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And the ring gear clearance. This is the factory carrier with factory 4.56 gears. The gears are going to be re-used the carrier will be replaced with an ARB. Ring gear clearance on the lower skid plate. It's very good, as in about 1/16" of an inch. Plenty to not worry about it. So...…...

Here’s how the plate and cover will sit It's a BIG skid plate

What time is it? Time for anything shave actually.... This is the Ballistic Fab D60 shave kit and the cover is sans "skull" plate. Gain in clearance is right around an inch. Worth it? In my opinion yes if you've got the axle down this far, have it blasted and are going to change/replace...

And now it’s clean. No kidding this took them only about 10 minutes. I could have spent HOURS on it and it wouldn't be this good. Inside the axle tubes. I asked them to shoot a bunch of media through them and they did a great job. No more rust, dirt or scale. However, the previous damage...

Time for a little Dana 60 teardown.....this axle also came down from Fairbanks, AK. I hauled it down in the bed of the M715 actually. Generally any heavy duty truck parts in AK get used HARD and this axle was certainly no exception.... Full tear down, these are the parts which won't be...

I must have woke up hating myself because I ended up hand lapping the 15B cover 3 hours this afternoon just to get the damn thing flat. It looks like it snagged in the mill when ECGS tried to flatten it. Pretty big gouges :banghead: 60 grit glued to flat 3/8" plate + a whole lot of sweat...

Final cut... Better. MUCH better

Took a break from the tedious tunnel work. Who needs a SHAVE? :idontknow: Lets make a 15Bolt..... Start with a $189 junkyard axle and begin by adding about $5k in parts...... prepping for the East Coast Gear Supply shave kit which adds 2" of ground clearance under the axle All done on a...

Here's a close-up of a welded nutsert. Originally I was doing ER70S2 but I later switched to silicone bronze. The nutserts REALLY don't like heat and they want to melt way before the base metal The key to clean tunnel construction is going slow. I very carefully hand bent this to match...

Starting the tunnel construction, all 14G. It's thick enough that it welds pretty decent but not so thick that you can't easily bend it to your will.... Lots of cardboard design before any of the sheet metal got cut up. I'm retaining the upper portion of the factory transmission hump...

The pin is in place here. Prior to welding, I drilled it to use an 1/8" cotter pin. This pin is obviously too short but you get the idea. Moving on now to the transmission hump. This is the factory unit. It's not rusty but it's bent to hell and has at least 4 coats of paint on it Drawing...

Blasted the clutch pedal to clean it up, new needle bearings are on the way Brake pedal, to my surprise, the factory pivot pins fits the hydroboost rod perfectly. However it wasn't in the right spot. The pin is pressed into place. I ground the one end off and then pressed the pin out...

Prepping to cut the hole for the new Wilwood clutch master cylinder. The truck was originally a goofy mechanical pushrod system for the clutch. At the very least, I triple checked this against where the clutch pedal was located before cutting the hole Done, the Wilwood until is super clean...

Transitioned to the inner firewall in the driver footwell. I needed to plate this also so that I could properly mount the Flaming River steering column support. It requires a flat surface and I wanted to seal up the firewall very well. This is where the steering column support will...

Fully welding the top of the factory plate and blending the two together... Final plate going in which will tie the entire firewall together and provide a completely flat mounting surface Done and Hydroboost until mounted A few more plating bits to help seal everything up

On to retrofitting the pedals. Fortunately the GM pedal that mates to the 8.1 is drive by wire since threading a throttle cable would be essentially impossible. The clutch and brake pedals are factory on the factory hangers. All three align quite well Before the pedals can be finalized, I...

Old factory dash/gauge cluster. And yeah, the miles are original New and updated gauges This is the factory M715 complete frame and engine harness. Overall, not terrible but not great shape either. I sorted it all out and separated the bits used just to control the large factory...

These are the Vintage Air vents. They fit quite well over the factory M715 vent ports but need to be custom mounted The goal on this build is to use nutserts or welded studs whenever possible. They make assembly/disassembly very easy since you don't need a backup wrench. These studs are...

I’m beginning to square away interior bits also. This is a Vintage Air Magnum unit. Both heat and AC. It's gigantic and it JUST fit against the firewall. For those with "J" trucks, this unit will "probably" fit also and it's supposed to REALLY put out the head and AC Tucked right above the...

Maybe it’s just me but I had a heck of a time finding a GM 14B locally. I probably visited 4-5 different yards before finding this one from a 79' 2WD. Got it hub to hub, no warranty for $189 which is just fine with me since I really only want the housing anyway. When I told the nice junkyard...