My Billet Wheels Arrived - Now Boze Wedge Equipped!
Happy day, after months and months of planning, dreaming, measuring I finally had the billet wheels for the truck in my hands on Friday. It's been a bit of a journey, thus the lack of updates.
I put in the order with Zak at Boze Alloys back in October and he made the process very easy. Thanks also to David at McHugh and Eastwood in North Geelong who handled the freight for me. As the wheels were in transmit, I put an order in for my tyres at Associated Cold Tread Tyres in North Geelong. Toyo are the only manufacturer who could make the size and load rating requirements for my rear tyres, so I went with the Proxes ST-II, although I have to wait until next year for the front tyres.
It all came together when I picked up the wheels, dropped them off to have tyres fitted (used the tyres from a pair of my BMW wheels on the fronts for now.) I also went back to Hoppers to grab my bench seat, as I've not progressed the bucket seat frame and I'm not undecided which way I want to go with the seating.
Fitting the rear wheels wasn't as straight forward as I'd expected. The BMW wheels with the 255 wide tyres were already a squeeze to fit between the tub arch and the wheel hub assembly, and no matter what I tried the wider wheels and tyres didn't want to go in nicely. In the end, I had to unbolt the tub from the chassis, and using the beams in my sheds roof and some ratchet straps, pulled each side up enough to squueze the wheels in. I was pondering a tilt-tub at some stage, I might have to make that a priority now!
Having the exhaust fitted and lacking a hoist combined to make the process slower and more tedious than it should have been, so it wasn't until this morning I got the fronts fitted (without dramas) and then reinstalled the bench seat.The floor shift works fine with the bench seat fitted, thus making the decision about what I do with the seating a little more difficult.
I deliberately ordered the front wheels with less offset than the BMW runners I was rolling on, as they were tucking in a little more than I liked. The front now rub on the guards when the truck is fuly dropped and my turning circle - even with the truck at full height - is considerably reduced. I expected the guards would need some work when I got around to putting the front tubs in, so that should sort it all out. I have already started re-routing wiring away from the guards, and have the LHS front now running through the chassis rail.
I'm very happy with the end result, looks even better than the ultra-dodgy photoshop I did 12 months ago when I committed to this style of wheel.
One of the other reason for the lack of updates and progress has been another project I've been working on for my step-son Max. I finally finished his rather large outdoor half-pipe which he's most pleased with. This means I get back onto the truck, and with 3 weeks over Xmas I'm expecting to get a lot of the interior done. I've got the Geelong All Ford Day in Feb as a target to have it fully streetable, hopefully with engineering completed.
PS. Thanks FedEx for charging me import duty on US-made goods when you know perfectly well we have a Free Trade Agreement in place. At least they arrived in good order and on time.
