Charonblk07's build thread

[charonblk07]

The 730N RHR arrived in good shape and I've got a few adapter harnesses on the way to get it to mate up to the '09 so that project is on hold waiting on parts.

I played around with the mechanical side of the build last week and this week is working on the audio side again. I got the door panels taped up and installed, mounted the door pods and then fiberglassed the edges so I can cover up any gaps between the two panels. Once the fiberglass is cured I'll be going over it with some body filler to smooth out the transitions then it'll be ready for wrapping once my vinyl gets here

All taped up




'Glassed in

 

[charonblk07]

Installed the finished interior pieces, finished the fiberglass, prep, and paint. The gauge pods are finished and the trinity mount is completed. I also painted the chrome trim around the shifter so now it won't blind me. I still have my nitrous controller and

 

[Quigs]

did you order your dash with the green stitching from the factory or did you have to done after market.

 

[charonblk07]

did you order your dash with the green stitching from the factory or did you have to done after market.

Just picked up a fabric pen from Michael's craft store and took the time to dye each individual thread. I'm amazed that you could even see it in the pics.

 

[DavidRam]

did you order your dash with the green stitching from the factory or did you have to done after market.

Damn, you've got some good eyes, bro! I didn't even see that, I had scroll back up and check it again.

Just picked up a fabric pen from Michael's craft store and took the time to dye each individual thread. I'm amazed that you could even see it in the pics.

Very cool touch!

 

[MGRAM]

Truck looks amazing, when you planning on taking it to the track so I can see it in person huh huh?

 

[charonblk07]

Truck looks amazing, when you planning on taking it to the track so I can see it in person huh huh?

I WAS hoping to get up this Friday but my wife has made plans for us again, sigh. I'm thinking next Friday I'm home I'm gonna head up for the day and try to get Chris to run it on the dyno with the water/**** kit and see if he can work some better magic on it since he's less conservative with his tunes than Matt is, specifically for a race tune that is.

 

[charonblk07]

I must be getting old, I so very happy that I got my A/C working again today. I also had to replace a speed sensor so it was an expensive day for me unfortunately.

Aside from wrapping the door pods with vinyl they are now complete, all the gaps are fiberglassed and filled/smoothed. Tomorrow will be pulling the interior and sound deadening the floor, firewall, and doors. I'm also going to be laying down a layer of MLV with a CCF backing so the interior should be good and quiet after this.

 

[charonblk07]

The body is now fully covered with vibrations dampening material... well, except the roof skin, but I have enough to do that for the time that I eventually pull the headliner.

I used Second Skin's Damplifier Pro CLD tiles and covered that with their Luxury Liner Pro MLV that comes with a CCF layer attached. I did the back wall, under seat storage, floor, and all 4 doors with an extra layer over the firewall. It's nice and solid now.

Made sure to get a lot of the inner door cards as well





Some butyl rope between the door card and the door itself for added dampening



A little expanding foam in those pesky places you can't reach, like upper door pillars, rear C-pillars, the front seat arch, used 4 of the big cans everywhere!



Gotta get the inside of the door skins as well



A little MLV love in the doors as well, just did this to the fronts as they're the ones that will have the big speakers in them.



And lastly, gotta do the 'resonance' test on the doors. I was impressed by how much difference it made, hell, there was a service truck in the parking stall next to me who was curious wth I was doing, showed him the difference between the dampened door and the one I hadn't touched yet... needless to say he was blown away by the difference. The video doesn't get all the resonance because of the crappy mic on the phone, but it does good enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wQqFaRFSEc&feature=youtu.be

 

[charonblk07]

Bunch of stuff has arrived at home and now I can't wait to get back on Monday so I can start working on the truck again!

Waiting for me at home now is: the vinyl to finish the door panels, new sensor harness for my fuel pressure gauge, JTSV bumpsteer kit, and a new fuel gauge. I'll be busy most of the week it looks like now, I'm seriously hoping that by Friday I'll have the completed sound system in place, I'll just have the tweeters to aim and fab into place in the door sails.

 

[charonblk07]

Back from my shift at work and ready to rock. Got started early to give me time to correct any mistakes but after a few practice runs on some scrap I went to town on the panel inserts. The scrap was just practice to set the air nailer's depth and how I could staple the 1/2" mdf with 1/2" crown staples (smallest 18ga air staple available), overall I'm happy with how they turned out.

Here's that snakeskin vinyl patter I was so excited about finding


Added a chamfer to the inside of the speaker ring


Rabbeted the backside of the panel to give a good surface to staple into... notice how smooth and even it is... Brad?


A little spray glue... and a view of how small my balcony and workspace is


The outside wrapped, stapled, and trimmed; here's the fingers that allow me to make a clean inner curve


Fingers trimmed


Finished insert




Tomorrow it's supposed to rain so I'm going to tackle the door panels with the snowmobile seat vinyl and maybe pull the interior again so I can get the 730n installed with the new harness that arrived.

 

[Power247]

That's sick!! Awesome man!

 

[charonblk07]

Door panels are wrapped

 

[DavidRam]

Very cool! Super clean workmanship, too!!

 

[dfroehl]

WOW.........Sub'n

 

[charonblk07]

So this has screwed up my plans for the week, the reason we hate weather in Alberta, the weekend was +23C, the next day was -1C:



I was sitting in the truck in the snow doing some wiring on the audio system, kinda getting fogged up and cold but made some awesome progress. Tidiness is a big issue for me... can you tell?



Driver's side door is wired and complete. Ran the 3 cables into the door by drilling a hole into the cable route and through the available grommet in the truck side.





All wiring is properly labeled on both ends thanks to me 'borrowing' the cable printer from work for an hour.

 

[charonblk07]

I've been having mechanical troubles which have been taking priority. After taking the truck out for a weekend of camping we did some gravel road driving and only having 2" of suspension travel kinda sucked. I managed to break something somehow, I'm not sure what it is but there's a bad clicking from the front end and there's a snapping when I accelerate from the back end, so I'm thinking I've either screwed one of the upper control arms from the constant beating it took or it's a U-joint. If it's any suspension parts then I'm cutting out the old stuff and reworking the suspension and adding a watts link. I have a feeling I've blown a CV in the front, hopefully it's an outer CV and not one of the $800 Kore inner CVs. I might go up an inch in the front with the 2wd spindles instead of the McG's spindles which might be too much for the CVs.

Plans will be to change out the front coil-overs with a set of Rancho RS9000XL and the rear with QA1 TD901s. After that it'll be going to a triangular 4-link and watts link that I've designed.

 

[LightningRaper]

Nice build, keep it up

 

[DavidRam]

Plans will be to change out the front coil-overs with a set of Rancho RS9000XL and the rear with QA1 TD901s. After that it'll be going to a triangular 4-link and watts link that I've designed.

I like the sounds of this! I am gonna put my rear QA1s in tomorrow, fronts have been in all week.

Is your watts link design a secret or can you share? I have been studying these a little lately and I they have definitely peaked my interest.

 

[charonblk07]

I don't plan an saying/doing much about the watts link until everything's confirmed with a shop who can do the welding and fabricating required, until then it's just ideas on paper. Who knows, if it works out I can get a few of each piece cut and sell the damned thing, lol, some assembly required of course. Probably wouldn't be worth it though, the panhard bar is just too easy to deal with for the 99% of people.