Pretty productive unproductive couple weeks, I know it sounds weird but feels like a lot of hurry up and wait happened. My cousin came over who is a way better welder than I, he spent about 6 hours in the shop final welding all the tack welded frame bits I had put together. I figured this probably wasn’t the best place for me to learn how to weld.
Laying down some mean beads. He managed to weld up the majority of the frame and some of the rear suspension, really want to wait on final welding that stuff until the rear coil overs arrive.
Frame is still pretty light so we managed to get it on its side to weld the bottoms up. Safety first kids! The next day I cleaned up some of the welds with a light wire brush and flap disc, took the hard edges off the fish plates around the frame and did a couple coats of SteelIt rattle can. This stuff is really great, scuff up the frame, bit of thinner to clean off the oil and you are ready to paint.
Just a rough first coat, when I take the front suspension apart I will do the cross Member.
Maybe went a little over board with the fish plates but figured stronger the better, once the motor is in I will build the trans cross member and tie that into the rear suspension mounts.
The motor has arrived!! Finally made it here.
So unpacked it all and had to make a trip to Canadian Tire for some fluids and a battery, probably should have done this before hand but it sat and waited for me to return. After filling oil and transmission. Little bit of fuel in the tank I was ready to fire it up.
Epic fail, So figured the battery I bought was dinked, so I put it on the charger over night… 18 hours later, battery finally read 100% charge. Lets try this again… fail. Ok maybe this battery just doesn’t have the juice, what about some assist from a jump pack. Picked up a GB70 jump pack from amazon.
This helped a lot but still wasn’t enough to get it going. Lucky a Hemi brings the local garage mechanics out like flies. So I had a couple great neighbors help me finally figure it out. I had a bad ground! After much messing around and one proper ground wire she fires right up first try.
So now that I know it runs, I can start modifying this, I figured now it was my problem. First thing I wanted to do was remove the A/C pump as I won’t be running AC or heater in this project, good thing about that is it clears the way for my power steering hook up and should probably make that job a lot easier when it comes time. Couple bolts and out she came, which really cleaned up the engine. When you remove the A/C compressor from the accessories you need to get a shorter belt. Managed to find one over at Bouchillon Performance Engineering
Second problem I knew I would have to fix was the Oil pan, the 6.4L car motor comes with a front sump oil pan, this wasn’t gonna work with my front cross member and power steering rack. So I grab a rear sump kit from Bouchillons as well. Great guys super helpful.
Now I wait for parts again. I am still making steady progress but it feels like I have miles and miles still to go before this is driving around under its own power. Hope you guys enjoyed the update.