Skinny Chicken Rebuild

[HillBilt]

I lost the original build thread on the truck, so figured Id fire one back up, as the truck in in need of an overhaul. Most of you on here are familiar with it anyways but Ive been poking around on it again as it has sat neglected in the back corner of my yard under a tarp for the last 2 years. the truck was in need of a new motor and i flip flop back and forth for 2 years on whether to make the change to a LS platform or keep the bigblock in it. A good donor bigblock camper special came up on market place and that's the start of poor financial decisions that proceeded.

[HillBilt]

Quick recap: the truck took a pretty good beatdown at the 2020 Insanity Fab winter challege, I was running a friends rental motor. a few weeks after back at home there was a ice race that we entered for fun and was the last time I drove it before pulling the motor back out and pushing it to the back yard.





Last time I drove it, i drove the wheel right off it



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[HillBilt]

Rear springs needed to be replaced, so got another set from the junkyard-58" Ford 1/2ton 2wheel drive. Cleaned them up, and also had a bent passenger side axle tube that I used my forklift to straighten out, but don't have any pics unfortunately


Finally got the door off. Was a pain as it wouldn't open


Also want more rear storage. I dont plan to race the truck anymore or for a while anyways, its time to get back to some fun trails and snowwheeling as its what it was built for. So i need more storage. I decided to try to mount a TMR basket above my fuel cell, which meant i had to relocate my fuel fill. Pain in the ass. I had to pull my sending unit out and swap over to 2" NPT as only thing I could get at the time



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[HillBilt]

Got the diff cleaned up and slung back under it. Painted up the basket.


I just built some simple mounts off the top cell mounts for the basket, then routed a fuel fill hose to the new filler location. After completing it and putting fuel in it I then realized that I have no way to check my fuel level now, so will have to come up with something later on



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[HillBilt]

Moving onto the rear bed: I wanted to move my batteries to each side of my cell to free up bed space. So started on the new battery mounts. Pretty basic, added the fire chicken for some flare also got to use the new TMR Machete bender for this, after figuring it out its a pretty nice tool.







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[HillBilt]

Got the crusty Winnebago motor cleaned up with some fresh paint and new cam bearings


Dropped that bitch in, with lots of swearing and prying might I add. Block Castings must be +/- a few thou



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[HillBilt]

Got a new door put on the passenger side and painted up


Mounted up the TSLs. much better than the farmer tires. I also forgot to mention I raised the ride height a couple inches as well.



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[HillBilt]

Got the motor buttoned up and did some shock adjustments

Loaded up and headed out for Maylong


Did some FSR crushing to get some learn time on the efi but not a whole lot until we hit the trail for some snow bashing





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[HillBilt]

Truck ran mint, no real issues other then running on 7 cylinders for a bit from a loose plug wire. Broke trail for the most part.











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[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Nice. Looks like it was a beauty day out there.

[Scoobienorth]

So awesome seeing this out again

[Snowracer]

wicked to see the skinny chicken back in action

[Snowracer]

so another rebuild after the rebuild ?

[pointsnorth]

Like the third post he said no to racing lol


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[Scoobienorth]

Like the third post he said no to racing lol


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If hillbilt gonna keep racing like this I’ve got a pair of garbage cans, otherwise known a grand Cherokees that I’d sell. Got to be cheaper and less work than rebuilding this every race