Curtis Guise
December 14th, 2005, 15:46
<table width="75%" border="0"> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <div align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Planning & prepping the truck for the build</font></b></div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_1s.jpg" width="250" height="132" border="0"></a></td> <td width="65%"> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">December of 2002 is when I found a used 1995 2wd T100 with the 3.4 V6 and an automatic. It had just over 200k miles on it and I paid $6500. The truck was very clean, never driven off-road. I tried finding a wrecked truck but T100's are hard to come by.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The early 3.4's had a head gasket recall like the 3.0 so I had that taken care of first along with having the timing belt changed.</font></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Before buying the parts and materials I needed to figure out my goal with this truck. What type of suspension would I build, what material, what size shocks, etc. I decided I would do it right the first time and cut the frame off at the firewall and from the back of the truck. Build a 4-link rear suspension and a custom a-arm design for the front. A couple of advantages I had was this isn't a race truck and not my daily driver. So I could take my time to build it right.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Next I needed to figure out what parts, materials and additional tools I had to buy to get started. When I built the race truck I had a Lincoln SP125. I definitely wanted a better welder before I got started. I found a new Miller 175 on Ebay for $675 that came with everything but the bottle. We already had a JD squared tubing bender. I bought a cheap $40 tube notcher from Harbor Freight. Those work 100 times better than a grinder.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">All of the suspension components would be built with chromolly and most of the cage out of DOM. I delivered my race truck to the buyer at the 2003 Laughlin race. After that I went to El Cajon and picked up all the materials with my trailer. I paid about $1600 for DOM, 4130 tubing and also 1/8" chromolly plate for the lower 4-link arms. This was over 2 years ago, I know it would cost allot more for the materials now. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then I headed up to Camburg where I picked up my shocks, air bumps, uni-balls, heims, ordered my Beard seats and my rear end. Jerry (Camburg) had always helped out with good prices on parts when I was racing and did the same when I told him about the new truck I was building. </font></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> <p><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_2s.jpg" width="250" height="188" border="0"></a></p> <p><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_3s.jpg" width="250" height="188" border="0"></a></p> </td> <td width="65%"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Next I talked my good friend Josh into letting me use a section of his shop to build the truck in. A 30'x50' building is much nicer than the small garage at the house I was in at the time. I parked the truck and started tearing it apart.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_7s.jpg" width="250" height="188" border="0"></a></td> <td width="65%"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">First I pulled the bed off, the front fenders and the hood. ( I appologize for the lack of pictures and quality of them early on in the build )</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> <p><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_6s.jpg" width="250" height="188" border="0"></a></p> <p><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_5s.jpg" width="250" height="188" border="0"></a></p> </td> <td width="65%"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I also stripped out the interior including the entire dash. We carefully removed the windshield and the rear glass but later found a crack down the center of the windshield. It must have got hit with something while sitting in the shop for so long.</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"><a href="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://race-dezert.com/forum/attachments/project/curtis/planning/t100_4s.jpg" width="250" height="119" border="0"></a></td> <td width="65%"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is the only picture I have of the rear end before welding on the gussets. I decided to go with a Speedway Engineering full foating 9" with 35 spline axles. </font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">more coming soon....</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="35%"> </td> <td width="65%"> </td> </tr> </table>