OrvisKrawlers 96 chevy standard cab shortbed build

A month or so ago I picked this truck up on ksl after selling my grand cherokee, the goal was the same as the grand, build a vehicle to go wheeling, take to moab and do some hard trails, be a daily driver, and be reliable, plans were for a dana 60 and a 14 bolt, so here is what I started out with
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it was a pretty clean fairly low mileage truck with some horrible spray tint on the lights, the first thing I wanted to do was sand and buff the lenses and rip all the moldings off, here was the result
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a few weeks after I picked it up I started looking for a 14 bolt and a dana 60, found my rear 14 bolt at a local junk yard, it was out of a 96, after making some measurements I realized it would bolt right in and the stock drive shaft would even work( with a conversion ujoint)
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at the time I couldnt find a 78-79 d60 so I picked up a really clean '90 version off ksl after doing a little research and seeing that it would work for my needs
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now that I had the axles I needed to get the parts to build them, decided to go with 5.13's and detroits front and rear, high steer kit from balistic and cross over kit from ruff stuff, and some SOLID covers from polyperformance, got all that ordered and got the axles put together
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I was surprised at how easy they were to set up, only took a few hours, my dana 30 in the grand cherokee was a pita compared to these, anyway next I needed front springs, I went with 52" blazer rears, found them from a forum member on here, after I got those I was able to score a good deal on some 37" BFG dot Krawlers, then went and pulled a pitman arm from a dodge pickup, the taper for the tre is on the wrong side, in the past Ive used this arm and just fill the hole up a little with weld and taper the other side and its worked well, so thats what Im doing this time, just waiting for my tapered bit to show up
the time came this weekend that I would have some shop time so I got everything ready, went and got my steel for the front cross member and shackles, and shackle hangers, decided to do the rear first since it was just a bolt in deal and a shackle flip, here is how it started
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I ended up taking out the chicken killer bottom leaf and needed a set of shims to get the right angle for the drive shaft after the shackle flip
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forgot to take a pic of the shackle flip, Ill have to get one later, anyway rear was almost done, I modified the brake line mounts to be able to use the stock brake line, and tomorrow I need to go pick up a conversion ujoint and bolt up the drive shaft
so saturday I started on the front
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diff and torsion bars out, next was everything else
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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
ok more to add, today I decided to cut the bottom of the bedsides off in the back, when I build my rear bumper it will wrap around right under where it is cut, and also got some mud flaps built and installed, they are removeable, I HATE mud flaps, but I dont want a ticket.

I got my driveshaft back from tom woods, via seth at trail ridge, who has been hooking me up with parts for this build, anyway, i was going to try to convert from the strap style output on the tcase to a round flange, so bought a flange, long story short, 2 trips to tom woods shop and a couple times re-working the ends (axle side needed a different joint), the flange ended up not working, so I went with the cast cap and bolt style output for the double cardon, after I got the driveshaft in I pulled it up on the rock wall at work to test some things out, still rubs a bit in the front so I will be trimming a bit more there, but other than that it seemed to be fine, nothing blew up when I put it in 4low and everything worked so Im happy. haha, here are a few pics from today:

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its close to the exhaust but was about a half inch away when the tire was up in the wheel well, Ill probably re-do the exhaust right above the shaft to be safe though
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so now that I have four wheel drive, my next things to do will probably be sliders, bumpers, traction bar and hooking up my cb
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
got a chance to get this out on the freeway and then make a run up mineral basin yesterday, this truck is smooth on the freeway, my only complaint is it feels like the tires need to be ballanced again. it did great on the trail on the way up, I definitely need sliders though, got into the door a little bit and crunched the drivers cab corner, on the way back down my drive shaft was hitting the exhaust, which was wierd because it didnt hit once all the way up, anyway I didnt get any action shots, but I took a couple just sitting on the trail, I was surprised how many compliments I got, had a couple people come up to me and BS about it while I was airing down and a bunch compliments from people on the trail, people seem to really like this truck, anyway here are some pics, and one of my fixed exhaust that I just got done welding up :thumbs:
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end of the road
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crunch
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no way it will hit now
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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
got some more done on this over the weekend, went and picked up some steel 418421_10150937010025951_1020468200_n.jpg started cutting and welding and ended up with this
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also got my cb installed but no pics of that yet, and picked up some lights that Im going to use for rock lights, hopefully I can get them installed by friday for the AF canyon camping trip!
 
Last edited:

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
On your sliders, is the round tube parallel to the square tube? In other words, are they wider at either the front or the back?
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
yeah, the square and round tubes are parallel with each other, the pic of the sliders on the ground makes it look like they arent but thats just an optical illusion courtesy of the amazing camera on my phone ( wish I had a real camera )
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
got a few things done on this in the last couple days so I would have something new to test out on steves rubicon shakedown run #1, I needed a way to securely mount my Co2 bottle so I built a mount and mounted it in the bed
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and finally got a chance to wire up a few rock lights, front and center are done, still need to do the ones in the back
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the goal for this week is to get a rear bumper made and installed
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
made a little bit of progress on this over the last few days, rear bumper is almost finished, and I bought a winch, I had a friend looking to sell his Ramsey Platinum 9500lb winch with syn rope so I snagged it, here are a couple pics of how the bumper is turning out
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just need to build the side supports to the frame and make some pull points, then paint it
 

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
The rear bumper looks great, I'm planning something similar... cut the bottom of the quarter panels and build a simple wrap around tube bumper. Good to see you tackling the smaller items, looking forward to the winch bumper build and mount!
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
hey thanks, as awesome as it would be, I dont think I will be able to make the rubicon run, Im going to be in Island Park Id. that week fly fishing with my father.
on another note though, I got my rear bumper finished, Ill try to post a pic soon
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
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