Finally got a little time to work on the truck today. Took off the tie rod and torsion rod. Got the tie rod cleaned and painted so now I’m just waiting for the new ends from Moog. When I pulled the torsion rod off I noticed the bolts are two different sizes. Time to shop for a second bolt the proper size.


Cleaned up

Painted Up

Torsion Rod Bolts

 

Once again found a little time to work on the truck. Pressed the bushings out of the torsion rod, cleaned it up and painted it. Was hoping to press the new bushings in but it’s still a little tacky. Here’s Enzothehound checking on it.

 

Also ordered up a Yukon Gear Axle Knuckle Kit with bearings, seals and wipers for both sides for $118 total this morning.

 

Alright! The paint dried, bushings are in.

 

Had some time this afternoon so I pulled the dust shield off, scraped it best I could and painted it. Could’ve really used a blast cabinet on this part. It’s still pretty rough in spots but the rust is firmly attached. Here’s a before and after pic.


Prior to cleaning up the rust

After paint

 

Good evening gentlemans! The knuckle rebuild kit from Amazon has arrived right on time. $118 for the kit plus $8 tax. Here’s a pic.

 

Tonight I attempted to remove six of the free wheeling front hub bolts. After screwing around for an hour and only getting one cone washer loose I unscrewed the nuts until they were even with the ends of the stud bolts, spot welded the nuts to the bolts, picked up the 3/8 ratchet with a 13mm socket and minutes later they were all out. Not real proud with the lack of finesse that was employed getting them free but a 12 pack of new hex head style hub bolts sells for $18 so that’s the route I took. 🙂

 

Two steps forward, one step back! Keep up the progress!

 

Thank you sir!

 

No time to work on the truck lately but the glass shop called and told me the broken pane in the slider had been repaired. They put a piece of plexiglass in it.


Ready for action. Also just found a new rear slider gasket on ebay this morning!

 

Inquiring minds want to know what these classic wheels in this pic are attached to!? 🤔🤑

 

That’s a humorous post Ivan’s. 👍 They’re attached to a 1977 F150 short bed 4 x 4. I’ll get you a picture of it this afternoon.

 

Here you go Ivans’s. Have a nice weekend.

 

Had a little free time this afternoon so I began the disassembly of the left hub and cleaned up the dust shield and painted it.


Hub off

Spindle and dust shield

After cleanup and paint

 

I didn’t want to get into anything too complicated this evening after working all day so I started to attempt to clean up the rear slider. Here are some pics of it prior to wet sanding with 220 grit. I used WD40 to wet the aluminum. This is my initial attempt at sanding aluminum to enhance its appearance so hopefully it pans out ok. 🙂






The last picture is after sanding with 220. Next up 400 grit tomorrow night.

 

Also the gasket for the rear slider arrived from an eBay seller. Haven’t been able to find one anywhere and this seller had three new ones for sale at $57 each.

Also the passenger side Moog tie rod end arrived from Suspension Connection. They informed me a few days ago that Moog had discontinued the driver’s side end. Once again I was unable to find one anywhere except eBay. Price on eBay was $37 for a new Moog end compared to $23 at Suspension Connection.The drivers side end should arrive in a few days.

 

No real progress today. I had about thirty minutes so I sanded the slider with 400 grit. The screwdriver gouges left when somebody tried to pry the sliding sections of the window apart are still pretty ugly. I’ve been contemplating attaching a small piece of aluminum flat stock over the vertical seam in the middle wide enough to hide the gouges. Any ideas?
The window is feeling smoother with the finer grit paper but I can’t honestly say it looks any different.

 

On my Chevy slider it was satin black anadized. I repainted it with satin black paint, and it never went bad. If you decided to paint it, you could fill the screwdriver gouges with a JB Weld product. There's all kinds of stuff out there you could use to fill it. You could then spray the bare aluminum with an etching primer before you paint. Just an idea.

 

Thanks for the tip 81 4 x 4. I’ll definitely give that some thought. Meanwhile I’m up to 2000 grit on the window frame sanding project. Tonight I applied a little Blue Magic Metal Polish and it really helped accentuate what areas need further attention.

 

The next small evening task I’m hoping to get to is disassembling and cleaning up the Aisin hub locks. Since snap ring pliers don’t work too well on the retaining rings in the hub locks I went to the NAPA store and ordered this set of pliers. They have a good feel to them and I think they’ll work great on removing and reinstalling the retaining rings.