Been a long time since I updated this thread so here it is.
Still sorting out the shifter and transmission details. Thanks to Mike Roach and his buddy Josh, and a special thanks to Pat Guy, I was able to get the shifter off of a Top Kick that Pat was scraping on my way home from Homecoming. The shifter will work perfectly on the new 9spd Road Ranger trans we put in, and it will even work out well with the existing hole in the floor.
With helpful (as always) advice from Grigg, I replaced the isolator in the shifter and rebuilt the shifter tower, taking all the play out of the used parts.
http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...1_zpsc41240a9.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=126Before I installed the trans, I took it outside suspended it from the tractor bucket and power washed it best I could. Big mistake. The mistake was I didn't get it 100% clean. I just told myself that the rest could be done after install. I was in a little bit of a time crunch that day. Well, what was left on the trans was a bear to get off and laying on the floor scraping and wire brushing and trying not to get the rear section of the frame (fresh paint) dirty again was not fun. I should have done it right the first time (lesson learned....again and the hard way).
The next step was do a little more painting on the front half of the frame. This was necessary because the shop that helped me with the air ride install, painted the back half of the truck this winter. It looked so much nicer than the front half was probably done 6 or more years ago (by the previous owner) so I had to do something about it. I have little experience with a spray gun but did not want to go with rattle cans so I went to TS and got some of their implement paint, built myself a makeshift paint booth in the shop, took lots of time taping things off and am happy with my rookie results.
http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...2_zps0afae686.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=127http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...3_zpsb260c791.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=129So with that done, the big day was finally here. I think it has been 3 or 4 years since I asked my wife to help me lift the cab off the truck and yesterday evening it finally went back on!!
I called my friend Mark to give me a hand and he was as excited as I to finally get this done.
http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...5_zpsab554637.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=130http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...6_zps968d195b.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=131http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...7_zpsec5cb48a.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=132http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/M...8_zps640d9bf1.jpeg.html?sort=6&o=135I know that my home made 6x6 gantry crane made some here nervous but it worked beautifully. A bonus to setting the cab finally was the end of the need for the crane and freeing up some more shop space. We took it down and apart last night too. Another bonus was not have the cab taking up space on the floor anymore. It probably has 5 miles on it just from me pushing it around the shop for the last 3 or 4 years!!
All in all a pretty big day in this long road that I have been on. Not saying I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but should be able to make some steady progress now.
