Thanks for all the positive comments guys! I'm not going to respond to everyone, but thanks!! I have to say that the guys at Offroad Design are the ones that deserve all the credit, they made this project quite simple. All the engineering they put into this conversion and the beefy, quality parts they provide made it easy... so, thanks Stephen and everyone at OffRoad Design!
Love it..
Get the wheels to Jeff & Ryan at Armor Powdercoating; hell of a great price for hell of a great customer service experience and product quality!
Yeah, like I said... if I had the money! Plus, the tires are already mounted.
Dang. Perfect height and my favorite GM grill--I'm in love.
Fyi you'll need to replace the silly 1500 door badges with the appropiate 3500 badges before you get too carried away
I'm pretty happy with the height and stance! I'll see what I can do about the 1500 to 3500 badges.
If you're too cheap to get the wheels PC'd (I was,) you should just paint them. I used Rustoleum high temp engine enamel on a set of H2 wheels, and I was amazed at how well it looked, and it was super durable. It seems like the engine enamel is more durable than most rattle-can paints, and it was very resistant to stains from Moab mud, gear oil, etc... I took my time to clean the wheels with First Kleen, used a red Scotch Brite pad on all surfaces to rough them up, and then primed them with Rustoleum High Temp engine primer before the paint. I liked that the paint was a satin finish too, not glossy, but not too dull either.
I believe Lewis did his H2s similarly as well. Except that he took more time to tape them off (and they looked amazing when he was finished.) I just painted the entire wheel.
That is a great idea, I may do that. I was very impressed with how well the wheels came out on his Tacoma! One of those things that I will put on my list for 'down the road.'
WOW! I cant believe how well your vision came together. What an acomplishment and in such short order. Job well done, sir.
LT.
Thanks Rob, after many builds I've learned it's good to have a plan and stick to the plan. My initial idea's weren't 100% specific (35's vs 37's, Dana 44 vs Dana 60), but I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted in the end.
So after some brake line fabbing & plumbing.... I pulled the GMC out of the garage today and shot a few pics!
I did a quick brake bleed, got a half-decent pedal and pulled it out of the garage! I have to say, the truck drives totally different with a solid axle than it did with IFS!
It's not bad, just different. I have a huge list of small things to do, but at least it moves under it's own power. The flat leaf springs front and rear allow for a pretty 'loose' feeling truck... I do believe there is some kind of anti-sway bar in the future for this truck. I've been planning on adding one and I'm not at all surprised that it's worth adding.
I drove over some dips in the road at speed and the truck handles them great, very firm and plenty of travel. It will be fun to get all the small things wrapped up and see how well it all works together while traveling down some rough roads.