Blanco Taco Build. LS, 4.0 Kings, caged, backhalfed, Trophy Truck

That First paragraph hits hard.

Awesome Build, I hope you get around to enjoying it again!

 

Yea sucks but life and when you dont get updates for months on end its really easy to forget about it, fortunate my dad has stuff I can rip around in for the meantime. Kinda why I lost interest cause I can jump in the F12 or ACRE and just turn a key and go and not worry about when its gonna blow up or a bolt is gonna fall off that i forgot to tighten.

But small update... Emailed Tommy and sent him a laundry list of items (full engine cage, suspension cycle, shock mounts front and rear, new firewall to clear tires, door bars, seat mounts, rear end stuff, blah blah blah) and got back to me with quotes on all the work and he says he's ready whenever. Ready to let him take it an run with it.

So I need to pick the truck up soon and get it ready to go out to him hopefully around end of July when I have time. Unfortunately im not baller like @DIRT YOTA with AAA to get a flat bed tow truck but I did find a nice drive over fender trailer to rent with a winch in town for 25$ an hour to snag to go pick the truck up.

But you guys harassed me enough I guess its time to nut up

 

Make it a longwenie

 

it'll be an extra regular

 

Shit I’m married with two kids and wife don’t work… not even close to baller lol

I have the AAA premier package for like $1XX.xx a year. Has 1 - 200 mile and 2 - 100 mile tows I think lol. When I blew the diff up on a 4x only trail I got home an upgraded next day lol.

I need to buy a trailer like you described. Bonus is all new friends I’ll have lol

 

Called some local tow companies for a nice flatbed and they said 400. About a 120 mile round trip to where the truck is down south.

we have 2 InTech enclosed race trailers and a nice PJ open trailer that would be perfect to use but they can’t fit the crawlers or my truck in them. Dads not too fond of selling the open air car trailer to buying a nice 102” drive over fender just for us to destroy lol when we take it to Cali my brother and I will throw a winch on our 30’ gooseneck. Just gotta go get a HF winch and rig something up.

For that much maybe I should get AAA knowing our luck with junk breaking lol

 

Towing is the absolute worst part of moving project vehicles

when the rear axle on my truck blew up and I shipped it to cali
It was 3400 in 2018
I’m sure now that would be an easy 6k

 

It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. After 2 years she sees the sunlight again. Long day of getting the trailer, driving down south, loading it, collecting all the parts that went with it, bringing it home, etc.

But She’s home. For now. Sprayed it down with Wd40 then put a car cover on it cause it’s monsoon season here in New Mexico. Gonna clean it up more later this weekend and tinker on it.

Start looking at accessories for alternator, intake, power steering pump, mount the headers etc.

Getting to look at it alone up close, there’s some small things I’ve noticed I’m not keen on, but they can be addressed.

 

Farting around and threw the shock on it to see clearance for the arm, engine, and to drool.

Lower shock mounts from the previous 2.5/3.0 combo is still on this side so was easy to put some bolts through it to hold in place. New lower tabs will be put on correctly per new shocks.

Long story short with the bypass tube/hose layout, they put the wrong body on it, I was wanting the tubes to face outwards but instead they put them on the side, not the end of the world cause it kinda works, and also offers room for more tubes to be added down the line. But one compression tube just barely touches the arm currently. On this kit, the bypass should be in the rear and the coil in the front as there’s more room obviously, but cool points would be having the bypass up front.

Then obviously has to sit in the truck and make engine noises for fun.

 

looks neat!

Monsoon season isn't real.

AZ is in monsoon season, and last night was the first time it rained for more than 2 minutes. Still only had 4 tenths of an inch of rain. BS

 

Picked up a Ron Davis radiator today. Threw it up in the rear to see fitment. Rad and oil coolers will go in the back window/down bars depending which fits best where. Then threw the spares on to get an idea out the look. Definitely gets motivation and some vision after imagining it for years.

Only bummer the front coilovers are 3-4 months out. Hopefully beginning of January they’ll be ready. Other than that, I’ve got all the major parts for the big ticket items for the most part.

 

What coilovers are you waiting on? I might have something in stock

 

2.5x12 King race series. Ordered back in the beginning of September and told me the end of December but we'll see. Tommy has some to mock up in the meantime

 

Gotcha, I only have the performance series 12" in stock or pure race 14s. Always fun waiting on shock lead times lol

 

Leaving this here. More to come end of next week.

 

Quick teaser before I get more pictures.

shock mounts getting started, also rear floor has been cut out to get ride of the stupid hump in the floor. If you have a DC then you know what that is.

if you’re not following Tommy already on Instagram, do it as he always has deals on his products and builds rad shit.

 

Gonna be copying and pasting in updated from the badlines thread in here to keep it going

"Ok everyone I am finally making some progress on this truck now that it's in my shop. First step was to get the truck onto stands level front back side to side. Then I cycled rear suspension and checked the pinion change. Pinion change wasn't good AND i ran the numbers in a 4 link calculator and didn't like was I was seeing there or in real life measurements. So I cut out the entire rear floor and back of the cab since it is getting redone with a single 3rd seat in the middle. So I got to do the fun job of cutting off the old upper link mounts. I then needed to plate the inside of the frame to clean it all up and make it stronger to add the new upper link mount in correct location for proper geometry I have used in the past with great success. Got the new upper link tabs tacked in place so I can start making templates to box them all in. I am also going to do a diagonal tube from them to the carrier bearing crossmember and then forward to prevent anything from moving in the future. I am also going to run a tube between the bottom diagonals of the cage so I can do the seat mounts and floor plating into that. Also when I pulled apart the rear suspension the Camburg lower links have uniballs on both ends BUT no anti wobbles so I need to source some 1-1/4" ID urethane bushings so I can make anti wobbles to prevent it from flopping at all and eating the lower eyelets on the King shocks."

 

2 steps back, one step forward.....

Long story short, outter tube coming out of the cab was too close to the shocks, pushing them angled inward more than what you'd want vs being straight up. Ez fix to just cut that tube out and remove it, or re work it. But that tube was the first tube from the back of the cab, so the tube from the cab that runs above the frame rail was then coped to the junction. So long story short its fucked because the shocks were not in place before fully burning in that outter tube to accommodate room. So, cut all the tubes out to re run new tubes that are properly built around the shocks in the correct area, and ditching the outside tube...

 

god damn. That sucks.