A lot went down since my last post. I borrowed a camera so I have a few pictures this time:
I picked up a new gauge cluster from the junk yard. The lights on the right half of my gauges never worked. Now I have a fully illuminated display! I also have about 10,000 less miles on the odometer. I had hoped that this would resolve the squeak in my speedometer, but it's still there... I assume it must be coming from the cable. Can you lubricate those cables? And if so, with what?
I picked up some floor mats for the front door wells. I scrubbed them down real good with ajax and lightly spritzed them with bed liner coating. I'll use them to trim out the front doors like I did the slider.
So Velzy here loaned me her camera. She helped me a lot yesterday. In this shot, she's removing that black sealant from my paint left behind by the first glass shop that replaced my windshield.
So, the big project of the day yesterday was the front bumper. I took a big step forward in getting it to a usable state. I had to go buy a new set of sockets just to remove the existing bumper. Once off, I found that the bumper brackets were riveted in place, not bolted. With some help of my house mate Cano, we manged to find a way to extend the frame rails. What we've done so far is only half of the mounting framework I intend to build, so I'll get a better shot of the construction once more is finished.
We trimmed up the existing bumper to better wrap around the front of the van. I love plasma cutters. There's a "gap" that will need to be filled at some point, but here's what the bumper looks like resting in place.
I'm a long way from having my "finished" bumper, but I'm really glad to be making progress. Here's my current intentions:
- Get what you see in the pic mounted securely.
- Weld on new pipe around the grill and lights.
- Cut holes and drop in ammo boxes flush with the top to make tool boxes.
- Add some sort of mount point for shackles.
- Try to add a folding bike rack.
- Add a bottle opener.
- Sand and paint.
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