My Ugly Truck
Ugly was blasted before my technical meet I hold in March every year. I took it to the sandblasters, but a weeks worth of rain prevented it from being completed- and used for demonstration purposes for the weekend. Still, the following week it was finished, and I had a POR15-Party at my shop in April.
The first thing to do was remove the bed, and cab. These had been unbolted before it went to the blasters so he could remove them to do the undersides. The front bumper, rear fenders, and rear axle assembly- needed a little "heat-wrench" to help in their removal. Luckily, the bed and rear fenders are in excellent shape. One fender is nearly perfect, and the other has very minor rust repair to take care of.
The front kingpins, bushings and tie rods all seemed tight and in good shape (possibly redone sometime in it's life), so they stayed together for the POR-15ing of the frame. All of the brake hardware was removed- including the steel lines, rubber hoses, and the emergency brake hardware. I was surprised to see that the truck had a recent full brake overhaul including all new wheel cylinders. The master cylinder was completely shot, so it made me wonder why they didn't get to that- after doing the rest of the brake work.
While "watching paint dry" - I decided to break into the rear axle case to see what I had. The drums removed easily with the puller, probably due to the recent brake work. After pulling the axles, I removed the rear cover to find nice clean fluid with no gunk. The ring and pinion appear to be wearing evenly and are in good shape. Upon reassembly, I discovered the axle endplay to be very tight. Usually, the shims are on the left rear wheel. This truck had them on the right- I tried to switch them to the left, but couldn't get enough endplay (the spec is .001-.004) I had NONE! I have lots of spare axle shims for cars, but alas...no truck shims. I have a roll of copper sheeting about .004 thick (thin enough to cut with scissors)- so I made a shim out of that and got exactly .002 endplay. I will keep an eye on it after I start driving the truck.
The brake drums were also in good condition with lots of life left. If either of the front brakes were bad, and needing rebuilding or replacement, I would have done the conversion to disk brakes. Now, I'll just go with the dual master cylinder.