I've been doing some wrenching on my junk here lately. For those of you not familiar with my build, I took a 1967 F100 Shorbox 2wd, and converted it to 4 wheel drive. I used a fairly healthy 390, an NP435/208, dana 60 rear, and 44 front.

I managed to crack my 208 a long while back, and never got around to wrenching on it till recently. I put a 205 in its place, which involved making a new crossmember. Then my rear driveshaft end up being about 6" too short. I snapped the front d-shaft when I cracked the 208.

Now that the 205 was finally put in place, I decided it was time to get rid of the 4" block in the rear, and hopefully fix my axle wrap issues. So I made shackle flip hangers for the rear, and shackle flipped it. Now my piniion is pointing way way way too far up. I was wondering how many of you guys remove the shim under the lift springs (I have 4" lift springs in the rear right now), and flip the shim backwards to lower the pinion angle?

I could always torch my perches off, and re-weld them in place and re-set my pinion, but I don't want to go thru all that work if it is not necessary.

I had a line on a Dana 60 front axle, but the local junkyard didn't get the truck in, the guy bought it back from his insurance company.

I have push/pull type steering up front now, and am not building a new front d-shaft until I have a 60 front, then I will go power steering/crossover.

So my questions are:

What should I do to fix my rear pinion angle?

What steering box should I get for doing my crossover?

Should I stick with my almost brand new 36" TSLs (400 miles on them maybe), or go bigger?

My current exhaust no longer can be run on my driver side with the 205 under the truck, should I go single 2.5" or try to run the duals on the passenger side (this would involve alot of exhaust work).

I'll go snap some pics here shortly of the progress and post it up a lil later.

But there are alot of new faces around here these days, than when I used to post here alot more often. So Here is what I'm working with.



Shackle flip hangers:

 

Some trucks (Broncos anyway) came with angled blocks to get the pinion to point upwards....
They don't give much lift(maybe 1"), so they wouldn't cause any axle wrap, but if you flip them around (from their intended use), then it should drop the pinion angle down some...don't know if it'd be enough for you though.

For the 36s.....might as well use them.
You'll loose a ton of money trying to sell them(if you even can)..., and buying another set of tires when you don't 'need' them just hurts the wallet.
So, I'd keep my eyes open for a good/used set of tires in the 40" range, but wheel the 36s until then.

As for exhaust, I'm a big fan of duals, but sometimes things are better when cheap and simple(single exhaust).

 

X2 on sticking with the 36's.

Nice truck by the way.

 

Looks good.

For the spring degree shims, I'd just flip them around and see what that nets you.

I'd keep the 36's as well, just maybe cut/groove them...

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. I will probably run the 36s for the rest of the year and see how I do racing with 'em. IF all goes well I will probably go bigger this winter maybe. I could get rid of my tires real easily to one of my neighbors, so I don't think I'd lose much on 'em when I do get rid of them.

Here are a few more pics:







I have the shackle flip brackets welded on now, I will be putting 2 bolts in for good measure, just didn't feel like drilling holes tonite too bad. Figured I'd skin my knuckles tomorrow.

 

GDMF10CLSUX!

 

Before you glued the shackle hangers on, did you count on that much shackle angle?
Have you loaded, or cycled the suspension out back?
Looks like the shackle might over center if the spring is able to compress far enough.

As for your pinion angle, it is easy to cut off the spring perches, you do not need a torch. I have had great results with a simple 4" grinder and a cut off wheel. If you cut the welds vertically, straight up and down, you can get them off in about 20 minutes.
This is the best solution.

 

The shackles are at 47 degrees, and I haven't cycled the suspension yet. I was going to pull the truck out of the shop later today and get the forklift on it and see what I got going. If needed I can torch those hangers off in a few minutes. I've seen the angle alot worse on a few other trucks and they haven't had a problem, so hopefully it'll cycle fine.

Anyone have any recomendations on a carb for my truck? I am going to be putting my Edelbrock Performer intake on soon, and I need to get a carb bought.

 

I like Holley carbs for moderate to modified engines and Proforms for modified to highly modified engines.

I hear bad things about Demon and Predator carbs. No experience...just what I hear.
Edelbrock makes a good carb. It will get slightly better gas mileage than a Holley but have slightly less performance. Edelbrocks will also require less maintenence over time than a Holley. The seals and gaskets dont dry up as bad when the truck has been sitting a while.
Its hard to beat a Holley 750 for most big block applications though. Pretty cheap and pretty easy to work on.

 

I still haven't decided what carb to get. Everyone I talk to reccomends something different.

Should I go with Vaccum or mechanical secondaries with a 4spd? I've never had a 4 barrel on manual tranny. Everyone has a different opinion on this as well.......

I dialed in my carb tonite thats on there, got 'er running really good to 4k (rev limiter is set there so I don't get too dumb with it).

I end up taking a d-shaf to the local machine shop to have it built since I haven't had time with spraying crops, it should be done tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get 'er drove out of the shop in the next day or 2, need to run to town an get a few new u-joints.

 

You were right, springs over-centered. Sure rode smooth till they loaded up. Re-did the passenger side tonite, wasn't fun cutting my welds, but I got 'em cleaned up good with the cut-off wheel on the hand grinder. I definately like the shackle flip a gazillion times better than the blocks I had in the rear.

Just need to build my front d-shaft and I'm back in bussines!

 

I've done alot more work on the truck. I got my rear suspension dialed in pretty good, I yanked the exhaust, and am running open headers till mud racing season is over. I got a race this weekend and one of my buddies wifes is going to video it for me, so I'll try to post up a vid.

I also picked up a Dana 60 front axle finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Found a 1979 F250 Snow Fighter, brought the whole truck home today. Anyone need any parts off of it? I stole the steering box, t-case, front axle, rear axle, and a few lil things.

Has a 400 that runs with a bad flywheel.

 

pics of the truck?

Might no someone intreseted if its in good condition? would you sell it as a total?

 

The '79 is pretty hashed out. Someone stripped alot of the cosmetic items, as well as half the interior stuff. Heres a pic of the body, I don't think there was a straight panel on the whole truck, or one that wasn't rusted out.



The good part!

 

You said you takin the axles? What would you be lookin to get out of it?