[Camaroguy]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

So I knew the fans that came on my radiator were cheap and destined to be replaced soon so I went ahead and did it. I bought this radiator and fans on eBay and the fans were advertised as 1,228 CFM each. Through some research, I found them on Amazon for $20 a piece from a company called UPGR8. I compared them to a Spal fan rated at 1,200 CFM and noticed that the Spal fan pulls double the wattage and that confirmed for me that they are falsely advertised. Interesting that the eBay seller has since revised the details in the item listing to not indicate any fan CFM. So anyway, I bought these Spal fans rated at 1,451 CFM each. Wired them up, worked as they should and definitely moved a lot more air. It took several minutes at 3,000 RPM to get the engine up to high temp for both to kick to full speed. I noticed that running them full speed that the volt meter would drop by about 1 volt (down from 14) and the fans would slow a little bit for a couple seconds, then return to normal. This happened every 10 seconds or so. I'm not sure what's that about, but later that day I stumbled on some info on the internet saying that Spal fans are not supposed to be ran at half speed/half voltage. I wanted to hear it from Spal so I called this morning and sure enough, the tech rep indicated that it would "prematurely" wear out the motors running them in series. So I guess I'll be rewiring my fans so that one fan is on full speed when the engine reaches low temp and then the second fan kicks on at high temp (also A/C high pressure). This is the case for Spal fans, but I don't know about other manuf's. I just assumed that this would be okay since GM does it, but the fans GM uses must be designed for it. So we enlarged the holes in the shroud and I was happy with the fit and quality of these fans.

Also replaced the front shocks due to the increased drop from where I had it originally.

I'm getting dangerously close to starting the bodywork/paint process on my bed. We got the fuel filler door mocked up. I'm not 100% happy with the door, I didn't realize that the holes drilled in it end up inside the hole you cut in the bed. I think the door is meant to be installed in wood where you can router out a recess like for the Boyd fillers. So we had to fab up some spacers and a backing plate to attach underneath. I get tunnel-visioned and forget to take pictures sometimes, so I'll take more when I install the door. I might end up putting on the poke-through filler cap so I don't have to unscrew the cap every time. Finished the day out scuffing the underside of the floor so I can epoxy the bottom side next weekend and then Raptor line the top side in two weeks.

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I did a similar door on a wood floor truck we built a couple of years ago (link at bottom). It's definitely designed to sink into the wood. We added a little arm to the fuel cap to make it easier to unscrew since the opening is so small. Good progress on the truck!