Project Big Red

[laserjock]

Yep. I believe this was a SRW truck that someone bought a set of adapters for and made it DRW all around. Yes the adapters will go up for sale along with the the dually rims once I'm sure where I am. The good news about them being adapters if I understand it correctly is that if I can get them off in one piece, I will have the correct hubs, rotors, etc. and not have to change all that out if the wheel bearings are good. They will get re-packed and put back in. I'll put a thread up shortly on the D60 rebuild. I've never done one so I'm not sure how deep to dive into it. It rolls well. I don't think there is anything wrong with the U-joints. I would like to swap hubs (at least the outer caps) with the D50 because it has a nice set of waren hubs on it over the plastic stockers although they turn real easy. I get the feeling the D60 might have been gone through at some point. There are some parts that look "new" to me but I don't know how deep they go. Did the factory KP units come with grease fittings? Anyway, I'll post that up once I have a minute to clean it up and start tearing down.

I do have one other dilemma. I'm trying to decide if I should sandblast the housings. I am not sure if its a good idea because there are places you don't want sand obviously. I don't know if its worth the chance or just wire wheel it and be done. I am bringing home a scavenged work table that will be perfect to get these things up on and do them.

 

[junk]

I don't know if I'd sand blast the housing. Seems like that grit gets in everything. Now if you were going to completely dissassemble king pins and hubs I'd be more comfortable. If your planning to leave it mostly together I'd wire wheel it, use a good primer and paint them. My thoughts on the axles are if somethings suspect replace it, but if it looks good run it. No need to spend more money replacing good parts. Also axles are easy to work on in the vehicle also.

Your getting really close to a rolling chassis!

 

[laserjock]

That was pretty much my thinking as well. I'm going to pull the springs and probably blast them when I have another batch of large parts to do. I hate dragging the monster out if I don't have to. It's nice being able to keep it pretty much contained in the blast cabinet. If it were just a little bigger... The goal was to have it rolling by the end of May, but I don't think I'm going to make that with travel for the holiday weekend. Oh well.

 

[junk]

What size compressor and blasting cabinet do you have? I've thought about building/buying a cabinet. If I mess with one though it needs to do some stuff. Some of the small home units I've messed with aren't worth having.

 

[laserjock]

I've got a 60 gallon Kobalt compressor and the big (40 lb I think) cabinet from HF. I have run both glass beads and black beauty type stuff in the cabinet. The glass beads are good for soft stuff (aluminum parts that are just cruddy or oxidized) the black beauty is good for heavy rust or paint. I have found my cabinet to be pretty good for most things. I stop short of being able to get leaf springs in it. I've had car swing arms and stuff like that in it without too much trouble. The gun that comes with it is not that great but it works pretty good. I put a water/oil separator right on the cabinet and that solved a lot of my problems. I added an air filter on the back of the cabinet and a shop vac on the port on the side because otherwise, it gets so cloudy in there you can't see what you are doing after the media starts getting dusty. I caulked all the joints but you still loose a little. That's another reason to run the vac on it. It keeps the cabinet a little negative pressured so you keep the dust and nastyness in the vacuum. A drywall dust bag is really good at that. The compressor will keep up with it but it rarely shuts off at 90 psi. I also have the 110 lb HF blaster that works pretty good now that I threw away the directions. It runs the black beauty stuff pretty well up to fine grit. Medium wont go through it. I can run it pretty well continuos with the compressor but it is flat out. I change oil frequently because it does get hot running like that. I broke my dead man valve before I got to use it. I'm sure that would help with consumption a bit. Stretched a tarp out and it seems like I recovered a little more than half each time and I wasn't being real careful. At $8 for 50 lb, its not worth being real careful unless you are going to do a lot of it. A GOOD dust mask is a necessity and a face shield. The stuff gets in places you didn't know you had.

Just to close out that thought, for the money and the space it takes up, its a pretty good cabinet. If you got anything much bigger, It would take up a lot of realestate unless you plan on using it heavily and often. Me, I don't plan on using it constantly. Just to get me through some projects. Then I can move it to the shed out of the way and store it if I'm not going to use it for quite a while.

 

[junk]

That's cool. I got a 60 gallon compressor with a home made regenerative dessicant drier system on it. So I should have clean dry air. I never shoot water out of my hoses like I used to. That's a good idea to change the oil frequently. When I paint my compressor runs a long time.

I've looked at thos HF cabinets alot. I even wondered about buying two of them and attaching them side by side. My problem is I don't do that much blasting, but it would be handy as hell. Now I do have access to a shot blaster at work, but it's only good for items 30" or less and heavy duty as it will destroy sheet metal.

 

[laserjock]

Water is a huge problem when running the sand blasters because the tank and the compressor get hot enough the water won't condense and drain. I hardly ever get anything out of the tank. That is one of the reasons I'm thinking either a cooling loop or putting the compressor in the shed and burying a line to the garage to cool it and remove the noise may happen soon. When I've shot the paint I have so far, the compressor actually doesn't run that much. I put my standard 50 ft hose onto a separator and then another 50 ft hose and that has worked pretty well with a cartridge at the gun. I haven't done any finish work yet so I will probably pick your brain when the time comes if I am having trouble.

