Car updates as well as hyperfixations
Two updates on my truck for this month, the first of which was ordering and installing H4 conversion headlights for my truck. The US mandated that all cars use what are known as sealed beam headlights until 1984, which are glass replaceable headlights that come in four common shapes. These headlights are very cheap and have improved substantially in brightness since their creation, however I wanted to upgrade them on my truck. Most "upgrades" are either very ugly, or blind other road users due to their poor design or quality. I chose Hella conversion headlamps, sometimes called semi-sealed beams. These keep the oem look with a nice glass lens but have proper geometry to account for the H4 bulb. It's important that you pick ones that are designed correctly, Hella has a sort of metal dome on the inside to direct the light, most Amazon cheap-o lights don't have this. I'm keeping with the halogen bulbs since I don't need much, but you can upgrade to LEDs if needed, although this might result in poor beam scatter, blinding other drivers. These lights are also great because they came with pigtails that swap the low beam and ground since sealed beam and H4 are different. These were litteraly plug and play, didn't have to do any triming to the healight bucket. In the process, I found that someone definitely dropped or stripped a couple of screws and managed to make wood screws work. Anyway, heres pics of the truck, I may get high beams in the future if I get the money and the means.
The second update on my truck was an issue I had to fix. The truck suddenly started running terribly one night, it sounded like it was only firing on like two cylinders, kind of sounded like an aircooled VW. Driving it around more, the problem would sometimes go away for no reason. I eventually figured out that if I rested my foot on the clutch pedal, the truck ran perfectly, which made me worry that I had some kind of vacuum leak in my clutch system, or worse, a bad throwout bearing or something. As it turned out though, my clutch safety switch decided to start working again, and bugging out. I have no clue how the safety switch works on my truck, I had assumed someone disconnected it long before and that it would just cut power from the starter solonoid, but I guess it does something more. That or I have an underlying wiring issue with my truck *Gulp*. As a temporary/permanent solution I just unscrewed the switch and left it under my dash, in the future I can make a jumper wire to bridge the connecter.
Don't know where this one came from, but I really want a 4-door, "quad cab", "club cab", "crew cab", etc., truck from before the 2000s. I think International was the first with the Travelette.
1967 International Travelette on BaT
Also a big fan of the Dodge squarebodies, bullnose and aeronose Fords (not bricknose), and especially of Chevy/GMC squarebodies. Add a utility/service bed on a single rear wheel (non-dually) 4x4, and I'm sold! Also, some old school diesel with a period correct turbo kit would have me on my knees. Of course, theres squarebody Dodges with 12 valves, but I like the shittier and quirkier ones like the International 6.9 IDIs in the fords or the Detroit Diesel 6.2s in the chevys (I know the 6.5 turbos are bad). Have one of those two with an old Banks or ATS kit, *muah* chefs kiss. I guess this style mimics offroad racing support vehicles, which explains why I like it so much, heres a picture of a squarebody Dodge support rig.
Now for ideal builds, starting with the Ford. I could go in two directions, find a 1986 F350 4x4 bullnose (1986 was when Ford started using a solid front axle for 350 trucks and also the last year of the bullnose), with a 6.9 IDI and some kind of old turbo kit. The leaf sprung TTB on the 250s and early 350s wouldnt be a bad option since Desolate motorsports has a kit to convert to long travel coils, but I feel like a solid front axle fits the classic rugged work truck look. Then I could take a ZF5 five speed manual from either a bricknose or aeronose diesel and bolt that up (apparently gas ZF5s wont work). Then, of course add a utility bed. Option two is to use a later bricknose or aeronose truck of the same spec and swap the front fascia over, this is potentially cheaper and opens up a really easy way to have the legendary 7.3 powerstroke or if i dont want a diesel I can have a full EFI 460. The only issue is that I quite like the front end of the aeronose and the bricknose doesent have the 7.3 powerstoke. The bricknose does at least have an optional factory turbo on the IDI (7.3 in this case) and factory ZF5 manual. Heres the closest pic of the vision that I could find.
Hehe 6.9 liters is about 420 cubic inches :3
I'd really want a Squarebody over a bullnose, and for this I'd get a Chevy K30/GMC K35 (I'm not sure if the K20/25 came in quad cab) "3+3" as it was marketed. This one could go multiple ways, I could get an earlier prefacelift (1973-79) and either put some super nice Chevy big block crate engine, 12 or 24 valve Cummins, or an LB7 Duramax, which i think I prefer since it keeps it in the family. All of these swaps have been done a million times, as well as some oddball swaps like 2-stroke Detroit Diesel 4-53t's or ive even seen a Duetz 5 cylinder diesel swap. Another option would be to find a post facelift truck with the factory Detroit Deisel 6.2 and some kind of period-correct turbo kit. I could do a front-end swap for pre-facelift, since I DO NOT want a pre-facelift truck with the factory Oldsmobile 350 diesel. For any of these engine options, I'd pick some kind of five-speed, not sure which. Once again, a utility bed would be fitted. I like the classic two-tone that came on some of these trucks. I could also paint it like the GMC Desert Fox (which never existed in a quad cab), like in my drawing below.
You'll have to do some imagining here
For both of these builds, I think it would have to be stock-style steel wheels. I think something period correct, like American Racing Outlaws or something new like a set of basic Methods or something similar, could work, but the steel wheels look soooo good and can be paired to both low and high trim trucks, depending on hubcaps and beauty rings. They also pair extremely well with pizzacutter tires (no wide tire bubba trucks here). Ideally, I'd find a high spec truck, but an old forest service truck would be cool and would be in one of my favorite colors. Finally, I'd be building this truck to do everything: I could tow projects or whatever around, put a bed camper in (photo below), and just do some offroading. If I had big money, I could do a full 4 link front and rear setup (once again below).
stim sesh is over, thanks for coming to my TED Talk