75 Dually Project - 22s and stylin

In between helping the wife cook and having an excellent Thanksgiving dinner I was able to get out to the shop for a while today. It is so good not to be traveling this year!

Today I started by getting the old fuel tanks out and all the associated tubing. So good to have that area all cleaned up. Now I can mount the battery box and the air ride air tank and valves. After that messy job I got to finish mounting the new fuel tank. Now it is solidly in place. Then I got down to putting in the new fuel lines in. I had to modify the old lines to go over the arch, but after that everything else went fairly easy. I still have to add the lines that hook up to the engine, but I am going to do those when I get the truck turned around to start on the front end.

Hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving!

look's good .

I did some measurements on the rear bag mounts and was not happy with how far the rear of the truck was going to drop. So I took out the 1 1/2" posts on the upper bag mount. The hardware in the picture is only temporary until I can get over to Fastenal and find what I want. I still need to clean up the fabrication work, but you can see the difference in the pics below. I may not want to lay frame on this ride, but I do want it as low as possible...

I went dirt bike riding today when I should have been in the shop working... We had the most amazing weather this weekend! 68 Degrees! The YZ250 was begging to be ridden (it has been parked most of the summer because the Honda 450X has been the primary machine), and my buddy Dave called last night and twisted my arm... Well there was some perfect moisture in the soil (rare in West Texas these days!) and you could do no wrong and climb like a hero all day long. So hopefully tomorrow I can get back in there and tick off a couple more items on my list.

Today a friend came over and helped me move the bed into the shop. So now I can get to fitting up the bed to the new frame. Tons of fun!

So after we got the bed into the shop I did not want to lay on a creeper under the bed undoing all those dozens of bolts to take the floor out, so I decided to make a frame work of lumber (a lot of new houses are going up in our neighborhood so I went dumpster diving for wood!!!) to rotate the bed upright and not harm the sheet metal. So I used the engine hoist to raise up the bed slowly and put it up right. By the way the pictures don't show it but I have since used heavy tie downs to secure it to the rafters and support structure of the shop so it wont fall over. So now I can undo all the bolts standing up like a normal person. I will leave several in place so I can rotate it back to the ground and then undo them when it is in back in position. Yeah I know the safety experts are going to scream at me, but it was all done very safely and no OSHA people were harmed in the rotating of the bed....

This bed is actually in great shape for a 75'. I don't have that much body work, which I am super thankful for!!!

Well once I get it mocked up I will snap some pics and update you guys.

During the Christmas break I am going to redo my tool box and work bench area in the shop. So I started looking around for ideas when I came upon this really cool garage forum.



Check it out. It has already give me some cool ideas, and no matter if you have only a single space or a garagemahall, it will give you some things you can do to your shop.

Some disassembly required!!! Got to taking the bed apart tonight. First thing to get out of the way - Chevy when you use 20,000 bolts to put your beds together don't use 4 little welds in the corner of the rear of the bed to hold it together, it just made a terrible job just that much worse!!! Next time just use 4 more bolts to hold it, and leave well enough alone!

Ok I got that off my chest...

Really taking it apart the bed was pretty straight forward. I was glad that I had put it on end to take 90% of the bolts out. That made the job a whole lot easier.

So I got it mocked up and wanted to put the rims on and check the clearances. I cannot be more pleased right now. The measurements worked put perfectly with that 3/4 ton rear end, the rims and tires are going to tuck right up in the stock fenders! Knowing that I do not have to modify those stock fenders is a huge relief.

Now I have to get in there and make the support frame and cut the inner wheel wells to fit. After that I will put the floor back in it's new location.

same rear end setup i have and tires fit great with fenders

Looking good!!!

How have you liked the ride from this rear end set up? Anything you would change?

my truck rides great.....i have 3800# bags mounted like yours and a 2 link.....i ride around with about 10psi in the rear on the highway and it rides super smooth.....my shocks are mounted to link bar in front of axle and run at a 45 degrees and mounted under my bridge