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
Any updates?

no updates yet, havent had much money to put into it lately, money has gone to other things in the last few months
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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
Went to Moab a few weekends ago, truck performed very well, spit a couple front driveshaft ujoint caps on rock chucker but that was the only carnage I suffered, we did moab rim, metal masher, hells (escalator and hells gate), and the pickle, fun weekend but didnt get any really good pics, there will however be video later as soon as it gets edited

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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
Nice! Did you go right up Potato Salad hill?
Right up! didnt even spin a tire, picked the same line that Ive gone up 6 or so times with my grand cherokee and it never did it that easily, escalator was the same, the hole was full of water and it still walked right up it no problem

Good lookin rig, you built it right. I'm lookin for a 78-79 F150 for my next project.


Love me some motorbike riding!
thanks a lot, Im really happy with it right now, 78-79 F150 would be a sweet project for sure! I'd watch that build

Sweet mine! Looks like its performing amazingly!
it is! we need to get a run in soon!
 

OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
I've been going up AF Canyon for the last couple weekends with this, the first time I bent the stock rear driveshaft and cracked the tcase, got it all fixed and decided to give it a go again the next weekend and bent another rear driveshaft, so I now have a nice heavy duty Tom Woods rear drive shaft under the truck.

Ill just leave these here

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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
have a little update to this. something Ive missed a lot about my grand cherokee was the off road lighting, it had great light at night thanks to four 7" KC lights mounted to the roof rack (two spot and two flood) pretty much lit up everything when they were on, so I have finally taken care of that problem with this vehicle and added a a couple led light bars, two on the roof and added one to my rock lights its a night and day difference... literally
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OrvisKrawler

Captain Obvious
Location
Eden UT
Went down to the snakes over the weekend, and did rattlesnake and constrictor, made it up waynes world for the first time with this truck so I thought I would post a few pics in here

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radiator rapids
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