That pickup looks outstanding. Keep taking your time like you are doing so far and I bet that thing comes out perfect. Good stuff.
John

today I put in the body lift. it is only 1.5" and it is excatly what I want. it all went well. here are before and after pictures.

now the next question. have people raised up there fuel tank after body lifts? Ours is very dented, may replace it or at least take it out and try to get it better. does not leak but is dented about 10" up in one corner.

Yes, several of us here in AZ have raised our gas tanks. I'm not sure if there are any significant differences between the SWB & LWB but you should be able to raise it at least 1.5" if not more. I have a 2" body lift and a 3" gas tank lift on my LWB - Toasty reworked the tank mounts to do the lift.

thats good to know. I had not seen anything on a Gen 1 to raise the tank.

I like that 1.5 lift, are you going to crank the bars a bit and throw some shackles or add-a-leafs on?

not sure if I want to do anything to the suspension just now. I did the body lift to help make room for the intercooler and hoses. and to finaly be able to get to those top bellhousing bolts.
If things work out I will put the motor in next week. or if I'm lucky I will be enjoying my first grandchild!.

Either way... Awesome!!!


And congratulations <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

For raising the tank, you can very easily raise it ~1" (IIRC). I think to go more and you have to move it above the rear frame cross-section. Take a look at how it's mounted to the frame. There is a drop on the rear mount that is shorter the the two drops on the front edge. Cut the rear off and grind flat, then reweld to the frame. Cut the fronts off and trim to equal the amount cut off the rear.

I did this with my original 2" BL. I have since cut the BL in half and there were no clearance inssues with the tank.

I did extend my gas filler hose. I had a second hose from a parts truck. I used a section of it, spliced with galvanize exhaust pipe, and clamped up.

well this morning was finally nice and cool, so I decided to put the motor in. Got everything ready, motor off the stand and onto the hoist. went to put one of my 2 new to me driveplates on. I got the new ones because my original was totaled and the starion driveplate only had 4 holes for the torque converter and I needed 6. Unfortunately the crank bushing on the starion is much larger than the raider bushing. So now my choices are, drill new holes in the starion driveplate to match the raider torque converter. Or enlarge the bushing hole on one of my new driveplates.

I am thinking that my Starion motor must be an odd ball or my raider is, as I have not heard of this problem on other post.

I'm open for suggestions on which route to go.

He are a couple pictures which might make things more obvious.




the drive plate on the right is the original starion, left is one of the new ones.