Where to start…let’s start with the easiest thing I did today.
I went to the parts store this evening and picked up a ¾ nut extractor. After supper, just tapped it on and took off my stuck locking lug nuts. YEAH! With an extension, ratchet and cheater pipe, they came right off. This is a big relief. Now I can pull them off tomorrow and throw the old front end in the back of the truck. There will be a trip to the metal reclamation place later this week to get rid of all the scrap metal that’s piling up from this project.
On to the front end…
I had to finish up wielding the points on the cross member and hat’s that I didn’t do yesterday. Once done, it was one to installing the C notches in the frame to make room for the rack. Not having a plasma cutting, this was time consuming. After marking my frame and cutting what I could with my grinder (with a 4 inch cutting wheel), I attacked it with a Dremel. This gave me the clean arc that I wanted. I didn’t take the time to go all of the way through. I just grabbed the individual vertical “tabs†I had cut with the grinder and worked them off with vise grips. Then I ground the arc smooth. I don’t have a good photo of this part. The photo was too fuzzy so, I made a quick drawing that shoudl give you the idea of what I’m talking about.
