[PatJ]

With the rear of the truck pretty worked out I was now at a turning point on how far I was going to go. I was debating just doing the suspension and driving the truck on the tired ass v8 that was in there or pony up for a new engine and take this build to another level. I mean Ive got to replace the old crossmember with the fancy new one I rebuilt so I might as well do the motor while its all out right?

While trying to decide what to do I ran into a few other issues. I was hoping that I could just modify the trailing arm crossmember and get enough clearance for the driveshaft but in reality there was no way, it was bottoming out and I needed to figure out a plan B. GSI has a sweet crossmember but how the hell am I gonna get the old one off and it on under that cab?

Decision time, button it up and get back on the road or go for broke and take it to another level? Wisdom prevailed and I knew I would regret taking any shortcuts so the call was made. Pull the cab so I can access everything better, order a GSI crossmember for the rear. This was scary because I never really intended on pulling the cab and completely tearing the truck this far apart. The upside was obvious, now I have full access to the entire frame, I can clean it, paint it, run all my lines etc. We have a winner.

So time to pull the old motor.

Something that was interesting to me is that my truck and firewall was originally Red, seen at the bottom, but the upper part was Fawn. I had never seen another Fawn firewall but Im pretty sure this was original paint. But it gave me an idea of repainting it similar.