Got the exhaust manifolds and y-pipe on, along with some more of the wiring .

didn't get the chance to fire her up this weekend though- due to a 8 dollar oil filter fitting.... But it should be in tomorrow, so I'll get it running this week.

So I changed pace, and my buddy started chopping up the transmission crossmember and modifying it to go around the front driveshaft - while I built the front shaft.

Using the square tubing(2" ¼ wall, and 2½" ¼ wall) and the yokes off a tj Jeep front shaft I fabbed it up.



Notched the inner shaft, so it cleared the seam inside the outer shaft





Got it mounted in the truck, I'm going to have to modify the y-pipe also, or the driveshaft will hit when the suspension flexes.

I'm down to a month and a half to get this thing trail ready cutting it close, and I'll have some things that won't get done till after, but she should be good to go by then

 

Got her fired up finally! Still got some things to do before I can actually run it and bring her up to temp. But it feels great to hear it run for the first time in almost 2 years.


Just dumping out the y-pipe for now. It has a little lope from the cam.

 

would you please elaborate on these things...they are things I'm looking into but don't know where to start

- what headers?
- what is the injector conversion?
- why crank torsion bar?

Where do I find leather seats, let alone heated ones.

thx so much..truck looks great man

 

I haven't done headers yet, but I will be soon. I'm probably going with JBA headers

MPFI injectors (multi port fuel injection) came on newer Chevy trucks(02 and newer I believe , on the s10s) it was a huge improvement over the failure-prone CFI spider injectors that came on the earlier models....it's more of a reliability mod than a performance one.

Torsion bar crank lifts the front end slightly to fit bigger tires. I have done it on a couple of my blazers, but I do not recommend others to do it. It changes your front end geometry and you will ruin CV axles and ball joints very frequently.

Leather seats- I was lucky enough to get a parts truck that had them in it a while ago. Look for people parting out their trucks in Craigslist, or scour junkyards/ pick-n-pulls

 

So close!

 

Only 5 weeks left for me to get it trail-ready!


I got my catlytic converter and glasspack bolted on so it has a little bit of exhaust now. (Cat will be coming off once I tune out the downstream O2 sensor)


Got my waterpump pulley on, coolant hoses all hooked up , power steering lines hooked up, all my fluids filled, and the belt on so I'm cooling and charging now. Still got some wiring to clean up in the engine compartment, but it's just about set in there


Suddenly had a problem where the truck was idling up and down and stalling out....turned out one of my fuel lines started leaking on me, so I'll be replacing both the ones that run next to my fuel tank that are rotted.

Pulled my evap box and started pulling the lines I could get to with the tank still in. I'll be dropping the tank to remove the rest of the lines and replace the 2 main ones over the weekend....I'm also hoping to have my tranny crossmember finished up and rear pinion angle set by the time the weeks over

 

Well, I got my rear fuel lines installed along with new fuel filter. Finished removing all the evap components, and made up a plate and gasket to block off the hole for the evap valve on the upper intake manifold.

Was running much better after this, but found a sputter when first hitting the throttle from an idle....did a fuel pressure test(finally bought my own guage so I could stop borrowing my buddy's lol) and found I had only just above 50 psi...did some looking around and found that the nylon part of the feed line(in front of the fuel filter) was kinked....so I will be buying a nylon line repair kit this week, or just spending the money for new upper lines as well.


Got my transmission crossmember all finished up, eventually I think I'm going to build one differently-and from scratch (this one is over-complicated). But this will do for now



Other than that, I got my rear pinion angle set, and leaf spring perches welded on.

 

Started fabing up my upper radiator/e-fan mount/shroud today. Pretty happy with how it's turning out so far. It's aluminum so I'll probably polish it up once it's done.

 

Nice! I thought about trying to make a metal one for mine but I will probably just stick with my trimmed factory shroud.

 

Thanks, I'm also going to make a couple aluminum covers for areas in the engine compartment, and my snorkel is going to be made up of aluminum tubing so it should all tie in together nicely when it's done.