I also need to focus on the front end of the truck, I’m all over the road. I really hope it isn’t the ball joints. Really really hope it’s just my tie rod ends or something easy.
What I mean by all over the road, there’s a pretty bad lag between when I move the steering wheel and it actually turns. If I try I can keep the truck going straight. If I move the wheel at all while going down the road it’ll start to drift.
Is the steering box tight? Some have a adjustments to tighten them up.
Bob
Yeah I already tightened the box up.
Based on how old the rubber bushings are on the suspension arms I’m going to say the front end has never been worked on.
I don’t know about the 2wd, but I have had to repair cracks in the frames where the box bolts on in those year 4x4 Chevy trucks. Caused a lot of slop in front end.
Jacked up the front end.
It’s sloppy on all sides, and all the grease boots are torn. Right now it’s only a little wiggly up and down, and fairly wiggly side to side. I think the best course of action is a front end rebuild.
Does anyone have any tips to keeping that coil spring from flying out while I have the ball joints removed? Do they make some kind of inline compressor for the spring to keep it in the arms? I’ve heard they can sometimes come flying out and I’d like to not get mangled by a spring.
Yes they have a inline spring compressor thats normally used for spring removal, but I have used them for all sorts of things they are cheap to rent from the big box auto stores and real easy to use. Basically a piece of ready rod with 2 claws that grab the spring and tighten it down. In a pinch put a jack stand under the lower control arm and keep the suspension loaded and wale the ball joint with a hammer to pop it loose with the nut threaded down a few threads as a saftey. Once it pops it usually safe to remove the spindle and ball joints, its the jarring motion of the ball joint separating that will make the spring jump
Maybe so , The rust dont get the bodys, but the extra heat in the south wears down the motors, and the rubber bushings in control arms, Do the ball joints bolt on with bolts or is the botton one pressed in.?
Not sure, I think they’re riveted in place. I might feel a little froggy and just buy all new control arms upper and lower.
We still get rust problems but it’s always where the mud and leaves don’t get cleaned out and it lets moisture collect.
Haven’t been able to work on the truck these past few weeks, thanks to the cold snaps and rainfall, as well as waiting on my first paycheck. I’ll be paid biweekly from now on, something I don’t prefer.
I might start saving up to pay someone to do the front end rebuild on this truck. It isn’t the worst I’ve seen but it isn’t the best either, enough that I don’t want to do any unnecessary driving until it’s solved.
Also the floor of the bed is in not as good of a shape as I had earlier anticipated. The floor is beginning to dip in on a few spots so I think the metal is getting thin. I might do a narrow flatbed for this truck.
Finally got this thing out. Just ground the heads off the bolts and punched them through. Nuts were rusted to the bolts on the underside and I didn’t feel like playing their games.
Took me a couple minutes but I finally realized what the point of the video was. That made me laugh Cody.
I’ve been fighting that B&M Megashift for a few days now. I decided I didn’t care if the truck caught fire but I’d get those bolts out.
The guy used whatever spare bolts he had laying around.
One was a flathead, two were 7/16" hex different lengths.
Nobody was around to hold the bolts still while I tried to loosen the nuts so I just ground the heads off and punched the bolts out.
Ordered a Speedway Motors universal shift indicator to put on the column. Hopefully it’ll work out. The distance from Park to Reverse is a bit far but who knows.
If I end up not liking the column shifter I might go with a Lokar or Gennie shifter.
Tax refund came in, ordered the control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod etc, floor pans and door skins.
Also got a seal kit for the speedometer, I’ll probably try to get all the suspension and transmission stuff done when all that comes in.
I really love how good this truck scoots. I can hit 50mph just with Big Toe driving aka 1/8 throttle. I’m waiting on a 1/4" spacer, if I try to go full throttle the arm would stick to the intake plenum. I haven’t even tuned the secondary choke flap yet. I don’t want to push my luck with the front end being in its current state.
This truck definitely will run well on woodgas, I can’t wait.
@SouthernYankee I forget, does your truck have a QJet on it? I know you’re running straight to the carburetor through a hat. Do the secondary choke flaps open up in that state?
Edit: Nevermind I forgot you have an Edelbrock. Does that have a mechanical secondary with vacuum choke?
I gutted out the Edelbrock due to it’s horrible condition it was already in when I got the truck. All that’s in the carb now is the throttle plates. No choke, secondary blend door, accelerator pump, even the floats are removed. Sealed off every hole with silicone. It’s mechanical secondary so no worries about vacuum or throttle response. Needless to say it’s strictly woodgas now.
I need to make an adapter, I’m thinking of going for a small gasoline carb with a big throttle body for woodgas.
I think a Harley Davidson CV carb would work well, I bought a knockoff eBay special to experiment with.
As cool as the MEN dual fuel carb is the biggest weak point of that modification is the small woodgas inlet. Biggest you can go is 1.625" pipe.
One other thing, this hood definitely needs to be replaced. Dad took a good look at it and it’s chock full of Bondo and holes. Jegs sells a hood with an induction cowl for about 360 some odd dollars, I’m thinking of getting one of those since an OEM style hood costs the same.
Just my opinion from experience, avoid jegs, use summit
Yeah I had an issue with Jegs yesterday when I ordered the body panels. Decided to go with PayPal Pay In 4 and Jegs claimed it didn’t get authorization from PayPal yet. I’ll definitely go with Summit to order the hood, their freight charge is lower.
I got my floor pans from Jegs but they haven’t sent anything else. I guess it’s stuck in PayPal Hell or something. I’ll need to cancel the order.
Anyways I tuned the secondary choke flaps on the QJet while I’m still driving around with it. There was zero resistance on them before, and now it takes a little bit of force to open them. Dad wasn’t joking, this carburetor really saves it’s power with the Secondaries.
Hopefully I’ll get something done today for the front end. I’m driving it over to Dad’s now to help him with his hot tub and maybe get started on the ball joints, tie rods, pitman and idler arms.
One thing that bothers me with the lower ball joints in this kit is they don’t have a grease fitting, they’re pre-greased. Uppers have them.
I fought the driver’s side ball joints for 6 hours today.
They’ve never been changed and were loose as all get out.
I can tell they’ve never been changed because the upper ball joints were hot riveted on like at the factory.
And it’s a good thing I put my wheel back on after getting that done, because dad’s friend wants to grab his toolbox out of his old shop where the '76 is parked. He keeps cameras around so maybe with the higher activity he wants to grab his box just in case. I’m using my own tools so it doesn’t matter too much to me either way.
Only issue to that is one of the hoses for my power steering decided to spring a leak while I was turning the wheels off the ground, so that’ll make a big mess all over the floor. The shop stove is full of wood ash just in case he doesn’t have any pigmat or kitty litter.
I’m not going to fool with the control arm bushings, I figure these eBay ball joints and tie rods will buy me a year or two, and then I’ll buy all new parts from Moog with urethane bushings.
