1977 Chop Top Crew Cab Dually!

What's up Man? Thanks for all the help you gave me last year
I don't think I have ever seen a truck with soo much surface rust. Once you get all the crap off it's in good shape actually.

I don't think it helped that it has been sitting for so long. I am going to get the suspension in, then hold off on painting it up real good. I will rattle can it for now, and when it warms up in a couple months, before we paint it rip the back end apart and re-paint it all. It is just tooo much to try and fix right now with outside being so cold, and not being able to blast it or de-grease it.

No time today to mock up anything out back. I knocked off all the rest of the crap that was attached to the frame, and grinded a crapload of rust off the frame. Two grinding wheels, and six coarse grit sanding discs on my grinder.

Basically i'm all level, cleaned, pinion angle is good, and I cleaned the hell out of the frame. I totally messed up my buddys shop, so I spent the last hour cleaning and mopping up today. But tomorrow I am going to finish welding up the front lower control arms ( I switched the tube steel for bigger cause I don't think I had enough room around the bag).

Just a couple pics I have to go spend time with the kids, I'll upload more tomorrow night.

The old tube steel was 8"od with a 1/8 wall. The new steel is 8 5/8 with a 3/16 wall. My buddy cut me 2 8" circles for the bottom of my front bag cups. You can see the difference between the two.




mmmmm...rust.




no rust...well less.





Cleaned everything up, and i'll get back on it tomorrow.



Your stuff is boxed up and ready to go out Monday Campy!

You're my boy, Blue!

damn looking good

looking good, but i am a lil concerned about the front bags sitting inside the lower cup , why dont you turn the cup over and haveit sit on the plate your friend cut so that you dont have any problems, i have slams on mine also and they do swell out some so just keep that inmind..

Someone learned something in art class
sweet effing dually and its coming together quick!!
wish I had the time to work on my slab....

I got to get the front end of this thing on the ground. I did get the front floating cup setup fron Suicide Doors, but if I leave the bag atop the front floating cup

you can see it in the lower spring pocket here...


I won't get very much drop if I leave it this way.

But if I hack it out and drop it in the lower control arm the lower control arm can drop more...almost to the upper spring pocket.




I know what you are saying though. The original tube steel didn't have a big enough OD or ID.

This is the new stuff.



The circle down there has an 8"diameter with a 3/8 hole cut in it.





The new stuff gives me more room around the bag without having to cut the hell out of the lower control arm. I do realize the bag will balloon some, but a Slam won't balloon as much as an Airlift bag. Airlift bags swell like they have a peanut allergy.

This bag was in for four years and swelled to almost 7.5". This is the MAX I can see a 7" Slam stretching to, and I can still stick my pinky all around the bag...it's a little close for my liking as well, but for the sake of the drop factor, i'll just have to keep an eye on the front end setup for the first month or so. I do agree with you though brother, thx for the input!

I enjoy lots of room around the bags as well, the problem is I don't want to cut the lower control arm all to hell if I don't need to.

What's good Souf Star? I have been fighting a crazy cold the last week.

The damn temp fluctuates so much around here, and i'm in and out of the cold too much. It's like -25 today with the wind chill.

My nose bled for three hours Sunday night. I still don't know why, I don't know if it was all that grinding, (i did use a respeator-you can see it on the rear tire in the pics above) or cause i've been blowing my nose so much lately, and just popped something. I turned the humidifier up on the furnace...so we'll see what happens.

I need to buy 2 new markers so I can finish the rendering, but the art supply store is about one hour away from where I live. I'm getting them Friday cause i'll be in that neck of the woods...so it'll be done over the weekend for sure.

Check for the update Sunday night.

just throwing it out there, but the lower cup will give you some problems. I tried the same thing on my truck at first, but when the control arm swings down, the inside of the bag (colsest to frame) will hit the cup, its not the swelling of the bag, but the way it bows from the arc of lower control arm, and the top staying put.

yeah that is true also cause chevys have that famous tilt on the bags when they raise up only way i can see to remedy that will be to havethe cups made that a slight angle facing inwards so when aired up it counters the curve of the bags and makes them somewhat straighten up...