The Tactical Panda's Sometimes Funny Great White Money Pit Build and Observations on Life thread.

Next phase of the air horn project has been completed. Vixen 4-trumpet air horns physically installed behind the grille. A tight squeeze but I made it work. Had to fashion a bracket out of 1.5-inch wide 1/8-inch steel.

$96 Vixen Horns Train Horn for Truck/Car. 4 Air Horn Black Trumpets. Super Loud dB. Fits 12v Vehicles like Semi/Pickup/Jeep/RV/SUV VXH4124B

https://www.amazon.com/Vixen-Horns-...d=1497215334&sr=1-10&keywords=vixen+air+horns

 

Was gonna work some more on the air horn project but my mailbox had other plans. After 30-some years the post finally rotted off underground so I had to put up a new one.



After digging out the remains of the old post I decided to try this new stuff I had heard about instead of mixing up concrete.



This "Post Mix" comes in a two-part bag. You break the inner seal by squeezing it, allow the two chemicals to mix, and then pour it into the hole. It starts to expand into this styrofoam-like material that secures the post in place. No muss No fuss.



Then you just backfill some of the dirt on top of it.

 

Wife leaving tomorrow for a three-day professional conference and I had to take the day off anyway to take the Furry One to the vet, so I should be able to get some truck work done. My goal is to get the air tank installed.

Stay tuned.

 

And....... my compressor decides to go tits up this morning. My shop compressor that is; not the ARB I installed in the Taco.

 

Fuck.

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck.

My Craftsman shop compressor decides to go tits up. Smoke started pouring out of the motor housing. So I look it up online. I find the motor on SearsPartsOnline: "We're sorry. This item is no longer available."


Fuck.

 

And while tearing the plastic hood off the old compressor motor, my right arm made contact with the hot metal air tube that goes from the air cylinder to the tank. Got me a nice little burn scar.

 

New Compressor installed. A lot quieter than the old one, but doesn't seem to fill up as fast.

 

Below is a drawing. What does it look like to you?



If you said frog, you were right. However, if you said horse, you were also right. Can you see the horse?

If you rotate the picture to the left you can see the horse.



We see different things in the lines and shapes of the drawing depending on how we look at the drawing. In a way, it is the same in the real world where we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. If you are a happy person, the world is a joyful place. If you are a sad person, the world is a place of despair.

A few years back, two men, a paralytic and a man with a terrible lung disease, were confined to a hospital room. Each day, the medical staff would help the man with the lung disease sit up for an hour and, during that time, he would gaze out the window and describe what he saw to his paralyzed roommate whose bed was on the side of the room away from the window.

He'd describe children running and playing, a father walking with his child, a bluebird in a tree across the way, how the wind moved the clouds, how the rain washed the sidewalks and roads clean, and two little boys playing catch. His descriptions gave the paralyzed man a sense of hope, a will to live.

One day, the man with the lung disease died. The paralyzed man asked to be moved close to the window and, when the nurses obliged, asked them to help him sit up so he could see out. Again the nurses obliged, but all that could be seen from the window was a wall.

Shocked, the paralyzed man told the nurses about the wonderful things his former roommate had described and about how those descriptions had given him hope. The nurses were a little shook up by this and told the paralyzed man something he didn't know about his roommate.

"He was blind," they said.

The point is, the world is largely in your mind. It's how you think, how you dream, that determines how you see things. And how you perceive things ... well, that's the world you live in.

 

I like this build thread. I shall sub!

 

Got my shipment of Rivnuts that I will use to mount the air tank under the truck. YAY!

Found out those YouTube videos on how to install Rivnuts without a Rivnut Tool are worthless. BOO!

Ordered a Rivnut Tool. YAY!

Costs $78. BOO!

Got the wiring harness for the ARB compressor threaded through the firewall. YAY!

Can't find the connector piece that goes over the tabs. Probably lost it. BOO!

Emailed ARB tech support to see if they can send me a new one.

The party never ends.....

 

I think this will be my next mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j0eJ0xB7LU

 

The next step in the continuing saga of the Air Horn/Compressor project has been completed. I got the switches installed in the center console.

Ever see that movie "The Right Stuff"? Remember when Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard was sitting in the first Mercury space capsule? Remember when the reporter says "And what could be going through the mind of America's first astronaut as he is about to blast into space?" and the scene cuts to Shepard and he says to himself "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up."

That's about how I felt when I began to cut the hole in the console. But between a Dremel Tool, a small cordless jigsaw, and a very sharp knife I got it cut and it's even straight.

A big shout-out to @docloco for his patience with me constantly changing my mind about what I wanted to do.

 

Glad you're happy with it.

 

The Rivnut Tool arrived today courtesy of Amazon Prime.

Here's what it looks like:

$38 RZX 16" Rivet NUT Tool Hand Blind Riveter,RIVNUT Riveting Tools with Nut Setting System M3 M4 M5,m6,m8,m10 M12, 10-24, 1/4-20, 5/16-183/8-161/2-13 Totally 12 mandrels

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R1FYLWU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Once I figured out how to change the bit, I was able to install 6 Rivnuts under the driver's side area of the cab. It's amazing how well things work when you have the right tools. Now all I need to do is fashion a bracket or two to connect the feet of the air tank to the rivnuts.

No pictures yet, it's raining outside so I was working in the garage and there was not enough light to take any good ones. Stay tuned.

EDIT: I ended up abandoning the idea of mounting the tank here. Turns out it would end up hanging too low.

 

Alright! ARB Came through for me. They are sending me a new connector free of charge! WOO HOO!

 

Finally! After two unsuccessful attempts to install an air tank I finally got it done today. It is bolted to the bottom of the bed ahead of the spare tire.

Installing this presented a bit of a challenge. The tank is mounted inverted and actually hangs from the bed by its legs. The problem was, aligning holes to drill, and then holding the tank up from the bottom and inserting the bolts from the top. Since I obviously cannot be two places at once, I came up with a rather ingenious (if I may say so myself) way of hoisting the tank to the bottom of the bed and doing it all from inside the bed.

First thing I did was make a cardboard template of the position and measurements of the mounting holes in the tank's legs and after careful measurement both above and below, drilling the holes.

The next thing I did was to bore out the mounting holes in the tank's legs to 7/16th inch diameter and then I installed a Rivnut designed for a 5/16th inch bolt.

Then, using 4 3-foot threaded rods (same bolt size as the Rivnuts), I screwed the rods into the tank legs below and then turned nuts on the rods on the top side. Cranking about 2-inches at a time I was able to raise the tank to the bottom of the bed. When the tank was tight against the underside I unscrewed the rods one by one and replaced each with a 5/16th inch bolt down into the Rivnut.

Top side:



Underside:



The final product:



This was a good stopping point for today so I called it quits for now.

Running the air lines will be the next task. Trying to route them into the engine bay (where the compressor is) without getting them too close to the exhaust pipes will be the tricky part.

 

Thats great spot and a nifty plan for doing it all as one person. Spare tire still able to fit there with it in?

 

How do you get behind the panel to get the blanks out?

 

Don't know yet but if I measured correctly it should. I'm leaving the spare off for now until the air lines are installed.

 

I just removed the radio and the A/C knobs and was able to push out the blank and push in the switch.