"The End's" 09 SAS re-build w/3-link and 1-tons

Starting sort of a "rebuild" on @The End truck. Short backstory on it is that he dropped it off in February of 2014 to a local truck builder to have a 3-link front with coil-overs, Chevy 63" rear springs, Dana 60 front and 14 bolt rear installed. Tim told the builder exactly what he was going for with this build and the builder decided that he was going to do it his own way or no way. It pretty much sat out at the builders house/shop since then because of disagreements between the two. Fast forward to sometime last week, the truck was stolen from the builders house and ended up two hours away. It was recovered, and Tim went and picked it up and left it at my house for a complete tear-down and rebuild .

The original plan was for me to take the truck quite some time ago, but life got in the way for both Tim and I.

Literally everything the builder did will have to be removed and re-done. I am pretty much going to emulate some other 2nd gen 3-link builds and keep things very simple for now. The plan is to just get it road-worthy for now and then start doing other upgrades like gears, lockers, flat/tube bed, etc....

I'll just let the pics do the talking...

 

I was wondering where Wyatt's old bumper went. Can't wait to see how this comes out.

 

I feel like I should be embarrassed lol.

 

Well at least the welds look decent!!

 

What. The. Fuck.

 

@Sacrifice @northwesttaco Lets try to avoid this

 

Damn shitty that it went like that. At least it's going to get done righ now!

Ha no kidding! That is rough

 

Some do, some don't. I don't think he does his own welding though. I've seen his actual welds and they aren't pretty.

 

Going to post more bad before the good. I removed the Coilovers towers that were bolted to the frame along with the steering box. The builder had the bolts so tight that it slightly crushed the frame some, which isn't too big of a deal as the frame bounced back to its original form when removed. The steering box was not sleeved and had no frame plating on the inside of the frame, so essentially it was crushing the frame together as well. The builder also cut the frame plate/Coilover towers short so he spliced in an extra piece of plate for the steering box to mount to and didn't even bother to grind the weld down so the steering box could sit flat on the frame. If he would have tightened the steering box bolts any tighter, he could have snapped the ears clean off the steering box.

 

Jeez. How did I know that none of those bolts were sleeved..

 

What in the actual fuck

 

This same guy did an axle swap on my old Tundra back in 2007 and he did the same shit. He did most everything wrong on that truck but that's what got me into wrenching and welding.... fixing all his hacked together bs

 

holy crickets batman that thing is jacked

 

Damn, too bad you couldn't warn Tim

 

He knew about the problems that I had but the builder was really putting out what appeared to be some quality work on multiple rigs since then. We both thought he could tackle this given that Tim told him exactly what he wanted. Tim wanted me to do it from the beginning but I was still living with my parents so it just wasn't practical to do that kind of build in their driveway. Oh well, lesson learned. I will guarantee that it will be done right this time though

 

can't wait to see what you do with it Todd