by mad4hws » Sun Feb 16, 2020 7:53 am
Hi everyone.
I got the Minion Missile back from Gus the mechanic this week. It hadn't been driven since we replaced the axles and driveshafts and fixed all of the linkage. I was a bit nervous, but she made it home okay, which was about 10 miles away. My wife was following me (thankfully). At one point, there is a pretty good sized hill that I had to downgear to first for. It was really sluggish until I put it into high gear. I don't think this is as much of an issue with the truck as it is an issue with me needing to learn how to drive it.
I had Gus put in new shackles, taller ones, that raised it by 2" so that I can put a little bit bigger tires on. This meant new shocks, much bigger shocks than the ones I had just put on that have zero miles on them (anyone need brand new shocks?). He also put on the header that was shipped in from Australia a few years ago that was collecting dust on my build shelf and tuned the new motorcraft carb. - including putting in an electric choke. He also mounted my Koenig series 100 winch, but it's a little bit different from the ones that I have seen on Patrols. The mounting bracket is much taller. If we were to mount it upright, the shaft would not fit. So, he mocked it up with it upside down (this still requires the shaft on the winch itself to be reversed. We need to complete this set-up, but I'm not sure I'm in love with it yet. It is sitting really low and if I were to ever to offroading with it, the winch would be the first thing to hit the ground/rocks. I think we might need to reconsider our set-up. I'll send pics later, would love some feedback from the forum.
Also, got the dapper Zenon lights in - it's like the sun. I ended up putting all of the ballast components right behind the headlights. After I had moved them to the cab, I consulted with the folks at Dapper lighting and they said that there really shouldn't be more than 30" of cable between the ballast and the light because of the amount of voltage that is going through it and the voltage drop that would occur over an extended length. Good to know - i could have saved myself a lot of time had i asked the question up front.