So what else I've been up to...
I had a real scare starting up the truck one day and had a gnarly metal on metal clank. I tried it again and it started right up. The very next day pulled it out the garage and had that crazy sounding clank again... and then again... My online research had me ready for anything from a bent rod, to hydrolock, to loose flex plate bolts, loose torque converter bolts, bad starter,etc, etc...
So the next day I started a troubleshooting sequence and sure enough the first thing I found was that one of the bolts had come loose on the starter somehow, and when trying to engage would make all kinds of raucous. Tightened it up but I'll be keeping an eye on it, I'm just glad it wasn't something worse
Speaking of keeping an eye, I knew I had a bit of a clearance issue with one of my crossmember and had been debating whether to actually fix it or to run a pretty heavy bump stop. I decided I was gonna go ahead and fix it... This is on the cross member that goes across where the front spring perches are for the rear leaf springs. I put it up as far as it would go while staying under the bed. I figured I might as well over do it because as of now I have next to no money into my rear suspension setup, aside from 4" blocks. As the truck gets up and going here I am open to considering some options for a more permanent setup, so we'll see
Beyond this crossmember, a less dire yet similar situation is apparent in the crossmember right below the rear of the cab. I checked it out and looks like if I move it forward a couple inches there is area under the cab that I can kick the tubing up and gain probably 3 inches of clearance which should be plenty enough for now. I've yet to do it as it seems like a PITA working under the cab like that right now, but I'll for sure be getting to it
As I was finalizing my running boards I had this crazy gap along the bottom of the cab and running board. I measured my rear body mount and it was almost 2 inches in height. This seemed too big but since I had purchased the whole cab mounting block kit together I never paid it much mind. I put a call in to Chev's of the 40's and the guy found the dimensions that he had on file coming in more like 1 1/16". I went ahead and pulled the bushings and cut them down to size and now my body line is looking right about where it should be
