Jack's 2007 Chevy Build
- Thread starter locrwln
- Start date
locrwln
Expedition Leader
I hope so. We got the bed lowered back down onto the truck, to check the clearances. Had to make some minor adjustments and fiddling, but it's ready for me to prep/clean the aluminum for welding. I hope to get started on that tomorrow. I have both a spool gun for my MIG and my buddy's TIG, of course, I have never welding aluminum. Should be no problem, right?
Jack
Seabass
Idiot
Spent the morning (with my wife) building the inner fenders for the flatbed. They are just wedged into place for now and I still have a little fine tuning to do, but welding is next.
Jack
Oh yeah!!! That's gonna work out nice!
Looks great, Jack! Not having inner fenders is that one complaint I have with flats. You’ve definitely eliminated that.
You should do fine with that spool gun. TIG makes beautiful welds but unless your aluminum sheet is too thin, the spool gun should be fine.
What shield gas will you be running? Mix or straight argon?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You should do fine with that spool gun. TIG makes beautiful welds but unless your aluminum sheet is too thin, the spool gun should be fine.
What shield gas will you be running? Mix or straight argon?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
locrwln
Expedition Leader
See below.
Thank you and I agree. You would think that inner fenders would be more common, but I guess not.
Argon. I tried the other day with my spool, but didn't get very far. I bought this welder (Miller 250) about 12 years ago and it came with the Spoolmatic 30A (got everything including a CO/Argon tank) for $700.
Up to now, I have never touched the spoolgun. Upon closure inspection the tip was completely destroyed. I was able to get some new ones yesterday, but haven't had a chance to try it out. The inner fenders are really thin, so I will practice on some scrap before giving it a go on the real thing.What he said. The front axle is wider than the stock GM, so I solved two problems with the spacers. Converted the bolt pattern to match the front axle and increased the track width as well so that both axles are tracking the same.
As a side note, I realized that this thread went over the 300k views mark. To everyone that has looked at it, I hope its been of value and thank you for taking the time to keep up with my little journey.
Jack
locrwln
Expedition Leader
Kingsize24
Well-known member
Jack your truck rocks. Well worth the 300k views. Cheers, Chilli..
THIS! 100%
locrwln
Expedition Leader
So as Clint would say, "A man has got to know his limitations." I found mine with trying to weld the inner fenders, so I called a mobile welder and let him do the hard work. He knocked everything out yesterday. That left today for prepping everything to be Upol Raptor Lined. We got everything scuffed, cleaned, primed and lined today. Once the liner cures, (which it should be more than ready tomorrow); the bed will be ready to be installed. Hoping to get that done tomorrow.
Jack
Jack
locrwln
Expedition Leader
Thank you. I got the bed set back down on the truck, but didn't get it completely installed as of yet. Some of the bolts are very tough to get to and my shoulder let me know that it wasn't happy, so I had to take a break from the install.
The skid held up great. The amazing thing is that once I moved to larger tires, I never hit the skid plate on anything. I bent a stock skid with the stock tires, but the larger tires kept me from hitting anything. I am not surprised that you couldn't find anything as that kit (when available) was priced at $2500.00. So as you can imagine, they didn't sell too many and as a result; stopped making them.
Jack
locrwln
Expedition Leader
I know it has been a while for the update and you might be wondering what was taking so long to get a flatbed bolted down to a truck. Well, when Alum-Line built the bed, they supplied a turn signal/running light and a reverse light on the rear of the bed. I wired everything up and figured out that I didn't have any brake lights. Of course, I didn't find this out until the end of the day for Alum-Line (Iowa). I had confirmed that all of the wires on the truck side were correct and working correctly. I followed the schematic provided by Alum-Line (which showed two red lights on the rear of the bed versus my one). I called the following day (Friday) and left a message with the person I was told to leave a message with and never heard back from him.
I thought perhaps they were meant to have the two separate wires from the truck spliced together and ran into the one light, so I hooked everything up that way and guess what? I was wrong. When I hit the brakes, every light lit up, so that wasn't right. I called on Monday and talked with the guy that I left a message with on Friday, he told me that I should have had two red lights on the rear of the bed and there had been a mistake on the build specifications. I was referred back to my salesman to figure out a solution. Normally, for my generation of truck, which has separate bulb for brake and a separate bulb for turn signal, they should have installed two red lights with one reverse light on each side of the bed. Because they only installed one red and one white, I could either have brake lights or turn signals, but not both. When building the bed with only two lights on each side, they center the two lights between the outside edge and the frame rail. Each light is 4" LED's and when installing the three (like they should have with my build), they center the three lights in the available space.
