towing stats

this is old news but we took a drive to look at a car and truck did great towing trailer.

trip stats:
312 miles RT
total climb up 9400 feet and come back down same.
highest elevation was 4400'
13.99 mpg towing trailer

strapless top

Well finally after driving topless or hoood on but strapped down, I finally got the hood to close properly and latch.
The latch had been as far as 2 inches out and through random adjustments, loosening fenders, and pry, pound, wedge-I got it to be mostly in alignment.
I think I will still use a safety above the normal second catch but no more tie-down straps holding the hood closed! This means wind noise reduced, most likely better MPG and now my mirrors wont vibrate like crazy in the wind! note the mariner blue showing on the hood-factory color. I will maintain the history but go a little darker blue.

I've been noodling around-got that pesky weatherstripping tucked where its supposed to go, wired my compressor with the new weatherpac connector, re-did the screws on the taillights so they looks a little more age appropriate. I readjusted the car trailer bearings and brought it back to life after not using for a year? Just been doing little bits and pieces. New shocks all the way around-not hard and especially with the dump bed-easy access!

Weekend is over

Well, that was a long weekend.
I worked hard and got a lot done.

bed crossmembers installed, primered and painted, bedwood in(plastic wood), strips mostly in-need to "align" some bolt holes, ram reinforced and installed for the 'last?' time, and i got rid of the leftover 81 jeep taillights and installed these using metal from cutting the bed length down.

prep

getting there-bunch of junk covering the gas tank and air lines underneath the bed so I can weld.

not dumped even all the way!

underside.

mostly done-missing a few bolts.


compare.

LED-I hate how they look new-only thing on the truck that does =(


oh-and don't my new flags look great?

Getting ready for bed

Ha-Im actually writing this before bed but I am also in the middle of a productive weekend working on completing the bed.
-taking out the temp test bed


-throwing it on the ground with crashing noises!

-making sure i have max stroke on cylinder.

I have been driving it like this for a few days this week. One guy said it looked like my truck was broken cause the bed is dumped up a little so that it doesnt go down too far and hit cab.

Wife is gone for the long weekend so I am charged with working on the truck to get closer to finished so I can start on her suburban.

Got up early to go to halfprice day at wrecking yard-got a carb, BUNCH of linkages, some carb jets in various sizes, 2 crank-up cable spare tire hangers, a bellhousing cover, and a f***(not chevy) tailgate reflector to use behind my lights. All of that for less than $50!

Ive been driving with 1/3 throttle max since getting it on the road and its done fine. After my trip to yard I used some bits and pieces from 2 linkages to make a new, proper linkage with better geometry. That still wasnt enough so I had to modify the pedal a little-I added a thick piece of UHMW behind pedal to give me %100 throttle.
Ran around the block and, um, FAST! =)

Also prepped the bed crossmembers, primered them, got some holes drilled I needed and some other misc stuff.
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Oh-and the panel runs again, I just need insurance and a trip to DMV to get it off non-op. And I need to do some little misc stuff to make it drivable like clean out the rest of the back. It has been over 5 years now...