TA_C10: Stage 1

[gringoloco]

Try loosening the hinges where they attach to the fender. While loose, push up on the front of the hood (I like to use an adjustable broom handle, but a buddy works, too), then re-tighten the hinges. This should solve your popping up problem in the back and make it pop up more in the front when you want to open the hood.

[DarkKnightWong]

Hi Sir

What filter mesh kit did you use for your cowl panel ?

Thanks
Allen

Originally Posted by TA_C10

Update - Skins

Well, I am going to just dump a bunch of pics on you. I didn't get much accomplished this weekend due to spending all day Sunday trying to figure out how to add relays to my 3rd party remote door lock kit. End result, I am scrapping the LMC kit. It's not for our trucks. Plus I need remote start and an alarm

So what I did get accomplished is my first look with all the skins installed! Everything is loose keep in mind and I just laid the cowl piece and hood on. But to my surprise, with 3/16 spacers behind my door hinges, it appears the hood is going to fit just fine! There were a few fitment issues I didn't like, the inner fenders to outer fenders hole alignments really suck. The passenger side outer fender, you can see in my pics, I don't even have a bolt in the bottom because it didn't line up enough to get a bolt in there. This might be due to my replacement piece I grafted in a year or more ago. The lower pillar piece and rocker that has the fender hole in it. I will have to stretch/cut that hole to make it open up more to accept the bolt for the fender. It's just too far back towards the rear of truck, it needs to slide forward to the front of truck. But of course it aint movin.... Gonna have to get creative with it...

Also, pay attention to how far my front wheels stick out compared to the rear. I went with the deluxe lowering kit from Brothers Trucks if anyone remembers way back in my thread. Looks like the new spindles first of all fix the angle so the wheel is centered in my wheel well? I thought the stockers was an A-arm issue where the wheel was set back in the well? Maybe spindles can fix that, didn't know about this issue when I bought the kit but looks good to me. But downside is the wheel sticks out way too far.

The PO put 275x60R15 tires on 10" rims all the way around so this is one of the problems. The fronts need to be 8" rims and a smaller width tire to fit right. But I think modular spindles from CPP might give me another 1.5" pull into the wheel well if I am not mistaken. Might go that route down the road. But for now, I took it for another stroll around the neighborhood and they didn't rub.

I stuck the new mesh kit under my cowl piece and its sticking up a little too far so the cowl wouldn't sit all the way down, but I really like the mesh under there. It's a good piece from what I can tell.

That block of metal is my 3/16 spacers I made for the top door hinges. The bottom hinges are only like 1/16" or 1/8" spacers(washers for right now actually) but the door fits so much better with these. And now that I see the hood looks like its close, I will probably roll like this unless I end up with problems down the road. I guess the factory had these doors so badly off that much spacer is required on my truck. It brings the front door away from the seal enough that it doesn't crush it ALL THE WAY TO THE SEAM. It was that bad. The door wouldn't even shut hardly. With the adjustments on the door(door side adjustments all the way out, meaning door away from cab) it was bad. With the spacers behind the hinge, door shuts pretty dang good now, seal isn't crushed so bad, and the alignment of the door looks soooo much better on the inside and outside.

It's been 2 years since these panels were bolted on the truck. Motivation....


Door stuff:













Skins stuff:









































Wheel stuff:





Rear Wheel





Front Wheel

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by DarkKnightWong

Hi Sir

What filter mesh kit did you use for your cowl panel ?

Thanks
Allen

The mesh kit came from BrothersTrucks. It's called a cowl trash shield.

.

[TA_C10]

Well after I got the A/C filled professionally, then adding more fluid later to figure out why it was leaking, next morning I came out to this:





One of the high pressure hose fittings failed.





So while I was getting that fixed I decided to make the A/C lines look a little better. Pulled the low side line to get it rebuilt with new fittings and redoing the high side a little different as well. Goal is to make them all flow across the fender better and not 90 at the firewall anymore.




NAPA to the rescue:



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[TA_C10]

Found the service guide online from vintage air, it's different than all the documentation you get when you purchase the kit from them. Go figure. I was determined to do this myself rather keep paying someone.

The type of oil my sanden 709 says in the service guide is SP-15. When you look this up, it's not PAG 100 equivilant, it's 80 centistokes. PAG 100 is 95 centistokes. Had to look all this up. And if you don't search good enough, NAPA tells you SP-15 is same as PAG 100. Anyways, service guide says it's important, so I bought the SP-15, NAPA just had to ship it from another store across town. Also picked up some refrigerant.





There is a special way to calculate the amount of oil you have left in your system based on a formula in the service guide. You take that and add fresh oil to to the compressor to make sure you have the right amount. I ended up needing 5.5 oz






My old pump took a dump, so i ran to AZ and rented one. pulled vacuum for little over 45 min while I worked on other stuff. Then I purged all my manifold gauge lines(all of them not just middle feed line ) and got to filling the system. I broke out my wifes digital scale and measured the cans to make sure I put the right amount in the system.












Made it to this point and stopped. It was around 98 degrees that day. I also ended up wasting a whole can of refrigerant but still got it down to the 50's at the vent. So I will drive it for a few days and see if it needs more, pretty sure it will based on my measurements.

[TA_C10]

I also started getting a squeal out of my vintage air mid mount setup. The dreaded kwik bracket squeal. Well, all I found was it looked a little out of alignment, so I shimmed it with some washers and it hasn't squealed in weeks now. I'm calling it fixed.



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[TA_C10]

And let's not make this all work and no play.... Here are a few pics when my wife and I took a little trip down to our new property. Looks good on the street too coming back from brunch.






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[TA_C10]

Engine pics as it stands now. Still need an engine cover. And a few other things but I daily drive this puppy and love it.

