Rebirth of Monster Mudder

Spent most of the day at my son's votech open house today, but spent a little time out in the shop working on the piping for the w/a intercooler in the cab. Have it pretty much laid out and setup. Now I just need to make the 4 mounting brackets to the firewall.

Loving it!

Finished mounting the water to air intercooler tonight. Reused the old mounting brackets I had for the 96 cab. Two worked fine with no changes on the passenger side. The other two I had to drill new holes on one end and shorten them.

After talking to my brother tonight, I'm going to delay building the steering column until we weld the cage in and then use the cross bar that goes across the dash to mount the steering column too. So I'm going to pull everything off the cab and get it removed so I can start welding up all the holes in the cab, sand blast it and replace the last bit of metal I need too on it.

Didn't do anything on the mud truck tonight, but we shot 2 coats of Mineral Gray with titanium accents onto my son's cab. Turned out pretty good. We do have a few spots on the inside roof of the cab where it peeled some. So those areas will have to be sanded down and redone when I paint the rest of the truck.

Here are a few shots of it:

Ended up working till 2 am last night on a failing data process for work, so I didn't accomplish a whole lot this evening. So tonight, I just worked on removing the floor pans, transmission tunnel, and removed the intercooler.



Also started cutting out the other half of the seat bracket that I haven't made yet. Got one piece cut and started cutting the second one and my chop saw blade reached the point of uselessness and needs replaced, so I said the hell with it and called it a night.



Hoping to have the seat bracket made tomorrow, brake booster removed and cab unbolted as well and ready to move it off. Friday evening we are planning on moving my son's cab off of the rotisserie and onto his frame and then I'll put my cab on the rotisserie, weld up all the holes and then get it sand blasted. By then I hope my por15 chassis black will be in from Eastwood so that I can coat the firewall and underside of the cab with it. It's backordered till the 26th of this month. If it's not in by when I need it, I know where I can pickup a quart of por15 in Tulsa up to get that area covered.

No pictures tonight....

I accomplished a little bit this evening. I finished up the seat bracket for my racing seat. I haven't drilled the holes in the floor yet for it because I want to wait till I get the roll cage built to make sure I have enough head room, but I want it as far back as I can get it.

I received several shipments today, including my hood stack, the condom for it, my lead kit from eastwood, por15 marine clean and por15 prep.

Everything is out or off of the cab now, just 4 bolts left to remove it and then I can start working on all the holes on it.

Lead body solder kit



Hood stack



Hood stack condom



Por 15 products



Seat brackets

Today was my 10th day, so I was off and able to work on the truck most of the day. So I started by removing the cab from the frame of the truck. Set it on some saw horses and 2x4's and 2x6's while I worked on the frame. I spent most of the day grinding and cutting off the old body mount remnants from the frame and fully welding the new body mounts on the frame and giving the earlier welds a second pass with my mig. They shouldn't go anywhere now.

I also fixed the front bed mount's on my son's 91 frame, the moron who owned it before used a cutting torch to slice on each side of where the bolt holes were, so I welded it back up and cleaned up the top so we can mount the bed on it when we get to that point.

Removing the cab with the cherry picker



Frame bare again



Cab sitting on stands



Drivers side rear body mount



Drivers side front body mount



91's bed mount fixed





Passenger side Body mount and cleaned up old mount



Passenger side back mount



Grind Grind grind...



Front passenger side mount

Today we put my son's cab on his truck, so we used the cherry picker and the 2x12 again to lift it off of the rotisserie and to move it over the frame of the truck. Starting to look like a truck again.

On the mud truck, I spent the day filling in holes on the firewall and floor of the cab. I have all of the front filled in now and was working on the drivers side rear corner where it's ate out where the body mount bolts in. I made the new piece to fill in where it's ate out. Now I just need to get it put in place. Hoping to get that done tomorrow and to get the cab sand blasted tomorrow as well. I have some more rot on the back side of the cab bottom that I need to cut out and replace as well. I will do that after I get it sand blasted.

I'm very curious to know how the POR15 stuff works out.

Keep the updates coming!

I'm interested too. I'm using their POR 15 chassis black on the frame instead of the regular por 15 as my frame will be exposed to uv rays along it's length. The por 15 isn't UV stable. I got notice that my 2 quarts of the chassis black was shipped today but won't be here till Weds night. So I won't get to do anything with it till the following week because Thursday night we are going to OKC to see the Dropkick Murphy's and then Friday we are leaving for Branson to attend the Heartland Highland Cattle Association annual meeting.

I am thinking about picking up just a regular quart of por 15 to do the firewall and underside of the cab instead of using the chassis black on it since it won't be exposed to uv rays.

I'm hoping with the pore sealing of the por 15, that it will have less mud sticking to it. We shall see though.

POR15 is the bomb. I have used it several times on various things. It doesn't take the UV very well at all. it kind of gets chalky in texture and dulls up. If you are worried about areas that are in direct sunlight you can always do a top coat of flat black by brush or rattle can. if it chips off in 3 months, its easy to re-do as the POR will never come off. just a thought.

