O i also use it offroad for my front digs. I engage my twin stick to just front axle power, apply brake,set line lok, turn wheels all the way in direction of travel the gasging it I can pivot off my back tires around corners now only really doable with chromoly d60 axles I installed to handle it and hydro assist steering to force tires in direction needed

 

Regarding the swagelok: I'll look into it. Thanks for the info. Right now I'm still dinkering with the ebrake cables. I installed the Caddy calipers in the rear, and getting the cables right is a major ordeal. To anyone thinking of using them, use the TSM calipers and brackets. They will save you many hours of work and frustration.

390gashog: That is what I love about this forum: getting help from people with experience with these trucks.

 

Good to know. If I find a saginaw out of a Mark V - cool. If not - no big deal. The dual ports is no big deal as it is just as easy to T the return line. As for the "canned ham" reservoir - it's not really that much bigger than the regular one, and I could gain the extra capacity and more function by adding a cooler to the system. I plan on doing this on both of my trucks.

 

I used Poly Performance JEEP/TRUCK & BUGGY :: Braking :: Jamar Brake Parts :: Jamar Hydraulic Line Lock - 4X4 Off-Road, JK Synergy Suspension Systems, Fox Racing Shox, Beard, CNC Brakes, Johnny Joints®, Currie Enterprises, Edelbrock, Pit Bull Tires, Ramsey for the rear brakes. I could never really get a nice tight locking action with the stock cable. Now I am free to park the truck at any angle without fear of it moving.

 

The canned ham resv. is what you'll find. They are what sag. used on the fords. I would be willing to bet that the Lincoln pump puts out more psi since it was meant to be used with a hydro. $40 at A.zone.

I got everything tore out today. I hate to hurt all the cold weather guys, but it got up to the high seventies, and I was thinking about putting up the sun umbrella.

The saginaw p/s pump went in nicely. I only had to grind a bit off the adapter the pump come with to make it fit my 4.9 bracket. Don't be alarmed guys. It is a cast iron piece about half an inch think on the front of the pump.

I also bought a rebuilt master out of a 2ooo F350 s.duty. Yeap, I have to replumb the lines, but I am happy to do it to get the truck into the new millennium. It has a killer 1 3/8" bore, with a massive reservoir too. I pulled the resv. from the boneyard for $7, with fittings, cap, spare rubber grommets, and electrical plug with wires! And I won't have to adapt the plunger rod either.

One question: The inlets from the reservoir into the master are different sizes. I assume the rear of the master, closest the firewall, which has the larger of the inlets, gets plumbed to the front brakes? Or do the new ones like this get routed front to front?

 

That's pretty slick, it operates like an air brake valve, pull to engage, push to release?

Josh

 

firewall side to front brakes and front one to rear brakes.
while your at it you might as well plumb a willwood adjustable proportioning valve to the rear brakes as well.
Also you never did tell me if the wire in your welder was gasless flux core, or do you use a argon bottle??

 

As for smaller wire getting better penetration thats not always the case. On a 110 little mig using a .030 wire over a .035 will give you better results alot of the time only cuase it doesnt have the power to burn the .035. Now we almost always .045 on all our work with 1/4" plate or bigger and .035 hard wire we always only use on thinner stuff when neccessary. A .045 flux core (co2 sheilding gas as well) will give you by far the best results for the best penetration but more importantly flexabilty or what we cal Ductile. 71m flux core wire is the only approved wire for most structural jobs for this reason. When we want the best penetration with big heat and less chance for any flaws we use 1/16 flux core wire. You can really only use it on 1/2 plate and bigger as it will blow through 1/4. Because its so hot it can really only be used in the flat and horizontal positions or your weld puddle will fall out on say a uphand weld. Also just so you know running a weld bead from top to bottom , called a down hand weld is a big NO NO. It has no penetration and is weak. Although it is easy to make somewhat pretty and smooth sometimes its best to always weld from bottom to top"uphand" vertical.
Now on some pipe welding they do use a 6010(fast freeze) rod on downhands for a root (1st) pass but thats the exception.
The equivilent to a flux core 71m wire in stick form is a 7018. Able to weld all positions (in 1/8 size 95% of the time but I once did verticals with 5/32 7018 on 3/4" plate only cause it was so thick enough where it could take the heat without puddle falling out)
In my 110 lincoln around the house I simply use a .030 NR-211-mp wire for light stuff as it burns through rust and paint crap without a gas from a bottle as it has a flux in wire and it does well. The trick to running this wire is you HAVE to switch polarities so your gun is (-) and ground is (+).
Its simple you open the door on your welder and there should be 2 wing nuts labeled + and - and you switch them.


