blueberry.taco build and adventures

Splurged on a fancy pants air controller but I really hate that it came with built-in 1/4" push to connect ports.
Now I'm forced to run both 1/4" AND 6mm air line on this truck.
And yes, I looked everywhere for an adapter that goes from male 1/4" to push to connect female 6mm port.
Not a thing in North America. could only find 1 option in Germany and that's it.

 

progress is slow with work being busy and it being cold out (takes longer to get the garage up to workable temp)
but made a quick aluminum rock shield to keep this manifold from getting pelted by rocks from the rear tire


and mocked up some sliders (this is before I made some more mods like the ones listed below)
These are the BAMF bolt-ons but I spent some time modifying some things to my liking.
- had to trim the rear to fit the 63" spring hangers
- added clipping points to where the frame plates eliminated the stock wire harness clip points on the frame rail
- removed a bunch of unnecessary steel, probably saved 5 lbs+
- cleaned up some welds to my liking
ready to prep these for paint next.

 

Looks awesome, I love seeing builds like this. I am curious though why you paired a 12” shock with 63s since that’ll limit your travel with them. Unless your goal wasn’t overall travel but something else? Just wondering.

 

thanks,

If I were to redo it I'd go with 14" at least, I didn't have any first hand experience on where the 63" would get me ride height wise and didn't want to have the lower bracket hang too low on the axle.
I gathered as much info as I could online (never enough) and decided to go conservative with the 12" for an initial setup (when i ordered shocks was during the height of the lead time issues due to Covid)
I can always redo the lower mounts for longer shocks in the future, but this should be a good enough starting point as I learn the new truck.

 

Another question, do your limit straps ever rub on your tires? I really like where you put yours vs where I put mine.

 

right now the total distance the truck has moved since I put the straps on is about 0.5 ft, so I can't answer that question at all, but the trail gear straps I got have a 'bias' for lack of a better word on which way they fold, and I have that pointed inwards. They should just bend towards the leafs rather than the tires, but maybe that's me being optimistic.
but to answer your question, no, they have never rubbed the tires in ALL the driving I have done so far of 0 miles

 

Ahahaha I love the response. I know what you mean about the bias, mine are the same way. Really the only time I could see if flipping to being outboard is maybe if you hit full droop and it switches direction. But that’s an easy thing to check after a wheeling trip. Will be copying this for other trucks I do relocates on.

 

are you only going to your tires or something higher psi than 40?

I figured sharkbite fittings made something

 

Lemme tell ya, having had the chance to work on a 6 mile old truck before, that's the absolute BEST time to mod them. Everything is clean and not seized and rusty and greasy. 11/10 would do again.

 

specifically these are for the air springs, which are good to 100psi, but I'll be running a working pressure of 150psi on the system, so generic waterline connections aren't going to work for me

 

some updates:

I'm committing to spending money to source OEM connectors and pins to create little subharnesses rather than cutting the stock harness.
Even though I have plenty of experience and success building engine harnesses and such (see v8 swapped Blazer), not cutting the stock harness in any ways is for sure the best long term reliability.
Reliability > $&time


Got the rock shield mounted up with the airlift manifold


modified BAMF sliders fully on now.
Adding zip tie loops and relocating gussets for clearance to stock components in original locations a success. (installation instructions tell you to just shove the bracket over one bolt hole and hack it together which wasn’t acceptable for me, and the stock wire loom would just be dangling because one clip point hole is covered up now.


below pic from installation instructions... look at that bracket shoving right up into the body grommet!



And then Manuel got separated from his tranny and got his shaft extended for better feels

 

the lower air spring mounts for the cradles finalized and bolted in.

As you can see, the air spring can fully separate from the lower cradle for when I droop out beyond the airspring travel



I got a question on how to size air springs on a different forum, so i figured i can share how simple it is:

I had selected the airlift load lifter 5000 ultimate line of products for the internal rubber jounce stops.
from there, they only offer 6 sizes. From there, figure out what height the space your airspring is going to be at for ride height on your suspension, which for me ended up at 7", so the choice was clear.
I had to get the "extended travel" 58496, which would limit jounce travel to 4.3" from ride height.





I love when the scrap metal I am always hoarding works out perfectly.
managed to make this useful tool without making a single cut, all the pieces worked out by just welding them together.
can you guess what it is?

 

Some sort of alignment tool?

 

Uh... a really unaerodynamic horseshoe?

 

A step.

 

something to do with the spare tire?

 

Wow, subbed! You really jumped into the deep end with that '63 swap

 

Kind of... sort of...

are regular horseshoes aerodynamic to start with!?

everything can be a step, just like it can be a hammer

Nope, nothing to do with the spare

 

made some progress over the weekend.

Got around to making a nice lightweight aluminum mount for my nice aluminum air tank



and got it tucked up in the frame rail.

It should never drag on anything here.




and used my fancy blue tool to hold up the front bumper so I can move it on and off by myself while making incremental cuts in the bumper cover and mocking up more tabs to weld on.

I finally finished up everything (fingers crossed) and dropped it off at the powdercoaters too.

 

forgot to post this one.
I’ve been hoarding this valve since my minitrucking days in high school to finally find a home here, 15 years later.