Haven’t decided what the trucks gonna be used for quite yet, I’ve been doing a lot of grinding and sanding with wire cups, grinding discs, and detail sander, I’m almost ready to paint the undercarriage and return most of the rust converter I purchased. Right now I’m removing all the hardware and replacing it all with domestically manufactured yellow zinc grade8 hardware and ARP fasteners and getting a lot of parts plated with electro-less nickel but I’m about to start doing the rest in black nickel cause it’s starting to get too shiny under there and I don’t want it to end up looking like a low rider.
Next it’s going to the mechanic to replace entire braking system, fuel system, power steering, rcv axles for the d44 up front, still haven’t decided what to do with the rear axle which is currently a ford 9”. Been thinking about building a dart sbf iron eagle but it starting to seem like a bad idea, even started considering the jon kaase boss 9 but seems like a 408 stroker would be the best bet. Then after I decide on the engine I’m gonna get painless wiring and all the front end top end stuff. Then get custom headers and exhaust, then ship all that to Jet-Hot for coating.
While it’s at the mechanic I’m sending the np-435 and Dana-20 to get rebuilt, I’ve considered changing the tranny/transfer combo but Ive heard bad things about the nv4500 and still doing homework pairing an np435 with the atlas options. Then it’s going to the fab shop for suspension, heim steer, roll cage(welded to frame), custom bumpers and possible crawlers edge or throttle down frame swap if it makes sense but I really don’t know what I’m doing. I guess at the end of the day I just wanna take it out to the deer lease in the Texas Hill country and moderate mudding in east Texas swamps and towing around a 15 ft John boat but I’m having the suspension built by a Baja racing/pre runner fab shop in southern California. I’m kinda just doing everything and gonna just see what happens, regardless, the result should be unique/interesting