Project Little Foot

[IDIBOBS]

Can't believe it was October 23 when I worked on it last. Looks like I didn't do squat in 2024. I did get air in the shop and some other improvements, so that's good but still pretty sad. Made some progress today. Fired it up again. Lots of water poured out the exhaust at first 1 or 2 liters, but then tricked down to a drip. I'm thinking I may have had water in the muffler somehow. Seems to run good, although took a bit to get fuel to the injectors. My thinking is that if coolant was getting in the cylenders, it would have hyrdo locked - there was a lot of water pouring out. Don't see any oil in the coolant, but it hasn't got hot enough yet to open the thermostat.


The main success today was that I filled trans and T case with oil and tried the clutch to test the ZF-5 swap. No problem going into gear and rolls forward and backward. WOO-HOO! I was a little concerned I was gonna have some type of "won't go into gear" type problem. Super stoked on that. That's a win that will help with motivation moving forward. Plus, once I hook up steering wheel, I'll be abIe able to move it. So I think that's 6 years to do a 1 year project. Good thing I've got the brown truck. I'm thinking once it moves and steers, some tires will help with motivation too. I've got 33s on the brown truck and they are great no rubbing - but may try 35s.

Next up.
Steering.
Adjust brakes (parking brake not working).

Gonna have to gear it with 35s. Your gonna loose a load of tq

 

[onetonjohn]

Axles are 4:10. Good enough? Otherwise I'll stick with the 33's.

 

[KansasIDI]

Axles are 4:10. Good enough? Otherwise I'll stick with the 33's.

Probably good enough. 3.55s and 35s is too tall IMO, even without an overdrive. 33s are still a bit steep with 3.55s

 

[The_Josh_Bear]

Axles are 4:10. Good enough? Otherwise I'll stick with the 33's.

Unless you tow a lot of weight or up steep hills that's fine.

 

[onetonjohn]

Pulled the trigger on banks turbo today. Should be here in a couple weeks. Need some tires next and start test driving it without turbo for a while to work out kinks and get a feel for how it drives.

 

[onetonjohn]

Starting to get the little stuff. Got the fuel tanks plumbed and bed bolted back down with superduty bolts. Will be helpful if I ever need to take the bed off again. Starting to fuss with all the little stuff. Moved things around so I have the brown tuck right next to it for reference. Only down side is that I"m finding a lot of minor issues with the brown truck that need to be addressed.

 

[onetonjohn]

I started looking at the tailgate. I have one from 87-70 era truck, but looking at it, the diameter of the hinges are different. Went out and got the newer HW on the bed side (hinges, bumper stop, cable and latch bolts). I was thinking it was going to be bolt up, but looking at it more carefully, looks like they are drilled differently, and the 86 is shaped differently around where the latch bolt will be installed. The good news is that the brown truck in the photo above is actually a newer style bed while the white one is old style. So I've got a reference. I'll take some pictures that show the issue and the conversion - in case anyone is in same boat. If there is a good write up on this, I'd be interested, but haven't found it yet. There was one that was pretty good, but no pictures.