Hi Joe--I had some pretty serious handling issues when I made the trip to Kentucky for the 2017 Truckstock. As it turned out, my biggest problem was the drag link. Improper toe in adjustment was another factor. Increasing the caster to about 5.5 degrees on both sides was another part of the fix. My king pins were also found to be installed upside down and that needed to be corrected as well.

I found a spring shop that did the work. They knew just what to do, and seemed very familiar with old solid axle trucks. The repairs cost about $400 which seemed like a lot, but accidents are expensive too(and life changing).

Good luck, and I look forward to meeting you at a Truckstock sometime.

Jim

 

I'm thinking my king pins are actually pretty good. Next time BJ or someone else that is smart stops by, I need to have them look.
I straightened by axle out. I also played with the steering box. The adjusting screw was all the way down. I could have done that when I removed the cover bolt. When I was putting it back on today, I noticed that screwing the bolt on tightened the adjusting screw. I figured out how to get that bolt on without moving the screw.
As I was doing this, I discovered a couple of my bolts holding the steering box to the frame were loose. I got those tightened down. Hopefully tomorrow I can take the truck out for a spin to see if there is any change. I'm beginning to think it might be my steering box that is the main culprit of my shimmy. My steering wheel moves about 30 degrees before the tires move.
It's cold out so my drive won't be too long. Oh, as a side note. I got a propane forced air heater. That does a good job of warming my shop.

 

Pictures of your heater, please. And you don't have any snow out in California?

 

 

BJ, Hopefully you will get your truck out of the shop before long and we can install the windshield. I won't be driving my truck too much during this cold.
Abe, last weekend, we got about 10 inches of wet snow. They were predicting 3-5 inches last night, but it never came. We did get rain on Friday. I can now see parts of my yard.
Here is the snow working its way off my garage. One evening I parked my car in the garage and 10 minutes later a bunch of snow slid off the roof. I had a three foot pile I had to shovel to be able to get my car back out.


Here is my heater. I got it at a local farm store. It's available on amazon here: It is supposed to heat over 2100 sq ft. My shop is about 800 sq ft. I pondered the kerosene version, but figured this one would be easier to maneuver. They were about the same price.

 

Nice heater. I forgot you moved and have a bigger shop now!!!! For my small garage I use a propane tank top burner. My garage used to be an old fashioned two car garage with big roll doors on a track. The previous owner was a minister and they converted the garage into a one car garage with an overhead door on one side and an office for him on the other side. The office side is insulated. So I can use the burner on either side. Last week I was working on my truck and the burner quickly got that side up to 50°.

 

You know I've read all these posts about heating your garage. It's such a foreign concept...
I've never seen icicles like Joe's pointing sideway towards the house. Don't the heaters use up the available oxygen?
Do you have to leave the door cracked to get some fresh air in the garage?

My garage can reach 110 degrees … we have some hardship just not the cold kind.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

I pondered the smaller ones like you have abe. As I get older, I like the cold less, so I figured a bigger one would do better. I need to get a thermometer for my shop.
Ben, they do say you need to have ventilation. My garage isn't sealed well enough to worry about cracking any doors or anything of that nature.
I don't recall seeing the snow do what it did to that extent ever before. It was so wet and heavy, as it started sliding off the roof, it just hung together. News stations were using a graphic to explain the weight of the snow on roofs saying a 10 inch snow was equivalent to having 2 trucks on your roof.

 

 

It is still only 17° out, but I took the truck for a test drive anyway. I got started and was hearing this awful noise. At first I thought it was a wheel bearing, but later I noticed my speedometer needle was jumping all over the place. I removed the cable from the speedometer and the noise stopped. So, is that something with the cable or the dash? A video is below.
Also, I still have the shimmy when I hit 55-60. I'm beginning to think it is the steering box play that is causing it. Of course, I probably should just bite the bullet and replace the king pins as well.
Now, I was looking at steering box rebuilt kit and Rock Auto has a service. You send in your steering box and they repair it. The cost of that is about the same as the rebuild kit from mid fifty.
Mid Fifty Steering Box Rebuild Kit $290
Rebuild service RockAuto $295 (LARES Corp does the work)
Edit: Holy smokes O'Reilly sells them for $729 from the same company. Plus $275 core charge. Rock Auto, you ship your box out and the repair and ship back.

Has anyone heard of that service.It would seem a no brainier with that price differential.

Here is the speedometer noise video.

 

Cold weather speedometer cable noise is common, Joe.
The only comment I'll make on the shimmy is that everything has to be right in the front end for these old trucks to drive the way they were designed to drive. Old tires are not that flexible in cold weather.

 

The expensive part of those steering boxes is the sector gear. Midfifty has rebuild kits for much less than that if the sector gear is fine. I'd take it apart and confirm what exactly is bad in the box, and if it is the sector, go from there. They're not that complicated to get apart and rebuilt.

The sector gear was bad in my 54 F250, so I got a big truck box out of my 55 F350. Just needed to drill one hole in the frame, but it's basically bolt on and then you get the more favorable gear ratio that's slightly easier to turn. I should have 1 or 2 should have access to, I think I even have an extra gasket set or two for them I can throw in if you wanted.. You can send me a PM if you're interested

 

 

Thanks Fladoodle, I need to bite the bullet and change the king pins and rebuild the steering box. I will start that research (not sure how to separate the steering box from the column). I just hate the idea of not having my truck available to drive any time I want. But, I also want to travel this summer. I had better get cracking.

BJ, my heater is not hooked up. I haven't done that because I don't have the firewall pad installed. I don't have that installed because I think my fuse panel box is too big and my under dash wiring is a rats nest created my me. I will dig into that stuff in due time.

I also need to figure out what I need to do to make my speedometer accurate. Time to research. I think I was told what I need to do, but I've forgotten.

 

Joe, I had the speedo app on my phone and drove down the highway noticing how far off my trucks' speedometers were. When my 54 speedo said 65mph I was really doing 55mph, so at the higher speeds it was 10mph off. It's a proportional thing, so at lower speeds it's more accurate but still off. When my 55 speedo read 60 mph I was really doing 55 mph.

I am not going to bother getting my speedometers more accurate.