I'm Cheating On You...

[ZEUS]

Looks like it would be too easy to crease bending by hand.

Yeah, I noticed that in the image with the dime as well. Found it concerning myself but also realized I would not need to make such a tight radius. Hmm...

Ya know Zeus I hate to admit it but I actually tryed to wipe that little knat off my screen a while back...

HAHA! Awesome! If I "bug" one person, it was worth it!

Thats either one of the best innovations for brakeline ever or one of those things that's just too good to be true. Is there anywhere they have more info like what this miracle metal is that let's you bend it by hand yet still contains thousands of psi of brake line pressure?

All I could find out about the miracle metal is it is derived from "unobtainium" which is found on some strange moon called Pandora. It says it meets DOT requirements and I don't think a company would carry it nor the DOT approve it if it hadn't proven safe. $4 a foot seems reasonable as well... I'm very curious yet slightly hesitant. I have time to think more about it....

Thanks guys!

[ZEUS]

Well I have made more progress on the dash! I went to the yard for another S-10 dash bezel to cut up and use for a gauge mounting solution. I also wanted to pic up these door panels with leather inserts I found previously in favor of the typical cloth ones I had. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a totalled Yukon Denali while I was there. Much of it was stripped already but I found the dash bezel sitting in the snow which is slightly different than the Sierra bezel... perfectly different!





So since I seemingly found a nice theme coming along in the interior I took an edumacated risk and stepped things up a bit by purchasing a Silverado column off eBay. Luckily, I was able to mount it up to the existing upper column mounts in my dash by adding some fender washers to use as spacers! The lower mount has not been fabbed up yet but here it is half-mounted in place:


In order to get the appropriate depth needed to mount the Sierra gauges in a stock S-10 bezel shroud I had to hack out the bracing of the dash within that space and then apply some heat to the defroster duct so that I could malform it and gain some room. It may look like there are holes in it but there are not:


I will be changing out the wiring from this column to use the wiring from the Sierra which came with radio and computer controls in the wheel!

Since I swapped out the steering box for an Astro version I had already installed the needed XJ Cherokee steering shaft. Happily, I was able to take the lower part of that shaft, drill a hole in it, and mate it to the Sierra upper shaft:


(In the above pic you may notice the hydroboost unit in place as well as the '98-'99 F-body steel exhaust manifold... more on this coming...)

SO THEN! Things were still coming along nicely after I cut up the Denali dash bezel so I ordered a custom Denali blackwood style steering wheel!


Here is how things are coming together:

As you can see, the bezel needs some more trimming before I epoxy it to the bezel shroud and create a mounting setup... You can see the left over vacuum actuated heater control tubes on the floorboard - stupid things!

[RamAirZ]

Looking awesome man! that denali bezel looks great. Were there any other good parts from That denali? I could use some for my sierra

[ZEUS]

Looking awesome man! that denali bezel looks great. Were there any other good parts from That denali? I could use some for my sierra

Thanks man! The Denali was pretty well picked thru but I am heading back tomorrow... what would you like me to look out for?

[ZEUS]

After rearranging the garage to create work zones for this project I dug out the wiring harnesses I pulled from the Sierra and connected them all together again. I went back to the yard to pick up some needed bits to solve some mysteries and those are all shown connected here:


Since I knew I needed to solve my exhaust manifold problem I ordered (again, from eBay) this driver-side '98-'99 F-Body LS1 manifold and this mystery pair of manifolds. These are steel tube so they can be welded on pretty easily for modification. They did not fit in stock form (which was expected) so I cut off the lower flanges of the 2 driver-side manifolds so that I could combine the smaller of the two pieces.


I still need to weld closed the O2 bung and install one on the other side of the tube due to a frame clearance problem. The passenger manifold doesn't quite clear the passenger frame rail with the engine located where it sits now - it will need to be raised at least one inch. This is why I have waited so long to pick out a motor mount solution... still contemplating a few options...

RamairZ - do you recognize that driver manifold with the exit tube in the center? Can't figure out what it came from...