over the 3 ½ inch ring. In the end, it all fit without any grinding or fiddling around, just by doing the rings one at a time.
While the new filter assembly did fit, it could not simply be clamped on as it would be rubbing against the inner fender and banging around as I drove, and it also sat exactly where the power steering filler tube was. Some kind of bracket was going to be needed.
The power steering filler tube enters the pump through a grommet, and the top of the tube is held in place by a bracket. This is convenient as you can re-orient the tube by simply unbolting the top bracket, spinning the tube to wherever is convenient, and then fabbing a new bracket.
The air filter and power steering filler tube could share a bracket and I got lucky here. My S10 came with the A/C deleted, so there was a rather convenient mounting pad where the old compressor used to sit. A few hours later I had this:
Everything is firmly held in place with decent clearances to prevent rubbing.
When I had earlier removed the old windshield glass I noticed some rust in the frame. I’m not quite sure how they manufactured this frame, but here is the joint where the upper and lower halves meet:
When I saw the rust inside that weird shape I dreaded tackling that job. However in the end (as usual) I imagined it to be a far nastier job than it actually was. Here’s the lower section of the windshield sitting on my welding table:
My initial concerns with rust centered around the fact that the rust was in a deep channel (the channel where the glass sits), so access would be difficult. I eventually found a way to deal with it. Here’s a shot of the rusty base of the channel, with the lower corner actually rotted through for a distance:
Welding access wasn’t the greatest because the mig nozzle was far too big to fit into the channel:
By playing with the settings, I was able to compensate for the lengthy stick-out of the wire. The metal I was welding to was very thin due to the ravages of the rust, so it was a matter of starting at a thick area, welding a small spot, waiting a couple of seconds for the weld to solidify and cool, then welding another spot that just touched the previous weld spot, then waiting again….it was slow work, but by always touching the previous weld spot I had an area that could take the heat without blowing through.
For grinding down the welds I just used an air cutoff wheel, gently going back and forth in the channel. It fit right down there and worked like a charm (but did require a lot of patience as it was a very slow process):
No, it ain’t the prettiest work, but there is no longer a rusted split in the metal, and given the limited access I was quite happy with it! This corner was the worst spot, as it was missing a lot of metal due to rust:
Again it was just a matter of doing the zap & wait routine, followed by gentle smoothing with the cutoff wheel:
I spent a good 3 hours fixing that lower channel, but it was well worth the time. While in the midst of all these little jobs, I took the time to deliver my driveshaft to a place that does truck repairs to have it shortened. I was a little apprehensive as the driveshaft from my S10 is encased in a weird black tube of some unknown (but very strong) material. The guys at the shop figure it’s some kind of deadener for sound or vibration, and it turns out that underneath it all it’s just an aluminum tube. They shortened it up by 10 inches and balanced it for me as well.
When I went to install the shaft, I found that a little work was needed to get the angles right. Axle shims come in ½ degree increments, and my closest fit was a set of 3 degree shims. When I installed my transmission cross member earlier in the build, I purposely welded it in a tad low (it’s way easier to add a shim than it is to lower a cross member). Being able to play with shims at the transmission mount makes it a snap to match angles. By making a spacer out of 7/16ths aluminum, I was able to get a perfect match of angles (5.3 down at trans, 5.3 up at axle). The driveshaft has a down angle of 6.9 degrees, giving me 1.6 degrees relative to each end, which is smack dab in the middle of the recommended 1 to 3 degree range.
That’s it for now. More to follow!