Man, now I remember how much I love sand blasting.... NOT!!!! Anyway, spent the majority of the day setting up to sand blast and blasting the top and bottom of the cab. At least until I broke my sand blaster. The bottom fitting where the hose connects to the bottom of the pressure pot has been eaten away till only half of the hose fitting is left and it worked a hole in the hose. So I need to try and find another bottom fitting form my sand blaster. Hopefully I can find one in Tulsa tomorrow.

On another note, the cab is light enough for my son and I to just pick it up and carry it out. We couldn't do that with the 96's cab. So hopefully I'm well on the way to a much lighter truck.

Sand blasted one side of the passenger side bed panel till I ate through the hose at the pot side of the sand blaster again. So tomorrow I'm going to go pick up a hand full of fittings and replace that whole setup so I can get some more metal blasted.

Picked up the parts yesterday to fix my sand blaster. Started with a 3/8" close nipple out of the tank to a 3/8" to 1/2" bushing into a 1/2" 45" ell. Then a 1/2" close nipple to a 1/2" valve on to another 1/2" close nipple into the 1/2" T. Back to the supply air, I did another 1/2" close nipple to another 1/2" 45 degree ell with a 3/8" to 1/2" bushing with a 3/8" close nipple into a brass 3/8" collar to hook the airline in. On the other side of the T, just a 1/2" MIP to 1/2" hose fitting to attach the hose. I put the 45 in coming down so that everything would clear under the tank. Took it outside and tested it with the remaining sand contained in the tank. Works pretty good. Shold flow sand much better with the 1/2" fittings.

Here is the old ate out fitting:



Here is it with everything changed out:



I ran out of sand before I could get the underside of the trans tunnel finished, but the test worked very good.

Worked on sand blasting again tonight, finished up one bedside front and back, also finished both sides of the transmission tunnel. Last update till next week, heading to see Drop Kick Murphy's tomorrow night and then to Branson Friday.

Boy, what a weekend. Enjoyed the concert seeing the Dropkick Murphy's and Skinny Lister was pretty good too, did take us a day to get our hearing back to normal though.

Went to Branson Friday after work/school and made a 3 1/2 hour drive in 3 hours to get to Lamberts and have dinner before they closed. We get to the hotel where the conference was and they were doing renovations, so the walls were all freshly painted, the pool and hot tub were closed....

Went to the Conference Saturday and was watching the weather. At the dinner we talked to some locals and found out that they had announced locally that the roads wouldn't be treated till after the storm was over so we decided to haul ass home that night instead of being stuck there for who knows how long waiting on the roads. Made the whole trip through freezing mist up to the last 10 miles and my dually lost traction going up the last big hill and there we set for a while.

I called the county and told them how bad that section of highway was after we watched an all wheel drive car go up it sideways with two guys trying to help push it, several 4x4's damn near landed in the deep ditches, etc... So we waited an hour till the county salt/sand truck arrived, and watched him almost loose it and then get stuck. He let us know that he called in another truck and was waiting on another truck to help get him out and get going again. 2 hours later, the second truck showed up and we watched him slide down the hill sideways right toward us as he was going. He managed to get the front end flipped back around and ended up right behind the stuck truck. He worked his way backwards up the hill coating the hill and then they both were able to get going again down the rest of the hill. We followed them the rest of the way home and then hit the 2 miles of icy gravel roads to the house.

Today was spent getting hay out to the cows, feeding them and all the other animals in the all day sleet storm, and then a little bit out in the shop with the outside temps at 10 degrees with a windchill of -11. The shop was a balmy 42 degrees.

In the shop, I welded in that top plate to add additional metal where the body mount goes on the back driver side mount. Then added a filler plate on the bottom side of the area. Now I need to cut the rotted metal out on the underside and get a new piece of 16 gauge welded in place.

Finished welding up the body mount this evening and plugged the last hole in the bottom of the cab. The one hole left I'm going to use to route my shifter cable through. I'm down to filling the wiper holes in the top of the cab and replacing the rusted out sheet metal along the back of the cab. So tomorrow I'm hoping to get that back metal replaced, but before I can do that, I've got to go get my bottle of C25 refilled as I just about ran out tonight finishing up those welds.





I think it's going to be a race to get this truck done before the season starts. There is just so much still to do. I picked up my epoxy primer today and I've ordered my Reverse pattern PPP shifter, hopefully it will arrive in a week or so. This Friday, I will have 8 weeks left to get the truck done. I think it's going to be a race till the first race....

Finished filling in some cracks and crevices on the bottom of the cab to help keep mud out of the cab of the truck tonight, then set the cab back up right and started cutting material out of the back of the cab where it's rusted out. Have it all cut out and a piece of it ready to be welded in tomorrow.

Got a late start tonight because I had to pickup another tank of C25 for the mig and 7 more bags (all they had) of fine blasting sand. Weather is supposed to be good Friday so I'm hoping to be able to get a lot of sand blasting done while the weather holds. Hopefully I can get it all done Friday.

NakeDiesel said:

I'm hoping with the pore sealing of the por 15, that it will have less mud sticking to it. We shall see though.

Click to expand...

I have an old mudding trick I do before getting dirty...

1. bug srayer
2. gallon of wesson cooking oil

...spray everything heavily(undercarriage, body panels, EVERYTHING)...mud slides right off...

.

We use diesel and ATF mixed together in a sprayer. It works pretty good, but we have some sticky mud around here. Just looking for any little advantage I can be between my first and second runs in the different classes.