Dwebble (The Silver Slug)

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Comments

  • PrennroPrennro Council Member
    Thx for the traction bar vid. Maybe/prob gonna need to do this for mine in the future but dragging ass on my install. Think the colors you identified from the swatches will look fine. Really wonder how close that sesame is to those of us with stock brown interior. Good stuff.
  • It was honestly a very easy install. Straight forward 8 bolts, not counting removing the original tow hooks.

    As far as the fabric goes, I need to take it out there and do a side by side in the sunlight and see how that goes. One thing that really ticks me off with gray is getting ones you think are nearly similar and then you can see one is a warm gray and the other is a cool gray. I had that happen in my truck where the corduroy seats I had done faded a bit so now they're actually bluish. I think this stuff will be more heavy duty than that though since that was drapery fabric not auto upholstery grade.

    Get a swatch sheet from those guys, I think it was $8 with free shipping, some companies will send you one for free. I sent an inquiry to 4 companies I found that stock it. The people selling the swatch sheet online I was able to order that from right away so I did, then a couple days later I got another sheet in the mail that I didn't pay for.

    Either way, seems quite a good fabric for anyone going for that slightly more original look to their upholstery. I'm just gonna have the guy match the same stitch pattern. I think if I go with the silver and have him use a heavy dark gray or black thread for the stitching that could look really nice. Just a touch of contrast to it you know.
  • PrennroPrennro Council Member
    No I hear ya. Got other wagon priorities atm, but can't wait to see how yours turns out whenever you get yours done. As always, thanks for providing such good info and forthcoming opinions.
  • All right, popping this over from my website, and not sure if this merits its own separate post, as it's sort of a tool review, but we don't have a specific spot for more non specific tools like this. Either way, on with it.

    So I'll start with saying I have wanted these for a long time. If you're not familiar with the company check out kwik-lift.com

    The gist of it is that they are ramps, you drive the car on to and then jack up the low side via cross bar. Then there are fold down legs that basically turn the ramps into a mini lift. Great for if you don't have a high garage or the proper slab and funds to afford a two post lift.
    Below is just a picture dump, it's dark out but I couldn't help but to test the, out. I'll get better pics with the daylight.
    Here you can see the ramps in their first position. Yes I have a bunch off shit in the garage, forgive me, I'm working on it.


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    Next we get the car up on them.


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    Then we jack up the back end via the cross bar and lower the rear legs.


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    Then set it down on the rear legs.


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    I don't have it all the way pulled forward so I could probably get an inch or so more height at the front since the ramps aren't totally level. But you can see that I have great clearance at the front bumper. And just a few inches less at the rear. Yeah it's not as great as if you have access to a full lift or a garage equipped for one, but hey for the garage mechanic this is pretty sweet.


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    Also you can see here I have a standard 8 foot heigh ceiling in the garage and this is the clearance I have from the top of the car to the garage door. No problem at all with it coming too close to it.


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    And just a random shot underneath, lots of room to work with.


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    The only thing I'll need to work on is getting it on the ramps evenly. I'm lined up with the edge on the drivers side but have a good 6" to the inside of the wheel on the passenger side. That'll probably just come with practice, and a spotter. I might set up some type of centering guide though.
    Either way, these ramps are awesome, I've wanted them for nearly a decade now and I'm glad I can finally afford them.
  • That is a pretty cool solution. Do those rear legs lock into place after being raised up or how do they stay there?
  • Nice. So jealous!
  • That is a pretty cool solution. Do those rear legs lock into place after being raised up or how do they stay there?

    Yep there are big heavy duty spring pins that hold them in either the up or down positions. Then of course once the ramps are lowered back down they aren't going anywhere.
    jb2wheels wrote: »
    Nice. So jealous!

    Come check em out sometime!
  • A couple better shots.


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    A shot of the locking pin for the rear legs.


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    Handle for turning the cross bar. This way you can have the hump upwards to get the jack under, and down to clear any low vehicles while you drive them onto the ramps.