For those paying attention, you guessed it, there isn't enough room to install a third 4" light in the available space. The work-around was to install a 2" light. I figured a brake light is more important than the turn signal () so I had them send two amber turn signal lights. Now the problem is that Peterson Mfg., doesn't make their brake/turn signal light in a 2", so we were using a side marker light in it's place. Of course, that required a different plug on the rear of the light compared to the harness that was installed on the truck bed. So after another round of calls, we had the correct plug for the amber lights enroute. After getting all of the correct parts, it was time to drill some holes and splice some wires. I centered the 2" amber between the outside edge and the brake light and after getting it installed, I think it looks pretty good overall. I would have preferred to have the correct light arrangement, but this was really the only option and the amber is more than adequate as a turn signal.
Also, because the filler cap was so exposed, I decided to add a locking cap. I don't think there is any way you could get a syphon hose down the filler neck as it turns 90 degrees about 5" behind the filler, drops down about 4", turns 90 degrees, goes toward the tank and into the fuel port, which has another 90 degrees into the tank, so the thief would have to be extremely talented with a rubber credit card. I did the locking cap more to keep anyone from taking the cap or putting anything into the tank.
Don't worry, I already have the rear mud flaps sitting in the garage to compete the farm truck look.
I have an appointment on Wednesday to get the deck Line-X'd and one on Friday to get the exhaust taken care of. The factory exhaust hit the rear toolbox so I had to take the sawsall to it. I am having a 4" Magnaflow catback system installed that will basically be ran the same way the factory system was, but exiting behind the rear toolbox where it angles up. That should keep it protected and keep the sound at the rear of the truck.
Jack
I thought perhaps they were meant to have the two separate wires from the truck spliced together and ran into the one light, so I hooked everything up that way and guess what? I was wrong. When I hit the brakes, every light lit up, so that wasn't right. I called on Monday and talked with the guy that I left a message with on Friday, he told me that I should have had two red lights on the rear of the bed and there had been a mistake on the build specifications. I was referred back to my salesman to figure out a solution. Normally, for my generation of truck, which has separate bulb for brake and a separate bulb for turn signal, they should have installed two red lights with one reverse light on each side of the bed. Because they only installed one red and one white, I could either have brake lights or turn signals, but not both. When building the bed with only two lights on each side, they center the two lights between the outside edge and the frame rail. Each light is 4" LED's and when installing the three (like they should have with my build), they center the three lights in the available space.
For those paying attention, you guessed it, there isn't enough room to install a third 4" light in the available space. The work-around was to install a 2" light. I figured a brake light is more important than the turn signal (
) so I had them send two amber turn signal lights. Now the problem is that Peterson Mfg., doesn't make their brake/turn signal light in a 2", so we were using a side marker light in it's place. Of course, that required a different plug on the rear of the light compared to the harness that was installed on the truck bed. So after another round of calls, we had the correct plug for the amber lights enroute. After getting all of the correct parts, it was time to drill some holes and splice some wires. I centered the 2" amber between the outside edge and the brake light and after getting it installed, I think it looks pretty good overall. I would have preferred to have the correct light arrangement, but this was really the only option and the amber is more than adequate as a turn signal.
Also, because the filler cap was so exposed, I decided to add a locking cap. I don't think there is any way you could get a syphon hose down the filler neck as it turns 90 degrees about 5" behind the filler, drops down about 4", turns 90 degrees, goes toward the tank and into the fuel port, which has another 90 degrees into the tank, so the thief would have to be extremely talented with a rubber credit card. I did the locking cap more to keep anyone from taking the cap or putting anything into the tank.
Don't worry, I already have the rear mud flaps sitting in the garage to compete the farm truck look.
I have an appointment on Wednesday to get the deck Line-X'd and one on Friday to get the exhaust taken care of. The factory exhaust hit the rear toolbox so I had to take the sawsall to it. I am having a 4" Magnaflow catback system installed that will basically be ran the same way the factory system was, but exiting behind the rear toolbox where it angles up. That should keep it protected and keep the sound at the rear of the truck.
Jack
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