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bigwalton Postal teardown/rebuild - what would you do?

jak inc said:
How do you think the tolerances are on the Aqualu for fitment with your postal top? Maybe you could find an OEM tub.
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I spent about an hour with the main man at Aqualu in the parking lot of the vendor show at EJS one year talking about exactly this. I started the conversation in their booth about the World Cab fitment and he asked "do you have it here?" and so we walked out and discussed it.

He took a ton of pride in the fact that their entire operation is run on CNC machines, all the cutting, forming and bending is set and 100% repeatable. He thought that they were spot on with the stock dimensions but said that if I could get him precise measurements of the upper tub lip he could verify it and would tweak anything needed.

Obviously that's probably out now, but the discussion 99.8% convinced me that it would be fine. Any issues would likely be from my disassebly/reassembly of the top over the years and not the tub. (It's actually quite difficult to get the top back together exactly as stock when you try to use the stock gaskets between parts, I never mastered that.)

If I do a stock tub, it would 100% be fixing MY tub. People that have a clue would have no problem fixing my tub the way I want, but I just have no clue and the idea of butchering it scares me silly.
 
I know how you feel. I hate the thought of my 8 being down for long periods of time. How is your frame? You could buy a TDK frame and the tub. Then start piecing it together with new brake lines and electrical stuff. Then you would only be down a month or two as you swapped axles, driveline and the rest.
 
I don’t want to be “that guy”, but are you considering another motor swap? If you are looking at a long down time tear down, would the motor rebuild/replace be a consideration? I hate that the postal is down for extended times, but if it makes you mad just thinking about it, that is no fun either.
 
bigwalton said:
Well... this is no longer fun. Frankly, it's become quite literally depressing, I have realized that it's genuinely affecting my mood when I think about it now and I hate that.

Other than disconnecting and charging the battery once, I haven't touched the postal since I nursed it back from the sand dunes last fall. Literally, I haven't even unpacked the stuff I brought home in it, I don't even remember what's in there.

It had it's "vapor locking"/IAC valve issue three times on the drive home from the dunes, which made it an infuriating trip (very thankful the wife was along with the JKU to make it a little easier to deal with).

I did a head swap (what a complete s#itshow that was) at Sandblast which made it drivable again, but I've got to make all the big decisions now or try to figure out how to nurse it through another summer.

The idea of taking it off the road is CRUSHING me, because I know it'll be years before it's back with all of the things I need to/should do while it's down. Having the place at the sand dunes now makes it even worse.

Just venting, I haven't gotten any further in a decision. Aqualu shutting down operations at the end of this year probably should force me to finally just buy one of their tubs...

Ugh.
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Aqualu going out of business??? That sucks!
 
gr8dain said:
I don’t want to be “that guy”, but are you considering another motor swap? If you are looking at a long down time tear down, would the motor rebuild/replace be a consideration? I hate that the postal is down for extended times, but if it makes you mad just thinking about it, that is no fun either.
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Yep, it's on the list on the first post in this thread.

I need the stroker and exhaust out of the @MrBeep Red Scrambler ;)
 
sdsupilot said:
I know how you feel. I hate the thought of my 8 being down for long periods of time. How is your frame? You could buy a TDK frame and the tub. Then start piecing it together with new brake lines and electrical stuff. Then you would only be down a month or two as you swapped axles, driveline and the rest.
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To my knowledge, the frame is in great shape. The treatment they did for the Postals was incredible. But I won't really know until it's torn down I suppose. I do know that the TDK frames at least *used to be* set up for either RHD or LHD, which was good to know.
 
bigwalton said:
Well... this is no longer fun. Frankly, it's become quite literally depressing, I have realized that it's genuinely affecting my mood when I think about it now and I hate that.

Other than disconnecting and charging the battery once, I haven't touched the postal since I nursed it back from the sand dunes last fall. Literally, I haven't even unpacked the stuff I brought home in it, I don't even remember what's in there.

It had it's "vapor locking"/IAC valve issue three times on the drive home from the dunes, which made it an infuriating trip (very thankful the wife was along with the JKU to make it a little easier to deal with).

I did a head swap (what a complete s#itshow that was) at Sandblast which made it drivable again, but I've got to make all the big decisions now or try to figure out how to nurse it through another summer.

The idea of taking it off the road is CRUSHING me, because I know it'll be years before it's back with all of the things I need to/should do while it's down. Having the place at the sand dunes now makes it even worse.

Just venting, I haven't gotten any further in a decision. Aqualu shutting down operations at the end of this year probably should force me to finally just buy one of their tubs...

Ugh.
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Just buy another to use while you take the Postal down. :sneaky:
 
On a more serious note I'm guessing your frame is probably in reasonable shape, may need the mounts fixed up and some work at the back. So that's not a costly job. You can get most parts for the tub - not sure what the cost is compared to Aqualu - but at least you would keep it RHD. Getting the tub acid cleaned and primed and then finding someone to do the panel replacement using classic enterprises may not be too bad.
The rear quarter panels will be the problem (if you want the stock arches) - if not they are just flat sheet. Farm out the tub rebuild and do the mechanical stuff / assembly yourself.
 
In the words of someone on our group text... LS SWAP IT!! :ROFLMAO:

I'm surprised you haven't reached out to me on this stuff in our usual convos.
I can't speak for your tub, but as for the TDK frame, mine was set up for LHD (obviously). The position they had the mount was completely wrong for my set up. Mind you my TDK frame had custom stuff built into it so that may have been a contributing factor. If you get a frame and cannot get it set up as RHD, it is super easy to relocate the mounts to where ever you want. I can help you if you need it.
 
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