Check out this beam we did a few months back. The top and bottom plate of it (the flanges) are 2 " steel. each top and bottom plate was made of 3 individual pieces with 100% full pen welds that were Xrayed to join together. I'm proud to say all my X rays sections passed but there was some others mistakes that I had to go back and dig out and fix.
We used 1/16 wire for the majority of the welding. This beam is a lifting beam for a massive crane. It actually has a curve of 30mm from end to end in the center that will create a minor arc. It had to be perfect as the last one the company had failed and it actually killed someone...
I shop crane was just out of capacity from lifting the whole thing so to get it out we picked up one end only shoved that big pipe under it then picked up the other end driving out rolling on the pipe. A massive truck crane then picked it up for shipment.



Anyways hope that answers some questions

 

Thanks for the info, both for welding and the brakes. My lincoln is w/o gas. A friend welded my frame with it. He has been welding since he could walk, and just turned it down low and... sure made it look sweet.

Yes, I need the lid, so I can use two hands, or have something to hold my hand against so it's not just wobbling out in space.

Yeps, I already have the adjustable proportioning valve. I put it in when I converted to disc rears.

 

so he probably reversed the polarity on the machine I hope then..

 

so you basically run this sheild..



I had that one for a while too...

This is me the other day at work. we ran out of safety glasses so I had to make do!

 

Those are really funny pictures! It sure feels good to actually laugh out loud!

Back to the hydro boost: Seems like in all threads there are two strands, sort of twining about each other. One strand is Astro van, the other strand is Super Duty, and the conversation keeps bouncing back and forth - to a cautious guy like me, who's looking for a "safe" way to make a change like this, it gets confusing.

Is there a tech article, or has anyone kind of summarized how they either did the Astro van conversion OR just the Superduty conversion? It doesn't seem like one or the other is particularly better than the other from what I've read, but I'm not even sure about that.

I have a 76 F250 I would love to do this to, but I would really like to do it feeling pretty confident of my overall "plan".

 

True. I actually run .025 wire though as it burns even hotter. Like I said the point with the thinner wire is to get better penetration out of an underpowered machine. I typically don't mess with anything over 1/4" thick so I have no use for anything bigger - especially in a MIG. If the odd chance does arrive I borrow my buddies 210 Miller MIG. Or better yet I just run it with my 385 TIG. VERY rare case for me to even mess with 3/8" stuff though.

Oh and I dig the welding masks. It reminds me of the guy I have do body work on the cars. GREAT body guy and he uses a lens taped to a piece of cardboard with a rectangular hole cut in it. He's been doing it that way for years, and it's how he learned/started back in Mexico so he's never changed. I love going back to watch him work and seeing that!

 

The hydro installation is kicking my butt. I didn't have enough room to use a puller for my p/s pulley, so I had to remove the entire bracket.

First off, the hydro I pulled had a rod the same length as my oem booster. So I tried to mount it plate on firewall. But the hole in the firewall is too small. So I made a bracket to move the unit away from the firewall. Because the rod housing tapers, it will sit fine like that, but now I have to lengthen the rod. I thought I would chop off the rod on the oem booster, so I get the Ford 'eye' to the pedal, and weld them together, then slipping a steel tube over and welding it too. The rods are two different thicknesses, so I thought I would slice the end of the rod with a zip disc so I can clamp it down onto the smaller rod for welding.

Does that sound okay to everyone? I cranked up the power on the welder, and am getting good penetration on 3/16" plate. I thought I'd try to clamp the rod flat on a piece of angle iron to weld it. Any suggestions?

Note: The thread I read about the installation, the guy had to drill out the rod eye to get the ford 5/8". The eye on the unit I pulled is too big. I'm sure chevy/bendix had many variations with their hydros.

 

Ok this is important enough where I had to show you some options. This Would be THE most important weld on your truck. Heres what you would need to do IF you were to weld it.
First off it would be ideal if you had a rod that was the same size. If you can make that work somehow the top pic would be what you would do. Grind the 2 rods to almost a point but a slight blunt end but have your slip tube on first. Weld joint grind smooth then slip over tube and weld 2 ends.

Now if you must use the 2 different size rods the bottom pic is waht you could do..
Weld the connection. Grind smooth . Now with a tube cut in half that is actually smaller than the diameter of rod ,place it over joint but with the gap big enough between the 2 pieces where you can weld the whole length of the joining slip tubed with penetration into the rod plus the two ends of the slip tube...


Also I assume no responsibilty for if you weld it. If you have any doubt in youe welding skills or machine DO NOT ATTEMPT!

I would personally prefer to see you make a say 3/4" rod bar drilled and tapped to accept threads that you tap onto the 2 ends of the rods maybe with some jam nuts or one end left hand thread and the other right hand like a tie rod.
Or just thought of this make both ends the same right hand threads and thread them together and then just weld the ends of threaded sleeve to the rod so the threads can never back off...