[MDPotter]

Good for you for taking matters into your own hands. My dad was having similar struggles with his Vintage Air system. He decided to buy the equipment and do his own charging and discharging and troubleshoot with Vintage Air instead of keep paying a local shop. Now it works great.

If you don't already have the laser pulley alignment tool, get one. My dad had the same squeal issue and it ended up being the power steering pulley that we didn't press on far enough and thus was causing a belt squeal. Of course, this was after getting the updated Kwik bracket a year or so ago.

[flipper58]

TA C10, I have been away from this forum for awhile now, but I did want to check out your progress. Truck looks great! And though you might not like to hear this, it was nice to hear that someone other than me had similar squeal and alignment issues. Like someone else noted, I got the laser alignment tool and went with a slightly shorter belt. That all worked. And I am going through similar AC charging issues. I will be reviewing your tips on that.
Best,
Phil

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

Good for you for taking matters into your own hands. My dad was having similar struggles with his Vintage Air system. He decided to buy the equipment and do his own charging and discharging and troubleshoot with Vintage Air instead of keep paying a local shop. Now it works great.

If you don't already have the laser pulley alignment tool, get one. My dad had the same squeal issue and it ended up being the power steering pulley that we didn't press on far enough and thus was causing a belt squeal. Of course, this was after getting the updated Kwik bracket a year or so ago.

Originally Posted by flipper58

TA C10, I have been away from this forum for awhile now, but I did want to check out your progress. Truck looks great! And though you might not like to hear this, it was nice to hear that someone other than me had similar squeal and alignment issues. Like someone else noted, I got laser alignment tool and went with a slightly shorter belt. That all worked. And I am going through similar AC charging issues. I will be reviewing your tips on that.
Best,
Phil

Thanks guys. A/C is continuing to give me issues. Blew another line again recently so I need to get that looked at. I don't think I'm charging it incorrectly, I think the line crimps just aren't holding for whatever reason. It's a different line this time. Will be working on that in the coming months.

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[TA_C10]

Been a while since I have posted any updates, time to catch up!

Got my Detroit Truetrac installed. Nothing different than everyone else who installs these things. Used the freezer over night to shrink the carrier, didn't need heat on the ring gear, slipped right on no problem.

Installed new axle seals. Used my new Harber Freight 20lb press to push on bearings. It was cheaper to buy the press than to get them done twice. Shops trying to make a million dollars these days...

Wasn't able to use OE thick shims, carrier didn't go back in, so I used the shim kit and used a dial indicator to check backlash. G2G. Then I ended up hitting the backroads for some fun to test it out

[TA_C10]

Pics cont...

[TA_C10]

pics cont.

[TA_C10]

Brake Booster went out on me already, brand new with 3500 miles or so it started acting like it had no vacuum and it was like manual brakes. Got a new one, they sent me the polished version instead so that was nice

[TA_C10]

Got my door panels finished up. Used the ones that came with truck, metal, left them scratched, kinda like the character. Got the window switches hole cut in panels. I ended up having to notch the door a little, added some rubber guard to the raw metal of door so when I fed the switch wire harness through door it was protected.

[TA_C10]

New SS hardware from LMC. Looks so much better with door panels now and I the arm rest was a huge improvement lol.

Got the door panels sealed with some foam strip around edges and also threw some kilmat on the back. I also have kilmat all inside the door now as well. But when I put the door panels on it made the truck a LOT quieter than driving around with them off.

Oh, and went to ace and grabbed some license plate screw clips to replace broken clips for door panels.

[TA_C10]

Still several more updates to come so stay tuned for those. I'm just tired of uploading pics at this point...

[Kronald_70GMC]

Looks great man. I'll be watching for more updates.

[SCOTI]

Watching as well.

[MDPotter]

I envy your Truetrac - it's been a want of mine for awhile. Looks like it works!

[TA_C10]

Just a man's dream in the making. Before I knew what I was getting into LOL.

[TA_C10]

You've been told before, you should have listened, I'm on my 3rd radiator at this point. eBay rad was so thin it blew several pin holes in a month of use. Griffin rad from summit ran for about 2000 miles before the epoxy started oozing from almost every weld and then started seeping water. I even supported it from bottom like instructions said butt that's not the issue, cheap!

So this time around, summit did me right and let me return that piece of junk and I picked up a Holley Frostbite. 100% better made, sucker is nice. But then I'm at summit and you gotta go check out the discount section when you go. Never know what you might find. And this time I cleaned up

I ended up scoring a $500 bed box for $180 and a Ford F150 bed rug for way cheap. The bed rug has a built in section for tailgate that actually fits pretty decent. It will stop short under the bed box but that may not matter so we will see if I use it.

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[TA_C10]

Got my fans mounted up to new radiator, they stayed with me from eBay rad cuz they are good fans and decent shroud. Just kept modifying the shroud and making brackets for each radiator I went through lol.

The Frostbite has the water necks purchase separate so you can choose whatever size you want to match your hose. They come with rubber o-rings to seal them to radiator. Pretty slick.

And got the bed box mounted up. Works and fits great. I'm really happy with it, especially since it doesn't sit directly on the bed floor, will show the new wood nice when I get that done, won't scratch it, and I can slide things under it when hauling. Not to mention it's flush mount so when I find a tonneau cover that fits the long bed it won't interfere.

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[SCOTI]

I noticed the shroud doesn't have 'ports' that allow air-flow through if/when on the highway @ speed & fans not running or not running full tilt. Most have some sort of gurney flaps that will allow air to pass through when appropriate. Some do vent slats vs the flaps. Some the shroud doesn't cover every square inch of the core opening.

Any concerns or issues yet?