I finally got to go out and work on the truck some this weekend. I spent 2.5 hours in the pouring rain searching the junkyard for the trans xmember Saturday morning. I came up empty handed. It was a little disheartening and killed my motivation for the weekend. Luckily I have a few friends with square bodies in this state. I put the dilemma on facebook and within an hour had someone that was gonna bring me one and do some parts swapping on some bench seats of mine.
So that motivated me to pull interior from the truck. Needs a good cleaning.
I started seeing about how the taller trans tunnel fits in.
Then I finally got the 6.5 off the tire and onto an engine stand. I wanted to pull oil pan and check out a few more things.
Harmonic balancer wasn't rotted which is a nice surprise, which means my crank is probably still in good shape.
I do need the starter brace.
Starter was missing a bolt though?
It looks clean in there! I even see some paint marks still.
After rotating it over several times and checking every where I only found 1 crack. These are typically cracked a lot worse so hoping this is still good to go, maybe not build up but good to run stock.
So my friends showed up with parts, this was his rig. 454 SM465/241 Dana 60 front & 14bolt ff rear w/ 4.10 gears, crew cab long bed with rear frame shortened and axles moved forward. He is going to eventually build a tube bed w/ headache rack. 37" tires on H1 wheels. I love this thing. It provided me with some more motivation!
Here are the parts he brought and the elusive xmember!
I also got these fancy seats that were in a choo choo customs or southern whatever truck. Bolt in like factory.
Rear seat folds down like a bed.
So I have parts to proceed finally
It feels so good, motivation is there too! However, all my $ is going to getting my 01 TA back on the road and when parts roll in all my time will be too. I don't plan to stray too far away from the truck though. I want it together!
It looks like I am using the k5 tank in the rear as well, just need to mount it and convert to using diesel.