Ron said:
Mike,
No sour grapes. I should have said "thanks to cooper (POR flipoff guy)" Just to say that cooper taught you a lot, while it is your truck and I know you did a lot of the work (and based on your posts went from a near newbie to someone who knows a thing or two working on it) cooper is the one reponsible for the frame, drivetrain etc.
Ron
Oh yeah, you're completely correct. I'm always quick to point out that without his fabrication skills none of my big projects would have gotten done as well as they did.
Before I started hanging out with Cooper, pretty much the biggest job I'd ever done was changing the wheel bearings on my '66 88-inch. I thought that was a big accomplishment, and considering that not too long before that I actually didn't know how important motor oil was to keep in your engine (blew up a VW bus motor as a result...but I digress...).
Cooper taught me to think outside the box when designing a vehicle. The 80-inch was pretty much a 3-year apprenticeship on vehicle assembly and fabrication. From there I was pretty much on my own as far as designing and coming up with the concept of the CrewCab and the ChuckWagon. The LWB's were also an extention of what I learned from the 80-inch.
I was lucky I found someone that would not only work on my trucks and do custom fabrication on them, but also would answer my questions and teach me some things from time to time.
I'm good with wiring, nuts and bolts, suspension, etc...but the finer things like engine assembly I'm just now getting the hang of (gotta get that rebuilt 4.2l into the LWB before too long...but I digress again)...which shows that I know just enough to be dangerous. Taking apart a transmission is out of my league too, but I can remove and install one now thanks to the school of hard knocks.
Timm was a big help in my automotive education, but honestly the conversations I'd had on-line and reading my manuals were a close second. Getting in there, getting dirty and making mistakes to learn from were the best teachers. Fortunately no one was killed because of some of the things I'd done wrong. Hehe.
:flipoff2: