86 GMC squarebody, eventual tow rig. Molasses pace build.

[Roert42]

Cold glav em. Lol.

 

[Blmpkn]

saving money to buy the parts always seems to to take much longer then putting them on…..

Thats the problem, especially when you have project adhd and constantly jump around between a few lol. Doesn't help that I needed to buy a few expensive tools as well... progress would of been happening much sooner if my 'shop' had all the necessities to begin with.

You could put a fancy rattle can paint job on those.

I might try corroseal on them. It says it works best on rusty metal but will still work on clean metal. Either that or they'll get slapped up with some tractor/implement paint.

 

[Blmpkn]

Alright alright alriiiggghhht... progress! Good progress! Monumental progress! Yuuuuuuuge amount of progress! Feels good.

Spent the better part of 3 hours today after work removing the 28 rivets that hold the shackle hangers and the spring hangers to the frame. Tried to slice up the heads as best as I could with the grinder, and then hammered on them with an air chisel. Really gave the compressor a workout.

No way am I gonna get this thing back on the road this year like I had hoped... but I've set myself the reasonable goal of at least getting (most) everything that's behind the cab taken care of and finished before it's too cold to want to be outside for the year.

- Remove spring hanger support brackets
- Fix frame
- Clean, corroseal, and paint the frame and brackets
- Reinstall brackets, install new springs, new shackles, and place it all on top of the 14 bolt full floater axle I got a couple months ago.

Now please excuse me while I go wash all this grinding dust off me and smoke a celebratory doober I'm pooped.

 

[dvdswan]

Great progress! But did the shocks really need to have their life cut short?

If you want to have something to aim for... take a look at this thread.... '78 K30 Brushtruck Build - The General Purpose Rig | Pirate 4x4 Definitely a beautiful truck when completed.

 

[Blmpkn]

Great progress! But did the shocks really need to have their life cut short?

If you want to have something to aim for... take a look at this thread.... '78 K30 Brushtruck Build - The General Purpose Rig | Pirate 4x4 Definitely a beautiful truck when completed.

They did lol, wanted to get as much done as I could since the weather was perfect yesterday.. didn't wanna waste time trying to undo their fasteners. The fasteners are probably just gonna get cut too haha, the plan is to fabricate my own upper shock mounts so I can use 'regular' shocks that have eyes on both ends.

 

[Blmpkn]

Alright... all that progress busting rivets was wasted lol.

Bought myself an absolute cherry of a frame earlier in the week. This is gonna make things soooo much easier.

I do NOT reccomend transporting an 8' bed truck frame on an 8' trailer though.. even if it's cheap as chips.. and even if it's a first come first serve type deal. 48mph is far too slow to be white-knuckled I'd have to slow down to stop the trailer from dancing every time a semi came barreling around me lol.

.. I mean.. id totally do it again... just not for 150 miles

Work will resume on this once the ranger is back on the road.

 

[Blmpkn]

Had to move the frame today for some upcoming yard work.. figured I might as well do a little more than just move it.. poor neglected project

So.. put the frame on some jack stands and rolled its front axle under it lol. Much progress. Many wow.

The stock 46" inverted arch front leafs are gonna be replaced with some regular arch 52"s that I have laying around.. more articulation and a modest 2" of lift.. eventually. Gotta order the 52" spring hanger brackets first... Mabey next month.

Until then.. probably got a dozen or so rivets to get rid of to remove the factory spring hanger brackets.. gm rivets suck. Ranger rivets are much softer it seems like.

**Oh yeah.. renaming the thread. The ranger is gonna be my intro to bodywork long before this thing lol so

 

[dvdswan]

Cutting a x or + or whatever you want to call it in the head and using an air hammer makes quick work of the rivets.

 

[Blmpkn]

Cutting a x or + or whatever you want to call it in the head and using an air hammer makes quick work of the rivets.

I think this time I'll try drilling them out. I've done the X method and then wiped them off with an air chisel.. I've ground them flat.. haven't tried drilling yet though.

Drilling may be the easiest course of action for these ones.. those front hanger brackets don't leave a lot of room to get a grinder in at the rivets at a good angle.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

The GM iron duke was popular in forklifts but never seen one with a 4.3. Any V engine was rare in forklifts because of the saddle space needed. A V6/V8 would be a massive waste of space. Forklifts favored anything inline... most industrial equipment did... Engines for that kinda stuff dont need horsepower or even torque, they just need to exist while the massive gear ratios do the work. Find an engine that's reliable and it'll do the job... Aka ford 300's, iron dukes, and 2.3's.

At my old job we had a yale with a propane guzzling 4.3

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Torch and a 8-10oz ball peen hammer if you’re good with a torch. Grinder and punch of you’re not. I watched an older guy at a junkyard torch the head off rivets without gouging anything up and just give them a sharp rap with the ball end of a rather small ball peen. I’m not usually that clean with it, I usually have to go back and clean up with the grinder before knocking them out. But the torch does wonders, if you punch it or grind and punch pretty quick after torching the head off, the rivet is still hot and comes out easier.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

At my old job we had a yale with a propane guzzling 4.3

The newspaper I worked at had a Hyster with a 4.3 Vortec. It also tipped the scales at like 14k and could lift like 6k worth of paper almost 30’ up. It would also push full stacks of paper around (6 rolls 4’ wide), which happened when things needed re-organized because it was faster to push a stack than un-stack and re-stack.

 

[Blmpkn]

Torch and a 8-10oz ball peen hammer if you’re good with a torch. Grinder and punch of you’re not. I watched an older guy at a junkyard torch the head off rivets without gouging anything up and just give them a sharp rap with the ball end of a rather small ball peen. I’m not usually that clean with it, I usually have to go back and clean up with the grinder before knocking them out. But the torch does wonders, if you punch it or grind and punch pretty quick after torching the head off, the rivet is still hot and comes out easier.

No torches unfortunately.. I wouldn't trust myself to NOT bung up all the holes either lol.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

The newspaper I worked at had a Hyster with a 4.3 Vortec. It also tipped the scales at like 14k and could lift like 6k worth of paper almost 30’ up. It would also push full stacks of paper around (6 rolls 4’ wide), which happened when things needed re-organized because it was faster to push a stack than un-stack and re-stack.

I think this yale was a vortec too IIRC. It was an 8000lb capacity lift.

Speaking of pushing stuff we had a big 10000lb toyota dual wheeled lift with a I6 yota diesel in it...dont remember the displacement, i think it made 110hp.

Anyways....that bastard would push 4 or 5 loaded railcars...loaded with lumber...so it wasnt light.

One time the train company stuck boxcars for the other building where our flat cars go. One guy got on the car to manually stop it with the hand brakes, i had to push it fast enough to roll it through the switch (couldnt drive the lift through there) but not so fast to have it roll out the gate onto the main line (bad)

I got it going to fast and i realized the guy up on the car wasnt gonna get it stopped so i had to fly infront of it and let it bump the counterweight on the lift as i floorboarded the brakes. Stopped it about 20ft shy of the gate. The amount of momentum there is ridiculious....the lift was just skidding.

 

[Snoranger]

At my old job we had a yale with a propane guzzling 4.3

We had a 1993 Taylor TC250S that had a propane fed Ford 460. It kept overheating the old style ignition module so I swapped in a MSD 6al. The stamped valve covers had unstoppable leaks from years of over tightening, so I put a set of aluminum Ford Motorsport valve covers on it.
I don’t have any pics, because I haven’t worked there in 14 years, but here’s one I found on the Google.