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    Heavy rod stock forms the front pivots. Pins to keep them from working their way out.


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    Four bolts hold the two halves together. With spacing for three different positions. I have them dialed in the shortest since I don't have these pulled all the way into my garage. Even at the minimum they are still plenty long enough for the vehicles I have to work on.


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    Random underneath shot.


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  • PrennroPrennro Council Member
    Thx for the additional pics. I always wanted a Max Jax, but this maybe something to look into.
  • Honestly if I had the slab for it I'd definitely have gone with a lift. It seems like you'd need a whole lot of slab though for those especially since they have no cross member at the top.

    The only thing is say even if I did go with the max jax I'd have also had to cut some big sections out of the slab and then pour in some deep blocks, the money it would cost to get my garage slab up to snuff to be able to handle the stresses of a two post lift, along with not having the ceiling space to work with on it definitely made me go with the kwik-lift. I'd sort of had my heart set on them, but had my garage situation changed, high ceiling and properly thick slab the lift would have been a done deal.

    I know some lifts advertise as only needing a 4" slab, but I've seen a vehicle mounted incorrectly on them break the concrete. Granted it was probably a crappy slab anyway if that's happening, but still. Not a risk I would take unless I had done the slab pour myself, or at least known exactly how the did it.

    You can get it in raw steel vs powdercoated as well to drop the price. But I figured might as well go whole hog as it were since I was finally able to get them.

    It ran me 1,653.00 with tax and shipping and the addition of a second center bridge. That way I can get all four wheels off at the same time if I'm ever doing work that requires that. Shipping can vary, I think it was fairly cheap for me since they're shipping out of Tulsa and I'm just down near Austin. I think it was $125 and I just picked it up at the local depot with my pickup truck. I have a small mitsubishi mighty max truck and it handled them just fine even with them shipping at 750 lbs.

    Either way, I'll stop ranting about it, maybe there should be a tools review section on here. I know I've gotten some ball joint installer stuff, and just various other bits and bobs. Might not hurt to have the wagon peoples take on what tools they're using to do what, outside of just their build threads. Who knows.
  • PrennroPrennro Council Member
    Def don't apologize for the info. All great to consider especially from personal experiences instead of inflated testimonials. So with a crossmember you are able to lift the body somehow and have the wheels free to do brakes/axles, etc or do the wheels need to be in contact with the ramps?
  • The cross member allows you to position it under whatever jack points there are available and then you use a bottle jack to lift the car and place it on jack stands. The cross members are super heavy duty and effectively act like a cradle for the jack stands, since it's effectively a big piece of channel steel. Just snagging a photo from their site, I'll replace it with my own when I get my car on here in this fashion, but this is effectively what the cross members are for.

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    You could definitely make due with one, or even none if you were just needing a bare bones setup. But I figure since I'm gonna be swapping out the front knuckles and doing the brake kit that I got from Lowflyin' that I might as well have both that way I can knock the whole ordeal out all at once without having to fiddle with lifting one end and then the other.
  • Great info don't apologize i love details. ...and mighty max? Fing a brother! That was my favorite truck until I went Dodge 2500 Cummins.
  • Great info don't apologize i love details. ...and mighty max? Fing a brother! That was my favorite truck until I went Dodge 2500 Cummins.

    Nice! Yeah one of my goals was to do a 4bt swap into the truck, but most of my money has gone towards the wagon, and tools =D
  • Will post some tool review and such regarding the steamer and bissell I got, but just a reference pic of what came out of one single seat bottom after some cleaning. And I bet it can go another round with the steamer and bissell combo. But check this out.

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  • VPTVPT Band Wagon
    That car hoist thing is pretty cool!
  • BillBoardBillBoard council member
    That is a really cool little lift. I've been searching for a 4post lift and am surprised at how affordable they are. I'm looking for storage purposes, but that little one is a cool.
  • VPT wrote: »
    That car hoist thing is pretty cool!

