My track bar mount arrived :-)

 

Good Luck-- My dads has a 62- 3 on the tree that I drove to College-- allot of fun.

 

I had the tires rotated on the Super Duty yesterday and did a brake inspection while the wheels were off. Rotation was free. The right rear had some uneven wear on the pads so I pulled the tire off today and found a bad caliper. After changing it and the pads, I think all is good. My truck sure seems to be hard on pads, rotors and calipers. It seems the slide pins are part of the problem and are a poor design. I have a Highlander and they never give a problem. Granted it is a lot smaller, but slide pins shouldn't be a rocket sign design.

 

I received my exhaust manifold yesterday, and am looking forward to having the truck repaired, but nervous about busting off bolts in the heads, or even finding that some have already busted off. None the less, it needs done, so I still have to move forward with it.

 

I'm sure towing that big camper doesn't do a thing to help wear down the pads :-)

 

Turns out the builder sent the wrong trans. The only way I was driving it home was to fix it. Didn't look terribly bad inside so I flushed out all the shavings with brake kleen, Put it back in with fresh gear oil and learned how to properly adjust the linkage in these forums, And drove it home. No more grinding going into 2nd, no more sticking in 3rd, and I saved about $450 for a rebuilt trans!

 

Right on!!! Glad you got her all fixed up and made it home.

 

That's a good looking truck!!


So this morning, a coworker brought in a brake fluid testing electronic meter. It tests water content. He tested his vehicle and it read 1 percent water content. Another coworker tested his and it read 0. Neither of them have ever changed out their fluid. Then we tested mine on my truck that I just changed out fluid on a month or two ago. The meter read off the charts.. That's depressing. I hope its seeing additives in the fluid rather than water.

 

Thanks guys. Just got it recently, got tired of waiting on myself to get my 63 put together. New to the forum and not real sure how I ended up in Kansas.
So here is a picture of my helper.

 

OHHH THat's a good looking canine!!

 

Good helper!

Curtis sometimes fluid sitting on the shelf for awhile will absorb moisture.

 

Yeah, but I bought these brand new from the parts store, and they were both sealed. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case.

 

It was a fun weekend. I went to shift gears after we hooked up to the camper and the gear shift lever popped and hung there like a broken arm. No shifty any more. This was about 4:30 friday afternoon. I called several places and no one could get to it till this next week and it would have to be towed. I was told it was probably the gear shift tube in the steering column. So friday night I looked it up on google and found a bunch of you tubes on how to fix it. I picked up the kit on saturday at the autoparts store in Wamego where the truck was and tore into it. Fiddleing around under the dash with a t30 torx bit is not fun, but I finally got the old tube out and started to put it back together and wouldn't you know I forgot to put a little spring in the works after it was about 2/3s done. This was about 1 pm and we needed to be somewhere later in the afternoon so I abandoned the project. We I tore it apart and got it together today. Feeling pretty proud since it is done and I'm only out the cost of parts. Now if it just all works as it should. It worked on a short test drive.

I must not be too uncommon for these to break because the parts store in Wamego had two of the repair kits.

 

I am exhausted. literally...

As soon as I got home from work on Friday I began removing my exhaust manifold. The starter had to be removed and took me about 3 hours, and some very sore arms, then everything that I feared about broken studs in the head didn't happen, all studs and nuts were able to be backed out. however I worked until about 2 AM on Friday night getting the last stud out which was in the worst ever position to be able to reach. I tried and tried but could not wiggle the exhaust manifold out. Completely worn out from all of this, I went to bed, leaving the manifold lay there pinched between the frame and motor. I was tired, and felt defeated, but also excited that I didn't have to drill out any broken studs. Everything although completely taxing on my body and wellbeing, went as well as possible. I took yesterday off to go to a movie with the family in the morning, then later went with a friend to inspect and test a new to him two door Jeep. In the middle of the night we had a large thunderstorm, and I woke straight up in bed, knowing that I had open heads that could fill with water if we had sideways rain, so I got up to wrap the motor in plastic bags for the night. I couldn't hardly move.

I got home last night from looking at the Jeep with my neighbor, and it was raining sideways. It rained almost 5 inches, so I took the rest of the night off to heal and relax.
This morning I woke up and was going to start on it again, but the driveway was wet and I didn't want to lay on wet concrete to start my day... well.. I did anyway.
I had to cut a board, to set on my jack to lift up one side of the motor. By doing this I was able to find a path to remove the manifold. I had to drop part of the exhaust, and disassemble the exhaust. At 6:30 pm, I have the old one out, and the head cleaned up and all of the threads chased to make sure that they are OK. I would start on reassembly, but I am so tired I can't think straight, sore I can't move, and I am a little scared that things may not go back together the way that they came apart. In addition.... one flange bolt wouldn't come out of the manifold, and the other one wouldn't come off of the flange and had to be cut off. I called the local parts stores and Oreilly's only had a single one, but could order them in for Tuesday, AutoZone didn't have any, but could get them by Tuesday also. I bought the one from Oreilly's and they verified that they had another one in Topeka. Julie was in Topeka, so I had her pick it up.

It will be another day's project.. I am mentally and physically done.

 

Well.. I told myself I would go one more step after dinner. I installed the flange bolts.... Then I had the idea that maybe I would just go the next step and see if I could fit the manifold up to its home and call it a night.... Then I got it up there by making some new cuss words and mashing a finger real good. Long story short, I got the manifold bolted to the head, with all the bolts. I do need to drive one more nut in, and start the torque sequence. This project made it this far in 4 hours. While dreading it, I had it in my mind I would do it over a course of 3-4 days so that I could take it one step at a time and not get in a hurry, or get stressed about it. What helped, is my neighbor came by to see the project, and kept saying "I want to see what it would look like if it was mounted." I want to see what it would look like with the studs installed," "I want to see what it would look like with all the nuts installed." I was ready to throw in the towel once the first stud was in, because I couldn't hardly move. It was nice to have someone to hold the light where I needed it though.

I will go through the torque sequence tonight then look at starting to put the rest of it back together. This is one project I will never do again.. I would pay dearly to have someone else do this.