My buddy in KC has the same wheel and tire combo. He just raised it up a bit and all is good. He is building a 1974 bronco (not my favorite style). Going 6.0L all wheel drive from a 2005 denali.

 

No possibility of rolling the fenders? I love the stance as is.
Curious, what oil pan did you use? I've got the original L92 (deep SUV pan) and it hangs below my front crossmember @ a hair under 5" to the ground. I plan to change this when I have some motivation.

Doug

 

I will figure something out to keep the wheels and stance it has now. Hindsight, I should have ordered a little more offset or a little less backspacing (Pulled the wheels in a little more) I have lots of room to the inside front and rear.

Caught a nasty cold this week but still managed to get the truck out for a little spin yesterday. The weather was excellent. Truck is starting to build some credit with me. No issues with the running and driving, did have a little bit of a clunk on a left hand turn on the way back. I checked out the rear suspension and all is tight, u bolts did get a far bit of tightening though.

Probably put 60 or so miles on it yesterday, its the most I have driven it so far since the build.

Getting ready to order a few parts and pieces for it this week, little stuff like some new seat belts, a few seals for the inner door hinges, new door sill pieces.

Looking to do something with a stereo but trying to figure out exactly what to do.

Sean

 

Hey Sean,
Glad you are getting some miles on it without trouble.

Just a thought on the stereo.... I wanted something clean without a head unit.

In my '51 Ford truck I put in a reasonably priced bluetooth 2-channel amp by Lanzar along with a 10" powered sub. I just connect from my iPhone to the amp via bluetooth. It has low-level outputs to drive the sub and a built in adjustable crossover. I used some name-brand (JBL or Polk) separate tweeters and mids. All that gear easily fits under the seat. Sounds pretty good. The gear was about $500 total and sounds really good.

Doug

 

Very nice build.

I am very glad you stuck with the project through the tuning issues, I think you will be very happy you did in the long run.

Great job!

 

Can you have a bit machined off of the wheel center mounting flanges on the inside? I guess there'd need to be proper clearance to the brakes for this.

Any dyno runs planned?
Living a bit vicariously,
Doug

 

Thanks, I hope so too.

I could probably have the back of the wheel clearanced but there is no way I would take a chance with how much $$$ I spent on them. Ill figure it out.

Getting ready to order up some 14 two piece rotors and 6 piston calipers for the front to match the rear setup.

Not really any dyno plans until we get the tune dialed in a little bit more. Would like to see some dyno runs myself too =)

Rebuilt the drivers vent last night. all new foams and seals and its all back in now. Looks much better. One little detail at a time.

Sean

 

The weather here was just amazing this weekend. I managed to spend the entire weekend not doing much, helped out a few buddies and spent some quality time with the wife.

Cleaned up the shop though, like clean clean, pulled all the stuff out, scrubbed and pressure washed all the floors. Cleaned everything up before it went back in the shop too.

I took the truck out for a little bit yesterday, drove it over to a buddies house to pull apart a jeep liberty top end. What a job, got one head off and found it cracked so we made the call and ordered up two refurbished heads for it today, it should be going back together tomorrow night.

Truck is great to just drive around, enjoyed it out in the sun yesterday but it really is quite boring without any kind of a stereo. I stopped in yesterday and picked up some 6" coax speakers and a small kicker amp that has bluetooth capabilities and auxiliary hookup. Not too sure I need a fancy head unit, I can just use the bluetooth or an auxiliary input.

I was going to put them in the kicks but they are just too big. I think I am going to do some 4" or 5" separates up front either in the stick speaker hole or build some kick panels to house them.

Here is what I started on last night. The plan is to build a nice little speaker grille for this and kind of hide it back in there and then I will wall off the back are and carpet everything to make it look neat and clean.






Sean

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1968-69-70-71-72-Ford-Truck-Am-Fm-Radio-USA-230-Aux-MP3-Custom-Autosound-/170998062907?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item27d0475f3b&vxp=mtr so you don't have an ugly modern aftermarket head unit in the dash?

Tipsy

 

No but actually thinking about it.....I hate the idea of it but like how well they work (Yes they look kind of dumb). I am actually running out of room in this thing. The computer behind the glove box takes up all that room and its huge. No center console to hide stuff behind either so the radio in the dash might be the next best thing.

Only had a little bit of time to work on it last night, still helping work on the Jeep 3.7 rebuild.

Got the grilles mounted up behind the panel, then the speaker to follow that. Rounded over the front edge of the panel where the speaker opening is to give it a little more smooth look.

Also built the other side last night.

Picked up some speaker box carpet as well and got them covered. I am not sold on the carpet not matching the floor carpet but they just about dissapear behind the seat and finish off what was a pretty unfinished area before.

With carpet



In the truck....and really hard to get a photo of.





What you see when the seat is back. Pretty much dissapears.



Thinking I might run a single subwoofer to go along with these 6" speakers. Not sure if I am going to run a set of fronts or not right now. Maybe after I get this stuff up and running.

Sean

 

Hi Sean,
Good job.
Glad you got the USB amp. Mine is really slick and love that I didn't have to foul the dash.

I bought a powered Sound Stream sub woofer 10". It was just $150-ish. Only 4" high or so, so it'll fit under any seat. Bought from Amazon.
Thumbs up on that. Perhaps it will work for you, too.
Doug

 

How's the sound quality on the Bluetooth amps? Is there enough "bandwidth" with Bluetooth to stream lossless digital audio?

Andrew

 

Bluetooth sounds great.

