Post by crawl4yourlife on Dec 27, 2014 13:42:22 GMT -6
Here begins the 3rd round of of changes. Round 2 looked like this after I primed it, it was 2 tone brown and tan.
We headed to Hot Springs Thanksgiving weekend. It looked like this with the fenders trimmed. Checking clearances on the ramp
We wheeled a little by ourselves Friday. Saturday we headed out with Mack and Jackrabbit. After a minor incident on Gorge it looked like this. It was a slow motion 270 degree roll. I just crouched down in the cab and hung on tight. Didn't get hurt at all.
Pulled a plug and it was dry. Took a little doing but it fired back up and we drove back to the parking lot. Mack backed up a hill in the upper section of the parking lot, I pulled up at the bottom of the hill, Jackrabbit pulled up facing my passenger side. We ran straps thru the cab and they played tug of war with their winches. Then we used a hilift on the drivers side for a little added roof raising. It came out pretty good.
We wound up wheeling another 4-5 hours. Between Greg's Rocks and the Rock Garden my clutch wound up looking like this
So with the clutch smoked, wheeling ended and plans for rebirth started rolling thru my head. I originally intended to put another cab on it. Found one south of Knoxville for 250.00. The more I thought about it though and the more I thought about how I prefer the tougher trails, putting a new cab on with an exo morphed into going ftoy instead. The problem I have with an ftoy is getting in and out of the thing. Then I saw a modified version of one......
And I decided that was something I could live with. Skin it, make me some jeep like canvas doors and side and rear panels that are easily removable, throw a mojave heater in it and possibly even a windshield like the one below and I'm good to go and around 1000 lbs lighter than with the cab and bed
So the dismantling begins......
Yanking the cab by myself was no easy task....
Commenced removing all unneeded brackets
Once all that was done I flap wheeled the whole frame and then shot it with some primer....
I still have to pull the motor, clean up the front of the frame and put the 4" TG springs back under it in the front, then it will be ready to go to Jon at Alpine Automotive for the tube work and inboarding of the rear springs. I haven't pulled the dash out of the cab or the wiring, all the stuff on the inner fenders is still attached as well as brake booster/mc and such. Jon said 2-3 months once I take it to him. He isn't doing anything but the tube work and attaching it to the frame, no interior stuff like floors, dash, etc...I'll be doing all that. All I have for now. And a big thanks to mpdextreme for letting me borrow his engine hoist. The cab removal would have impossible without it (unless I chopped into pieces before removing)
We headed to Hot Springs Thanksgiving weekend. It looked like this with the fenders trimmed. Checking clearances on the ramp
We wheeled a little by ourselves Friday. Saturday we headed out with Mack and Jackrabbit. After a minor incident on Gorge it looked like this. It was a slow motion 270 degree roll. I just crouched down in the cab and hung on tight. Didn't get hurt at all.
Pulled a plug and it was dry. Took a little doing but it fired back up and we drove back to the parking lot. Mack backed up a hill in the upper section of the parking lot, I pulled up at the bottom of the hill, Jackrabbit pulled up facing my passenger side. We ran straps thru the cab and they played tug of war with their winches. Then we used a hilift on the drivers side for a little added roof raising. It came out pretty good.
We wound up wheeling another 4-5 hours. Between Greg's Rocks and the Rock Garden my clutch wound up looking like this
So with the clutch smoked, wheeling ended and plans for rebirth started rolling thru my head. I originally intended to put another cab on it. Found one south of Knoxville for 250.00. The more I thought about it though and the more I thought about how I prefer the tougher trails, putting a new cab on with an exo morphed into going ftoy instead. The problem I have with an ftoy is getting in and out of the thing. Then I saw a modified version of one......
And I decided that was something I could live with. Skin it, make me some jeep like canvas doors and side and rear panels that are easily removable, throw a mojave heater in it and possibly even a windshield like the one below and I'm good to go and around 1000 lbs lighter than with the cab and bed
So the dismantling begins......
Yanking the cab by myself was no easy task....
Commenced removing all unneeded brackets
Once all that was done I flap wheeled the whole frame and then shot it with some primer....
I still have to pull the motor, clean up the front of the frame and put the 4" TG springs back under it in the front, then it will be ready to go to Jon at Alpine Automotive for the tube work and inboarding of the rear springs. I haven't pulled the dash out of the cab or the wiring, all the stuff on the inner fenders is still attached as well as brake booster/mc and such. Jon said 2-3 months once I take it to him. He isn't doing anything but the tube work and attaching it to the frame, no interior stuff like floors, dash, etc...I'll be doing all that. All I have for now. And a big thanks to mpdextreme for letting me borrow his engine hoist. The cab removal would have impossible without it (unless I chopped into pieces before removing)