    Hell yeah, I dig it! Now just gotta get the girlfriends stuff out of the garage so I can finish setting up in there. Ooof. Two fecking claw foot bath tubs and they won't even fit in our bathrooms.
    BillBoard wrote: »
    That is a really cool little lift. I've been searching for a 4post lift and am surprised at how affordable they are. I'm looking for storage purposes, but that little one is a cool.

    Yeah the thing I really like about it is you can totally pull those pivot rods at the main legs and then just drop the ramps entirely flat and on the ground, At which point you could park with them just under the car, if you have the clearance or to the side. But that way if you're needing to use the garage and not wanting to pull the vehicle onto the ramps, you can do so quite easily.

    Yeah they don't get your vehicle as high as a proper lift would, but me personally, I don't have the garage height for that anyway. I'd say if any of you guys were around here you could definitely come check em out, but there are surprisingly few people down here in Texas, at least that are active on here.
  • Yay Fender Mirrors!

    Got a set in from a 1982 City. I know they're not spot on, but they're fairly close and they fit well. I've installed one so far. Gonna install the other when I have more light to take some photos of the process.

    The view out of them is so much better than the Starlet knockoffs. Much wider field of view and the mirror sits higher so it's in a better line of sight.

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    They were used, but in exceptionally clean condition for their age and it only cost me about $130 to get em here. With some schmucks thinking these things fetch $1400 cause "you gotta pay to play" well, they're high.
  • Got the second one installed. Took some pics of the install. Nothing too great and it's a bit sloppy as I wasn't particularly giving a shit about my beat to hell fenders. If I'm ever able to make molds of the clean fenders I have, what I really want to do is put marks on the back side for where you'd cut out for fender lights as well as for installing fender mirrors.

    I'll put together a little writeup this weekend. If someone knows if there are official instructions out there though that would be sweet.

    I ended up just using some stainless fender washers to hold the mirrors in place, vs a bracket underneath, it seems to work well. Since the fender style for the city is slightly different I might get some rubber and custom cut it to fit underneath the plastic base or I might just do some black RTV and smooth it out, we'll see.
  • RevmaynardRevmaynard Council Member
    Really enjoying your build so far! I think you should paint your trim and bumpers, this would really dress it up! Nice to see another fellow loot crater too!
  • Yeah I definitely do need to get some paint in them. I had some good luck with the back to black stuff on bumpers before. Though my front bumper is a bit beaten up and I'd love to put an ef9 on there. But yeah I should make it a priority for sure.

    I love my loot crates!
  • Yeah I definitely do need to get some paint in them. I had some good luck with the back to black stuff on bumpers before. Though my front bumper is a bit beaten up and I'd love to put an ef9 on there. But yeah I should make it a priority for sure.

    I love my loot crates!
  • RevmaynardRevmaynard Council Member
    I'd recommend Duplicolor Trim Paint. I've used it for almost a decade on anything and everything exterior on the wagons and it works well and gives a proper looking finish. The black to back stuff just faded back out in a matter of months on my Comanche.
  • I'll check that out. I think I might even actually have some. Do you pull the parts and paint em or just mask and paint on the vehicle?

    There are some spots where the front bumper has scraped enough to be worn all the way through the plastic. Not sure if there's any way to patch that or not. Maybe melting new plastic into it. I don't know.

    But that's one of the reasons I'm looking for an EF Facelift front bumper anyway.
  • RevmaynardRevmaynard Council Member
    Depending on the item I just usually take the time to mask off. I have pulled the mirrors and wiper arms to do those before but if you clean the surface well and lay enough coats it will do the trick.
  • HaydzHaydz Moderator
    EF9 front bumper

    EF Facelift front bumper. They came on carbies and all sorts, not just EF9s.
  • My bad, that's what I mean =D Gimme one!
  • Not shipping costs from NZ =D

    That does look pretty clean though. I wouldn't even need the lip.
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