I bought a $10 adapter to use in my wife's yukon. Works great streaming from my Android phone to car, garage and home stereo systems.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-3-5mm-Stereo-USB-Audio-Music-Bluetooth-Wireless-Receiver-Adapter-Dongle-G67-/400840419192?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d53f36778

 

How many miles were on that 4L80E? Im asking because I picked one up really cheap one with 159K and I'm debating on whether or not to rebuild it and then do the HD2 kit or just use it as is with the HD2 kit. Thanks

 

I got pretty lucky on the tranny. The seller told me that it only had about 40k on it. It was actually the spare tranny for an ambulance and was a GM rebuilt unit.

I have heard thought that they are pretty bulletproof behind stock motors and tend to last a long time. 150k is getting up there though, I might open it up and check it out or have someone look at it. Kind of depends on if you want to pull it out later if you have an issue.

Lots of different kinds of builders on this forum from the super **** brand new every part and piece all the way to the 100% junkyard parts that run 8's



Sean

 

I installed a 6L80 in my project, which is very similar, inside, I believe, just the next generation and with an extra set of gears and clutches. It had 150k miles from an Escalade. I had a trans shop go through it when we converted it from 4WD to 2WD, which required a change in output shaft. It is the first item installed in the trans when they build it, so everything was unstacked and easy to look at.

We replaced all clutches and a few steels which had heat marks, but generally things were in great condition. We also did all the external seals and the front pump (GM released an updated pump with different seals that eliminate a flaring issue).

All in, this was $1000 worth of parts and labor. I believe if just going through the clutches and steels, it would have been much less.

I bet if you call around, you are looking at $500 or so to go through it, at least if using OEM - grade parts.

Hope that info helps.

Doug
PS - to Andrew, I find the bluetooth sound quality excellent in my truck. With two crossovers and the sub and main amp have gain controls, I have plenty of control to dial in good balance between base, mid and treble. I'm not an audiophile, but this setup sounds good with some muscle behind it - enough to drown the great exhaust note.

 

First off, awesome build. Thinking about doing something very similar but leaning towards twin turbo versus single turbo. I've been struggling with finding an adequate master/brake booster combo that works with full disc brakes. Which one did you go with and are you running a brake combination valve? If so which one and where did you get it from? Thanks

 

I kind of went out on a limb on the brakes after reading up a bunch on the old internetz.

Factory booster from a 78-79 f100, modified pedal assembly to work with the 68 underdash parts and pieces.

Master is from a 78-79 as well. Other than the pedal assembly it was a pretty much bolt in affair.

I am not running a proportioning valve I probably will need one but honestly the truck brakes very well, has great pedal feel, nice firm pedal and it stops well with this setup.

With that said......

I ordered up front brakes last week for the truck. Wilwood Aero 6 6 piston radial mount calipers and 14" Two piece rotors with custom hats and rotors. They are drilled and vented like the rears and should match the rear stuff pretty close.

I ordered from Todd at TCE Brakes. He does a marauder setup, but has realized that there are tons and tons of these frontends going under hotrods. He was truly great to work with through this process. He had a ton of information and I had to keep up with him...he knows brakes. I should have them in about three weeks. He was waiting on rotors.

Super stoked about that.

I ended up ditching the 2 channel bluetooth amp and went with a retrosound head unit. It was just not going to work that well.

Picked up the radio on Friday and got it installed on saturday along with a single 6x9 in the dash. Its a dual voice coil dual tweeter setup so you can run both front channels to it....pretty nifty.

Radio is super slick, if you were not looking for it you would not know its not stock, but has two aux inputs, two USB inputs, bluetooth and tons of preouts.

Stock ***** went back on the aftermarket radio along with the stick bezel...Ill snap some pics of it finished up tomorrow.

Also finished up the rear behind the seat with some MDF panels all carpeted up. It looks finished behind the seat now.

But the real reason for my post.

I have been chasing a tranny fluid leak for, well since the truck first started running so last year around this time.

I had pulled the pan once when it would not go into reverse and found some plastic in the rear park pawl. I straightened up the flange and put on a new seal to try and seal it up with no real luck.

I have been under the truck looking at it and cleaning it trying to find where the damn thing is leaking, it was not the tranny pan from what I could tell, it looked like it was above that as I had fluid above there. Lots of suggestions to replace the internal harness but I was getting lo leaks there.

I picked up a tiny hint of fluid around the output VSS sensor so last week I picked one up.

Had a little time this morning and was dreading what I was going to find tackling this on the garage floor.

So I jacked up the truck and popped out the VSS sensor, well I took out the sensor part of it. It was obviously broken at some point before I got the transmission and I neglected to figure this out a while ago.

Here is what I took out.







Got both parts out, cleaned things up and took the old girl for a spin. Checked it after I got back and it was dry as a bone. Checked it just now, still dry.

Good news all around, the plastic parts I found earlier in the pan, from this sensor. The leak fixed. and all back to normal.

Put a few miles on the truck and the stereo and both worked great!

Looking forward to dinking around with the front brakes when they get here and doing some more tuning with Ron.

He was not feeling well today, hope you feel better buddy.

Sean

 

Hackster & DW,

Thanks for the input, I was able to get hooked up with a reputable shop here in Tucson. I think I will have them look through it.

It'll go under a 3700lb '82 K10 with an LS6 (228R cam and bolt ons) so I need the trans to hold up and not give me issues.

You've got a sick build btw. One of the cleanest I've seen on this board.

 

You got a link to that K10 project? Curious how you got it to 3700lbs.