I wish I was posting a bunch of progress but unfortunately, nope. Not that I haven't been busy. Far from it. Here's the readers digest version. Bought the farm place (noted above). Got laid off from work in October. Spent the 2 months off time working my ass off between the new and old places. Started working again mid December. Holidays. Spent time getting the 3 car garage set up as a usable shop space (lights, outlets, insulated doors, insulating walls and attic, unpacking and stashing years of accumulated crap). The new job didn't provide a car so I had to find something to drive other than my 71 C-10 so I bought a high mileage 2003 Yukon XL Denali for cheap. Needed lots of maintenance things done to clear codes and replace worn parts. Not economical but very useful to me currently and a future chassis for my 47 Olds body swap. Spent time fixing motorcycles, atv's home repairs, etc.
And dreaming of the days I would get back to this project. Still not quite there but it's getting closer. It's in the shop. It has the original front axle under it so I could roll it from one garage to the next. It's on jackstands. I can work on it now when I get the time. The plan has changed slightly. Not the overall plan for the finished product but the plan on how to get there.
I have a borrowed tubing bender and very little knowledge of how to use it. I found a cage kit for around $525 plus freight. It's got 2" .120" wall tubing which is what I was going to do. I think it will be worth the cost compared to my time and expected frustration. I would use it as a base and then use my bender to add to it to fit my needs which will simplify the build quite a bit for me.
Thanks to info from Greg72 I have some new suspension geometry calculators to play with some numbers before I actually cut links and build brackets. I need to do some more learning there. Greg, check posts 1329 and 1333 to get an idea for my plan. It's just a rough draft.
Originally I wanted to do the cage and front suspension then drive it a while and then do the rear suspension. Now I think I will just jump in and do it all before I put it back on the road (or trail).
Going to it's new home...
The new shop getting cleaned up some...
Drainage issues from the warmer weather melting. Had an inch of water in the garage.
The cage kit I'm looking at...
I also have the 79 2wd crewcab that I'm going to do a LS swap in (bigass farm truck in my signature). I bought the engine and everything I could from the donor truck, bought a 4L80e and my cousin is selling me a 90 suburban for parts.
I need to pay my tax bill for last year before I spend much more on parts. And I have a possible work related change coming up in a couple of weeks. If that works out I'll be in a better position going forward. Then once my old house sells I'll be sitting real good.
Wish I had more to say regarding this project, but I don't. Outside of the unexpected job change and my tax bill which was complicated and negative because of that change, I'm happy and doing well. I'm never bored.