I really considered bolting two cabinets together as well. If I used it more, I probably would but like I said, it's not something I plan on doing a lot of ALL the time to devote that much realestate to. I considered putting together a soda blast kit as well. HF sells them for their pressure blasters. I thought about putting that through into the cabinet to do delicate things. The great thing about soda is that a water wash and its gone. No sand grit to worry about. That's nice for things like engine parts.

 

[laserjock]

Well, the good news is that the McMaster-Carr fairy showed up with a box of bolts and nuts for my frame hangers and

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The bad news is, well, most of the bolts are too short.

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By just a smidge on most of them. It's not all bad news but I will be placing another order probably Monday. Most of it will get used somewhere but not here.

In other news, I cleaned and plated some more parts.

Front spring shackles.

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Front track bar parts and shock towers for the rear. I'll get them all painted and bolted on.

Have to find some rear spring shackle bushings for the rear as the ones in my kit are too big. I'll take a quick look to see if I can get the right ones. If not I can press the rubber ones back in or turn these down a 1/16". That is what my eyeball and ruler say the difference is.

I ordered new U bolts for front and rear and hopefully the correct tie bolts for front and rear. They should arrive tomorrow along with another tasty tidbit. I think I got the turbo deal of the century but I'll know once I open it up and look.

More later.

 

[laserjock]

Alrighty, few developments. I decided on new spring blocks for the rear. The old ones were just too far gone to mess with.

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So another $114 later from Amazon and a new set of Pro Comp springs are coming.

In other news, I scored a new Garrett turbo for a great price. Now to decide what to do for the rest of the kit.

Still has the QA markings on the hot wheel.

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More on that later.

In the mean time, I finished up my spacers and put my rear spring packs back together.

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I painted the spacers with graphite plow paint and put new plastic pads at the tips. If you've never done this before note that the leaves are not symmetric with respect to the holes. One end is shorter than the other (the hole is not in the middle of the spring). Short end goes to the front I think. I'll find out when I put the axle back in if it doesn't line up.

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I'll trim the tie bolts once I am ready to put the overloads on an get the axle under there. It's a little forward now probably because the shackle is bellied out because it's not sitting on anything.


Once I got them hung back on the frame, it freed up some work space and I started on the rear diff. First thing was to get it up to my level thanks to a table scored from surplus at work.

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Then I started tearing it down. Wheels off

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Just as I thought, dually adapters. Those will go up for sale eventually. Got them off.

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Pulled the drums off and the hardware on the drivers side all looked new. Oil (brake fluid) soaked but relatively new.

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Other side, not so much.

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Yep, that's how I found it.

Cont.

 

[laserjock]

So I finished taking all the brake parts off both sides and got it ready for degreasing.

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Did I mention how nice it is to do all this standing up? Anyway, the hubs seem good and tight. No real play in any direction. The seals seem to be okay. No diff grease anywhere so I think teardown will stop here and after a good cleanup and some paint, the brakes can go back together with new hardware and the rear will be rolling again.

Next order of business will be to order a new diff cover for the rear, inventory my brake parts for the rear (I have some new stuff that came with the parts truck) and then start through the front diff. It will take a little more TLC I think.

More later.

 

[junk]

Once again looking good. Always fun to see what you find when you tear something apart. Funny it had no brake guts in there.

That whole working on stuff standing is becoming a bigger issue to me than it used to be. I must be getting old.

 

[laserjock]

Thanks!

Yeah, I don't enjoy crawling around on the floor quite as much as I used to. I was a little surprised to find nothing. I knew that the rear brakes on the parts truck were a problem. The guy I bought it off of I think had started working on them and just gave up. He gave me a box of stuff. Not sure what's in it but I need to go dig it out of the cab of that truck. I knew it was running out of brake fluid and found out why when I got the drums off. I'll edit the above. Forgot a couple pics.

 

[laserjock]

Gave the housing a bath.

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Looks like there is evidence that the drivers side hub has been swapped out at some point. Forgot to snap pics but it's been marked on with a paint pin and has different color paint than the other side. It also has RTV squirting out where the axle has been put back in and sealed. Found the brake hardware that came with the parts truck. Some good stuff (new hardware and such) also found carnage (posted pics in another thread). Looks like I just need the brake shoes and new drums to be good to go I think.


Chipping away.

 

[laserjock]

After a good wire wheel session and a good soak in POR metal ready prep.

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Then a good drying, spray down with brake clean, and shot some primer on it.

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Didn't do the cover because it's going to get a new aluminum cover.

Ready for paint!!

Ordered the brake drums today. Have everything but the brake shoes now to put it back together. Spring blocks came but I didn't open them up to check them out. Back will be rolling real soon. Front is up next. Also got my longer bolts so I can torque and loctite the frame bits for the final time.

Stay tuned...

 

[junk]

Hey my box fan looks just like yours. Did you use por15 primer? How'd you like it.

I might have missed it but where did you get your spring blocks?