Cleaned and greased the slip yokes on both the front and rear drive shafts. Dudes! If you have drivetrain clunks, grease your yokes!! I eliminated 95% of the noise and clunks that I had attributed to either sloppy gears, or worn u-joints today.

Now all I need is a set of spider and sides for my rear diff, and my drivetrain will be tight.

I worked an extra shift at work today, so I can buy more parts. Does that count?

It counts if you come and work on mine - the brown one. See my Work Truck post.

I replaced one headlight (passenger side) in mine last night. I know, I know, I'm supposed to replace them in pairs. But the one I replaced look like it had moisture in it for some time. I think that's what made it finally go out. I replaced it with a Silverstar H6054SL, and it appears to be a little brighter than the Sylvania Extra Bright that is in there. I have to say that I found a DRL kit with the wiring harness some years back on clearance somewhere. I installed it then, and found the standard headlights to be much brighter than before. So, I would recommend replacing the wiring harness with an upgraded one if you want more brightness and visibility in your headlights. I also started cleaning and polishing on a chrome bumper that was given to me by "Blue80" on here that didn't need it anymore.

spent the last 6.5 hrs wet sanding the cab....tomorrow i get to wet sand the bed while my father in law rides the buffer on the cab.

Lesson learned - If you build a 300 with a little extra HP make sure you get heavy duty motor mounts. I have had vibration in my clutch when starting off from a stop or a hill. After crawling underneath I found the passenger side mount failing. That's going to be a pain to replace.

Its so friggin hot outside for the last couple of weeks, I can't get up the energy to do any truck work & the next ten days show no let up. I swear, it went from snow to 100 degrees, hate this heat. Better weather will come.

Yep, it is hot in Okiehoma. Took the front gas tank I pulled out of the parts truck outside to clean it off before storing it upstairs in the shop as it won't go into the Explorer until there's a different engine in it. Took a lot longer than I expected and the shade was gone long before I was. Got the tank clean-ish and left it in the sun to dry. Came back in an hour and couldn't hold onto it, in spite of the reflective finish.

Retreated back into the shop and took the recently-cleaned C6 upstairs. (Nothing goes upstairs that isn't clean.) May use it the Stepside, so will hang onto it for a bit. Cleaned the baked-on oil off the crank that came from the parts truck's 351W the PO destroyed. Then put the block in the parts cleaner. (No Ray/RW, it isn't sitting in/on the plastic parts washer, just hanging from the shop crane.) It is amazing how much gunk can be in and on an engine when you don't change the oil often enough.

Gonna push the parts truck into the shop tomorrow to start taking the bed off. Need to get it picked clean so's I can get the '85 HO in there on Tuesday to see if the engine will run. Is there a cure for this infection? :'(

stared at my trucks... then went wheeling in the jeep.

Hot Wrench Works!
 

Got all 8 (I hope that's all) bolts off the bed off the parts truck and hope to pull it off tomorrow. Used the procedure Ray1986F150 and I used to get the bumper off - heat the nut w/MAP gas for 20 seconds or so and hit it w/either the impact wrench or a dead-blow hammer on a break-over. That broke them lose and then I hit them w/penetrating oil and used a ratchet on them. :)

I put on a cap & rotor, air filter and I also bought a new set of floormats for my flairside and put them in. looks and runs alot smoother now.

Those bed bolts are some pesky critters!

That's what I'd read and heard, so was pleasantly surprised when heat did the trick. Why I hadn't been soaking them in PB Blaster I don't know since I've been planning to take the bed off for a couple of months.

But, I soaked the bumper bolts for 2 days prior to trying to take it off and that didn't seem to have helped. On those nuts we heated them and they broke loose and turned a couple of turns, but then would cool and seize again and had to be reheated. The bed nuts broke loose with a big smack from the hammer on the break-over and I turned them down a turn or so - far enough I could get PB Blaster on the bolt above the nut. From that point they came off with a ratchet.

Ya know, I'm kinda glad to read all about this.

How long did it take to remove the bed?

Reason I ask is, I see people out here talking about removing the bed in order to work on gas tanks, as if removing the bed is somehow easier than dropping a tank.

I ran across a guy in the JY who had removed his bed (and was installing another at the JY) he said it took him at least 8 hours to get it off....

Well, I did remove the front tank and plan to remove the rear tank before pulling the bed tomorrow. But, the front tank came out because I wanted to see if it is better than the apparently rusty one on my driver. It is and the sending unit works to boot, which the driver's doesn't, so that combo is going on the driver.

The rear will come out because that'll be easier than trying to siphon the gas out. The PO was using the rear tank up to the time the engine cratered, so that gas is newer than what's in the front tank, and I'm using the gas from the front tank in a 50/50 mix with new gas in my tractor. And, the filler hose has to come off anyway.

As for time, maybe an hour with a few breaks to catch some action on NASCAR's road race at Sonoma. (I have a Slingbox in the shop with wifi out there provided by a Linksys router running Tomato, but that's another story.) However, keep in mind the truck was on the lift, which made things much easier.