Ol’ Blue 71 Chevy – First Shakedown Run


Had my dad follow me out to his land, it had been a while since I was last out there so we made a family event out of it. It is ~55 miles out of town. That means in total I probably drove Ol’ Blue ~130 miles today with very few hiccups. Drives quite nicely down the highway, and the suspension, lockers, and 4wd work as they should.

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Hiccup #1 the tachometer wire started shorting out of the firewall and made the truck stumble until I figured it out. For now it is just cut, I’ll fix it tomorrow.

Hiccup #2 I discovered that my metal fuel line along the frame rail is too close to the exhaust. Took a while to figure out but when we were driving around slow it would randomly sputter and shut off. When I would check my clear fuel filter it would be empty. Crank it for a bit and it would fire up and run for ~50ft. Turns out it was just vapor locking because the metal line was too hot. Any other driving besides slow crawling had enough airflow for it to cool off.

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Here are pics of the biggest ditch that we could find that wasn’t heavily wooded.

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Tires fit in the wheel-wells nicely. The tires just barely touch at full compression.

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Rear Suspension working

Rear Suspension working

Close up. Bump stop doing it's job.

Close up. Bump stop doing it’s job.

Front suspension

Front suspension

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Tired pup on the way home.

Tired pup on the way home.

Short video:

2014-03-15 Ol’ Blue

So far everything is working as planned. The truck drove great down the highway and performed great besides the two hiccups mentioned above.

 

I have some new things to add to my “To-Do” list:
Fix tachometer
Re-run fuel lines further away from the exhaust
Fix fuel gauge so I can stop worrying about running out of gas

 

 

 

 

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