Moving on

I said goodbye to the truck, sad to see it go but it was time to move on to the next project.  Truck was sold on August 15th and the next day I picked up the future family cruiser, a 1963 Biscayne wagon (same body as an Impala).  I'll start a new blog to document that build, but currently no frame swap plans for that one.  Here's a picture of it coming home on the trailer, and here's a link to the new blog for the wagon:. Operation Biscayne

Bonneville 2016

Time for another road trip!  Last year Troy and I had planned to take the truck on a guys trip down to Bonneville for Speed Week.  Unfortunately Speed Week was cancelled due to poor salt condition so we ended up going to Hot August Nights.  This year the salt was in good shape so we decided to go down there and check it out.  Truck ran great on the 1,500 mile trip and the recently updated bench seat was very comfortable, but we sure could have used some air conditioning. The sliding rear window does help a lot but I think I'm going to make AC a priority before next summer.
To prepare for the trip I recently swapped the rear end for one out of a '99 Police Interceptor.  This had to be done for rear fender clearance.  With the wider, lower offset wheels the tires have been rubbing when the rear was lowered which could be trouble if one of the bags had an issue on the trip.  The earlier rear end is 7" narrower, allowing plenty of clearance.  This keeps the truck drivable in the case of a rear bag failure.  Since I was switching rears I found one with Trac-Lock and 3.55 gears (previously was 3.27) for better acceleration and traction.  I was a little concerned about mileage after the swap, but I calculated the mileage at about 20mpg going over 70 most of the way with windows down (and even 80-85 through Idaho).   We made the trip home in 12 hours with a couple stops for meals, a couple fill ups, and a rest stop.

I've posted a video on YouTube that has pictures and video highlights of the trip, you can view that here:  https://youtu.be/jVHuX9QFwuw

Here are a few pictures of the truck on the trip:

Billetproof 2016

No new work done, just wanted to share some pictures from Billetproof NW 2016.  Great show!