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Saturday, August
7, 2004
- Between the new baby in the Dickson household and several other
things, I haven't had many opportunities lately to spend any time in the
shop working on my truck. I thought I was going to spend the day today
working on my brother-in-law's car, but on the spur of the moment he
decided he didn't want to mess with it anymore, and ended up going to
the local dealer and buying a new vehicle. I'd like to think that his
choice of a '97 F-150 XL was partly due to my salesmanship.
Anyway, since I
suddenly found I had some time to myself, I headed to the shop where I
was going to get started installing the front end. Just to get you up to
speed, I sent the I-beams and spindles to the machine shop last week
with a new kingpin set to get installed, but when I went to pick them up
last Saturday, it dawned on me that he hadn't pressed in the pivot
bushing shells, required because I'm using PST polygraphite bushings. I
dropped them back off to get the shells pressed in but wasn't able to
make it back to pick everything up before they closed shop for the day,
so I had to wait until early this week to pick them up. I got them on
Wednesday afternoon and dropped them off at the shop. So I hit the shop
today hoping to get started getting things installed.
However, I ran into
another snag. When assembling the parts for my front end, I'd decided to
use the entire front-end assembly from a '79 F-150, so I could upgrade
to disc brakes. The '79 came with a 300 I-6, however, and since I'm
going to be installing a 390, I grabbed the front springs from a '70
F-100 equipped with a 360. But when I got started assembling the front
end today, I noticed that the '70 springs wouldn't fit the lower spring
pad from the '79 front end, due to the pigtail on the bottom of the '70
spring being smaller than that of the '79 spring. Since I'd already
powdercoated the entire '79 front end, including the '70 springs, I had
to find some way of using the older springs. I ended up modifying the
bottom side of the '70 spring pad a bit to allow it to sit flat on the
'79 radius arm. Since the '70 spring pads needed cleaned up, I went
ahead and fired up the sandblaster and spent the rest of the day
sandblasting various parts, as long as I had everything set up. In
addition to the front coil spring pads, I also sandblasted and painted
the rear brake backing plates, and since mounting the auxiliary fuel
tank would be next on the list of things to mount, I also cleaned and
painted the tank mounting brackets and straps. I'll be getting in touch
with someone in the very near future to get the tank cleaned out and
internally sealed, and then I'll be sandblasting and painting it as
well.
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Fig. 1 - Here's a shot
of the dash-mounted VIN tag on my '68 F-100 parts truck...the first one
I've seen.
Fig. 2 - On the left is the '79 spring, on the right is the '70,
with the
'79 spring pad sitting on top of each spring. You can see how the '70
spring will not fit onto the '79 pad.
Fig. 3 - You can see the modification to the '70 spring pad to
allow it to sit flat on the '79 radius arm. This pic was taken while
trial-fitting the pads. I dressed them a bit more, then they both got
sandblasted and painted.
Fig. 4 - I also sandblasted and painted the rear brake backing
plates and the auxiliary fuel tank mounting hardware.
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