1/2021
Progress is slow, but steady. I’m lucky to get 2 hours a week in on this. In the last year I have chipped away at various tasks. I moved the rear shock brackets, axle bumps, and spare tire hanger back. I modified one shock bracket to fit where the frame narrows. I don’t have much experience welding, but I did watch a video where someone welded a patch panel without using any welding rod. I tried something like that here where I heated up the metal until it melted together, it seems to work.
I have also been working on the speedometer drive. I will be using the original speedometer with this modern drivetrain, so I have connected a motor to the speedometer. I finally hooked it up to a 90 chevy truck and tested it out, here is a video I made of the 47 speedometer running next to the 90 speedometer in my truck:
youTube videoI picked up a Millermatic 135 and have been playing with that. It’s like a hot glue gun, and not as forgiving as the oxy-acetylene rig in my opinion.
I made the brackets for the tire hanger, and cleaned up the core support. I’ll use the Gmaw on the exhaust. I noticed a fuel line contacting a bracket, so I dropped the fuel tank to cut some clearance.
Painted the core support and set in place. Made a bracket and set up the parking brakes to connect to the floor lever.
There are always different trucks to pick from each time I go to the pick it yard. I was thinking about how I was working for an hour for a part that I could get new for $10 and they’ll charge me $5. I thought about giving up with each bolt, but persisted. I got the front brake line that crosses from the driver side to passenger in the front. It has a lot of bends.
I finally found a DRAC. It was in a 91 suburban, maybe 92. The RPO code label was gone, so I don’t know what the diff and tires were and don’t know what the DRAC was set for. I do have some charts and it looks close to what I need and is easily adjustable. I did a bunch of math to try to figure out what it is set up for and found the ratio is set to 0.800185, I’ll need it at 0.768707, so that may be close enough.
I also got an A/C compressor. They charged me $4 for the DRAC so it was a good day.
Here is a picture of the spare tire hanger in place. I mounted the crank bracket lower so it angles down and the access is below the rear bumper. The spare does hang at a slight angle.
