W350 Crew Cab - The ultimate first gen - Pics and history

[RSchwarzli]

But you have to admit Robert it would be 1 hell of a Nice trip to bring it out and All Convoy in to the Meet with Crewcab's ? I believe I can line up about 5
What do you say ????????? YES

You now I am a crew cab addict and have always wanted to do that....

 

[Simplysmn]

You get your's Ready and I will line up the Rest . Come On YOU CAN DO IT

 

[RSchwarzli]

You get your's Ready and I will line up the Rest . Come On YOU CAN DO IT

Lets see how the winter goes....

 

[RSchwarzli]

Boo.



In case anyone is following, progress begins again tomorrow. Wrenching season has begun.

That is all.

Robert

 

[Wayne M.]

Watching from all angles

 

[MMeier]

 

[Simplysmn]

Come On Robert May is Coming up Quick we going to see you in Phrump NV ??????

 

[TJJEEPER]

Boo.



In case anyone is following, progress begins again tomorrow. Wrenching season has begun.

That is all.

Robert

But but but... You're never going to be "Done"! There will always be something that needs tweaking

 

[SRay]

Once the tweaking is done, there will be a mandatory 10,000 hrs of FAA training to be done before that truck can have a pilot to operate it.

 

[RSchwarzli]

So this is really an update from last year that I just never did. So I am doing that as its own little segment while I wait for photos from the last few weeks to upload.....

Wiring and small stuff

Back to more wiring. The bottom side of the truck is almost 100% wired now and all the wires are being pulled to the soon to be electrical panel that will be behind the rear seats to keep the electrical system out of dust, dirt, and water like it would be if done under the hood.



Here are some under body shots of the custom wiring harnesses being brought into the rockers and up the C pillar to be behind the seat:



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And a view of the back seat area as it currently sits with more and more wires being pulled here every day:


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The Rear Winch Power cable was also done at this time:


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That left the rear 7 pin harness to be finalized. As I am running a Y between the in bed mounted connector and the bumper connector, I didn’t want it solid connections soldered to the 7 pin harness that runs from the front of the truck to the back. So I picked up a Curt replacement pigtail so I could use that as a intermediate connector.


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That allows me a connector like this into the main line:
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So that then the pigtail, is what is soldered to the main 7 pin line from the front of the truck:


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I will work on the rest of the update.... stay tuned.

Robert[/COLOR][/URL]

 

[RSchwarzli]

It has been far too long since I did an update here. Was a bad winter last year for working on the truck so didn’t get too much done. This winter however has made good progress already.

Wheel Disks:

One of the things that you all may remember my being unhappy with was the machined in holes in the wheels that I got from American Force. They said they were unable to not machine the center cap mounting holes in the wheels as that’s the way they got them. I believe when I ordered them, they were still getting these CNC’d off shore so that makes sense. In 2016 they bought a bunch of CNCs and now do that in house with the off shore blanks they get. These are the holes to refresh everyone’s memory as it has been a while since I posted pics of them:

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So given I was stuck with these holes, I decided to cover them up with a disk that would enhance the wheel look, and also cover the holes at the same time. I chose a high quality aluminum as I knew the lug nuts would be clamping against this disk, so I couldn’t have it bow or warp. I started by doing up a sketch and doing my measurements onto the sample.

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Once I had laid it all out, then I threw my chunk of aluminum into the lathe, and began cutting.


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Once the size of the hub bore got bigger than my largest drill bit, I changed over to a cutting tool so I could hog out the center.

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Once I got the material to correct bore size, I strapped it down to the big mill at work, and one night I made a mess. Lol Lots of shavings! So I drilled in the correct 8x6.5 bolt circle. I also drilled to correct lug size.


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Once the bolt pattern was in, it was back into the lathe so I could cut off evenly thick slices of disk. This basically looked like cutting a load of bread.

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Disk 1!


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Keep cutting!

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Disk 2!


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By the time I got through the block, this is what I had left:

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Next was to send them to a friend to polish them as my polishing skills are not to the level of detail that I wanted these to be! This is what came back:


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Now part of what I was planning when I designed these disks, was to allow a small machined groove in the back side to hold the hub cap on. As the cap didn’t have the ability to press through the wheel due to the cab being a legit Alcoa cap off a bigger truck, I designed the disk to also hold the cap on.


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[RSchwarzli]

Working on trying to figure out why the pics arent showing. Sorry folks.... Not sure what the forums are doing the the pics. Something isnt liking this forum platform.

 

[Nigel]

Congratulations. I see you made it to the 2020 calendar.

Nigel