Teardown and Rebuild

[TFaoro]

 

[TFaoro]

Made a little progress tonight. Got the old bumper pulled and some cutting done on the new one. I will say the new lift sure comes in handy! This is my dad standing under the truck and he's right at 6ft tall. Still had another 6in or so left in the lift too.

Edited December 25, 2015 by TFaoro

[CSM]

I love 2 post lifts. 

[Royal Squire]

Can I come over and play?

[The_Hammer]

I've never had access to a lift, I normally ran enough suspension lift that I didn't need one lol. 

[TFaoro]

14 hours ago, The_Hammer said:

I've never had access to a lift, I normally ran enough suspension lift that I didn't need one lol. 

72" lift?  

Those of you who read this today Merry Christmas!!

Made a bunch of progress on the bumper. Started out by bolting up the frame mounts and making them level with the frame. Also pushed them down to the bottom of their adjustment.

Next was mounting up the center section. I was by myself this morning, so I used a cherry picker to help hold it in place. I then tacked it up. I later found out I had the frame mounts on the wrong sides and had to cut the front off and start over. Bad instructions.... O well.

Here's a couple tacked up pictures. The red clamp was there to make sure our distances were the same.

We then pulled it off the lift so my dad could work on putting some lights up. You can see in the previous pictures the mount to the front plate doesn't support very much. I didn't like it, so I made a cardboard template to brace the top parts of the bumper.

Cut some plate to match....

Welded everything solid. I made sure to move around a lot and not focus on a single bead while welding. This seemed to work really well with minimizing heat distortion. Sorry my potato phone sucks!

We then bolted it back to the truck and started fitting up the sides and ends. That was fun making everything match.... I think it matches up really nicely though. You can see the top is not even in the last picture, but that was pulled up with a clamp and is now nice and smooth. 

I've got the entire outside now welded and will finish the inside tomorrow while also grinding everything smooth. Then it's on to light mounts! (The jacket was there to lay over the fenders and headlights while tacking) Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

[JAG1]

Nice work / nice shop too. Thanks for the pics.

[Mopar1973Man]

How about the grill guard? No tubing to protect the grill or headlights?

[Royal Squire]

Looking good. I didn't see where you got the bumper. I would like to do this someday. Have already had one glancing deer hit. I have a plow so bumper needs to fit pretty  close like original. 

[Buzzinhalfdozen]

Looks good! Nice tight fit. Good call on the extra support for middle section. Are there any supports from the frame to the outer sections?I know that factory bumper has one, would be an easy addition If it doesn't.  

[The_Hammer]

Looks good man.

[Killer223]

looking good. where and how much was the kit? if i may ask.?

i have access to a brake but i'm not sure it'll bent that thick of steal.

[TFaoro]

On 12/25/2015 at 6:12 AM, Mopar1973Man said:

How about the grill guard? No tubing to protect the grill or headlights?

All in good time.  

On 12/25/2015 at 7:35 AM, Royal Squire said:

Looking good. I didn't see where you got the bumper. I would like to do this someday. Have already had one glancing deer hit. I have a plow so bumper needs to fit pretty  close like original. 

It's made by Move. I cut their company logo out of the middle... Airflow is more important to me.

On 12/25/2015 at 10:05 AM, Buzzinhalfdozen said:

Looks good! Nice tight fit. Good call on the extra support for middle section. Are there any supports from the frame to the outer sections?I know that factory bumper has one, would be an easy addition If it doesn't.  

All in good time.  

On 12/25/2015 at 0:32 PM, Killer223 said:

looking good. where and how much was the kit? if i may ask.?

i have access to a brake but i'm not sure it'll bent that thick of steal.

$650 without any lights. You better have a pretty big brake....

Lots of progress....

I final welded all of the sections together and ground the front smooth. There are full beads on every section front and back. I made sure to do an inch or so at a time to prevent warping. That took forever.....

I used some very thick expanded metal to keep large debris out of the "vent" in the middle. It's held in place by bolts, and I'll probably throw some pieces of strap on the bolts to keep it from vibrating. I wanted to make it removable just in case I decide to change it someday.

URL=http://s103.photobucket.com/user/TFaoro/media/IMG_20151226_175736074_zps41zfzezt.jpg.html]

I then welded in the bottom plate for the light bar. This makes it so you can't see down into the condenser and frame mounts.

Came out pretty slick IMO.

Then onto the fog lights. Those were 2 piece mounts that were welded together then to the bumper, making everything smooth in the front of course. 

I then mounted it up to the truck for side bracing and grille guard. 

Tacked the bar on to get measurements for cutting. It's sitting way too high in these pictures.

Here's the bar cut to to math the curvature of the bumper and down a bit. I took off about 2 inches. It's welded right on top of the frame mount braces, so it should b e plenty strong.

I then worked on the side braces. I was able to use the stock braces and just weld a stud to outside part of the bumper. You can also see the LED mounts in these pictures.

Last couple pictures. I just have to weld in the light bar mount, finish welding the grill guard, and do some final cleaning. It'll then be sent to my paint guy for priming, then Rhino lining. Note the bar looks smaller when the truck is on the ground and not at head height.

 

[NightHawk]

Awesome build, but may I add a suggestion to your bumper build?

Make the front push/grill bar removal, trust me when it comes to service time you'll be debating about using a cutoff wheel.

[TFaoro]

Too late haha she's welded in solid. If I need to work on it I can pull the bumper. It's not hard and isn't that heavy.

I had my driveshaft balanced yesterday. Hopefully this fixes the vibrating. They put a pretty big weight on the yoke end and a small one on the pinion end

[Mopar1973Man]

On 12/28/2015 at 10:13 PM, NightHawk said:

Awesome build, but may I add a suggestion to your bumper build?

Make the front push/grill bar removal, trust me when it comes to service time you'll be debating about using a cutoff wheel.

That one thing I hate about working on all the local rancher truck is trying to crawl over that darn grill guard/bumper. I love the factory bumper just kneel on the bumper and lay across and work on everything.

[CSM]

When I build a bumper next year, I'm planning on fitting temporary tube steps into the structure to make it easy to work on.

[The_Hammer]

Yeah the grill guard on mine can be a pita too. 

 

[TFaoro]

I'd like to be done messing with the motor for a bit so maybe this'll keep my mitts out of there. I replaced the valve cover gasket last night in hope that would stop the leak off the back side. I didn't use the new one when I rebuilt it so I had a spare one laying around. It was starting to run off and drip off of the bell housing. I've still got to re-route the coolant line to the passenger side heater core hose. I would love pictures but I'm not sure if anyone here has twins on a 2nd gen.

The vibration is gone with the balanced driveshaft. It's nice and smooth now all the way up to some high speeds. The dang thing is still trying to death wobble though. That's getting old and I can't find what's wrong.

Went to start it this morning and the batteries are shot. Only made a half a turn before stopping. I knew they were getting bad after being drained to dead a couple times. If it's not one thing it's another....

Still waiting on the light bar to show up so that I can weld in the last two brackets. I love USPS in rural areas   

[Me78569]

Guy on craigslist sells blem deka batteries, I got 2 group 31's for 100 and change.