[99 to Life]

12-9

Spent about 3 hrs tearing down the 5.3 engine I had (planned on using for my own build) but since the search has been killing me for almost a month, I decided to try and use my engine. Well its froze so I'll use it for a moch up block for now. I did moch up the intake and you can see the MSD box that will control the timing for the coils. I got some fittings on the way so you can use mechanical gauges. I am suppose to pick up a nice 5.3 tomorrow with LS6cam and get this.... its a fresh take out and is already painted almost exactly how I planned to paint it myself. So that should save a lot of headache, crossing fingers for tomorrow.

Not much else to show, I did run my electric for this part of the garage so I can weld. Hooked up my Hobart over in this bay. I spent a while welding up braces all over the frame. I then put some steel tubing on the floor (since I don't have my frame table hooked up yet) I leveled the steel on the floor so I can measure upwards and make sure the back, center and front of frame is all equally leveled that way. So when I cut the bad patch up front, the frame moved, I then made sure it was squared up front and also back and forth, as the frame rail wanted to dip down when I cut it.

This is just the first weld to keep it in position until I can plate it up. Which will be a big PIA since there is all types of stuff in my way. You can see in the pic I have a thick piece of tubing tacked to the top of the frame and to get the bad section of frame straightened out, I put a scissor jack in there. Basically the frame most likely wasn't ever hit and where it broke, just folded the frame a little in that area, it did very little moving.

Once I get the IFS tacked in, I'm going to start on the rear leaf conversion, I got some s10 shackles and poly bushings, seems like it might work out. I gotta get the leafs in here and see how they differ from the stock leafs. Its all in my head, but not yet measured out!
I'm hoping Monday to possibly get some more patching done and or start moching up the IFS. I gotta tear more of the front apart. Should have a plasma cutter showing up Monday, so not sure if I'll have time to hook it up, but really could use one right about now (why I bit the bullet on getting it).