The Apocalypse Redux: Nuzzy's return to the trail...

TreeClimber said:

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Looks like a mechanical gage sender??

My bad.

Yes, mechanical gauge sender. I just assumed it wouldn't need a ground because it's not a powered gauge...

And yeah, I thought I had hose clamps that would fit at home so I didn't buy more. Found out later my memory had lied to me :booo: :haha:


I'm really not enthused about that setup, but my online searches didn't turn up a whole lot that would help fit the ridiculously large fitting this gauge seems to need.

Tore the PIAAs out of my Dodge (never used them or liked them) and decided to use 'em as rock lights. Also picked up a couple cheapy sets of Pilot bullet style driving lights at Autozone for mids and rear wheel well.

I'm really struggling with placement of the fronts. With no wheel wells, my mounting areas are greatly diminished. I'm worried that placing them on the firewall will result in them getting pelted with rocks/debris since that puts them in the line of fire. This seemed to be one of the only places where they were relatively safe and still pointed near where I wanted them. They're tucked behind the grill hoop as much as possible, but still are a bit of an eyesore... I'm open to suggestions.






Ignore the wires. Nothing is tucked away or routed finally yet.




With the rears, I was trying to get them pointing backward as much as possible so they could illuminate behind past the tires. Seemed lower offered less obstruction than higher in the wheel well (plus the supplied wire wasn't long enough).







May still play with the aiming/placement a bit. Also considering moving the PIAAs to the middle since they seem to shoot more of a wide but short sheet of light, and move the middle Pilots to the front.

I have the Vatozone cheapies on my Rig too.

I reccomend getting you a tube of RTV and sealing them up where the wires go into the housing.

Keeps the water out, thus you don't have to keep changing your rock light fluid.

I redid my rock lights. Put the long narrows in the middle, moved one set of bullets to the front, and mounted the other set of bullets under my taillights for better lighting. Haven't hooked up wiring though. But after spending the afternoon/evening chillin at my buddy Brian's shop supervising him while he was redoing his rear links :redneck: I got re-energized to do my mounts.


No hole saw so it's grinder coping for me :booo:




This would be my first time actually welding something structural with my stick. The phrase "monkey ****ing a football" comes to mind, but I burnt that bitch in. This hopefully will be my tranny mount.







FWIW, Cash likes to let the dog know exactly where she stands in the hierarchy :haha:




On to the engine side motor mounts. Not much better but it's a learning process...




How's my HAZ? :redneck:




Had to redo one of the tranny mounts for better fitting cause I didn't like where it ended up.




At least these resemble welds...






They ain't pretty. But ****'s burnt through so hopefully it'll hold up Comments/suggestions on welding welcome... :hi:

welds don't look to bad... keep a tigher arc and a constant travel speed:awesomework:

Needs more chainsaw

Not being a welder, the only thing I noticed was there seems to be a lot of splatter. I guess someone will enlighten me as to why that happens.

Other than that, some welds look really good. one looks kinda, well..... weak...

You are taking a welder with you on the trails, right?

Remember, I'm not a welder, just an observer of welds.

hwcurtice said:

You are taking a welder with you on the trails, right?

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Duct tape and gum FTW :011:

Nuzzy, on the drivers side of the intake manifold, there are a few spots for sensors in the water jacket part. You could put the water temp sender there. Thats where mine was. It is not effected by the thermostat, as that is a bypass circuit.

Also, under the carb there is a intake heater (Kinda like in a Cummins) that you could wire up to a relay and a switch for them cold morning startups. :redneck:

From what we can see your welds look like they should hold just fine. Couple things though. Connect the welds together, don't leave gaps in between like the first pic. Same thing in the second pic, clean out the slag here and connect the welds..

stick welding brackets, thats hardcore, they look a lot better than some beads I see at the CC after work :haha: But yeah weld all the way around the tab like the black guy said

Will go back and do. Thanks gentlemen


So last night I went to refit the 300. Since the tranny is now so much higher, I'ma need to cut a whole lot more floor :haha: Then finish up the front two MMs.

I'm gonna move the rad forward a bit more to clearance the fan and then get my new HEI ignition installed. Since going HEI, I have now effectively removed every last inch of factory wiring

time to tie the seats to the cage??

Bunk said:

time to tie the seats to the cage??

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As of right now, there is no passenger seat. So yes, it might be getting towards that time :haha: :redneck:

Finished up my mounts tonight and got the 300 in position and checked for DS clearance. All is golden :clappy:


It's all downhill from here (knocks on wood)

Front mounts





Thank god they're finally done. I sure put it off long enough


It's such a pain in the ass getting the tcase in position from the bottom, I decided I'd make it so it can go in through the top :redneck: Well, I had to cut the floor anyways, so I just went a lil more...



I've been worried about my front DS clearing since it's 3" dia and in the past looked like it'd smack the starter. However, with moving the motor up a bit and the tranny up a lot for the flat belly, all will clear just fine



And just so everyone knows, the garage dinner of champions is a package of straight from the fridge hotdogs, or as I like to call them, stick bologna

Nuzzy said:

stick bologna

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:haha:

Didn't do much today cause football. But I did take my crossmember back out to drill it for the bolts to the bottom of the tranny. What a bitch that was muscling it back in Then installed the motor mounts (also an absolute bitch to line up).






Then I popped the fan/rad/grill out to address the clearance issue.




Well the bottom of the rad couldn't go any further forward in the grill because it was hitting the structural section of the grill with lower mount. But I was able to chop another inch(ish) off the bottom of the shroud and still have the fan clear the rad. By angling the top of the rad further forward and re working the mounting area, I eaked the inch(ish) out of the top. Threw 'er back in and life is good. I got so much room I don't know what to do with it all... :haha:





Then real quicklike, I remounted the rear rock lights under the tailights. I didn't like them in the wheel wells where they were because none of the light really seemed to filter out to where I wanted it. I'm sure they'll just get ripped off with the taillights, but meh. Easy to change.

nuzz maybe I missed it but did you end up using a relay to switch on the ignition hot source to the aux fuse panel?