I changed my front shocks today while I still have the front clip off and everything's easy to get to.





In the process, I was planning to change the upper spring retainers since the driver side one was busted. I discovered, however, that the ones JBG sells aren't right for my truck. Still deciding what to do about that. At least I got the busted pieces out while I had the suspension at full droop and could move the spring out of the way to do it. I used zip ties to hold the springs in place for installation, and can go back and install something later.







I also got the switch for my remote oil drain installed. There was an existing hole on the passenger side inner fender near the battery that looked convenient; not sure what a PO had used it for, but there was nothing in it when I got the truck. I rigged up a splash shield for the switch and got it mounted:

 

have you decided on a color for the outside, my $.02 would be to keep it red and white

 

I'm definitely sticking with red - may or may not keep the white roof (it's not original to the truck, but is at least a period-correct pattern). That'll be a little ways down the road anyhow. Planning to get it back on the road immediately, then over time I'll start addressing the cosmetic/paint issues with it. Only major rust issue I've found is the wheel wells on the bed sides - esp. driver's side. Front right fender needs replacing due to dent rather than rust: the PO backed his tractor into it in the shed. PO already did a floorpan repair (riveted in rather than welded, but good enough) and paint job, some time ago; the paint is starting to chip off now, so I'll have to do something about it sooner rather than later. I'll probably do some temporary rattle-can paint fixes in the short term, then really address it in a year or two.

 

yeah my floor is "holy", but I have the floor pans in the loft, glad to hear the red will stick, looks right to me. I have plans to put a 31spline f150 9" axle in mine, the only thing is I dunno the gear ratio.

 

Thanks. I like it on the truck, and also don't want to go through all the hassle that changing the color would entail with repainting the interior/door sills/etc. too!

As far as the axle, if you're swapping anyway, pick the ratio you want. *shrug*

 

I filled the cracks in my steering wheel with PC-7 epoxy (suggested by others here) yesterday and cleaned it up today. The epoxy is putty-like going on, and sets up somewhat plastic. Fortunately, it doesn't adhere well on the surface of the plastic: I was able to gently scrape off the excess with a screwdriver/my fingernail before sanding:




Cleaned up and sanded with 600-grit. Ready to paint.

 

Brian, do you have the battery support bracket that attaches to the top of the inner fender?
Making nice progress, looking forward to the steering wheel update.

 

Thanks.

I have this battery tray



And this hold-down (with J-bolts). It's a DC repro piece. There was no hold-down at all in the truck when I bought it - battery was just sitting in the tray.



Not sure if some other bracket may have once existed, but that's it now.

 

OK, I was just going to say that may be what the hole on the fender was from, where your switch is located. You can kind of make it out near the radiator hose in this picture if you can zoom. I removed mine when plotting my battery relocation.

 

Ah cool, that could explain it - looks like about the right spot. The hole was either 3/8" or 7/16" in diameter IIRC - I checked old pictures from before disassembly to verify that there had been nothing there, before I decided to use that location:

 

A buddy came over and helped me reinstall the front clip today.





I'm going to need to do something about the intake air routing. Not sure what approach I'll take here yet.

 

Got the radiator and aux transmission cooler installed today.



Still need to run new transmission cooler lines, but getting close to having everything hooked up.

I also got the steering wheel painted. Looks better than before, though not perfect - mostly because I lack the patience for all the sanding involved in body work. If I'd put another layer of filler in on the wide cracks, and sanded it well, it would've probably come out even better. Still way better than gaping crevices in the wheel though:





Actually looks pretty good where there were small cracks - it's just the big ones that are still visible.



The back is more noticeable, but ... I don't really care

 

Steering wheel turned out good I think.


Found this on summit for your intake, Im sure you could find it elsewhere.


http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CW...89?seid=srese2

 

Thanks. I'm happy with it. Big improvement over the gaping cracks.


I primed it, then tried painting with DupliColor's semi-gloss black enamel, but it turned out to be what I would consider a straight-up flat finish. So I went back over it with a gloss black Rust-Oleum.
Thanks for the link. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but the snorkel is very close to the washer fluid reservoir, and dead in line with it. I think it has enough flex in it that I'll be able to route a flexible duct over the top of the reservoir - I may have to bend the snorkel a bit where it attaches to the air cleaner housing - we'll see.

 

A piece of advice: it's probably worth the extra cost of a complete turn signal/hazard switch compared to just replacing the cam.

My turn signal cam was broken, such that it only self-canceled in one direction; I saw that they were available as replacement parts fairly inexpensively, so decided to fix it while I had the truck inoperable anyway. You've got to solder the two wires in, which isn't a huge deal, but replacing the push-on washer that holds it in is a royal PITA, and the replacement cam doesn't come with a new one (even though it's essentially impossible to remove without destroying).

And the first time I put it together, it turns out one of the wires on the underside wasn't making good contact, which took a fair amount of troubleshooting to figure out: the wire to the right rear turn signal wasn't making contact - the hazards worked fine (except that bulb), but the right turn signal wouldn't come on at all. I had to remove the cam again, bend the little wires on the underside, and reinstall. All the time I put into that is probably worth more than the price of the whole switch.

Oh well; everything electrical is tested and working now (including the intermittent washer setup I installed - late 80s model, so just had to install the two-wire connector backwards to get washer functionality; otherwise plug-and-play), so I reinstalled the steering wheel:



Dash is looking pretty good, with the new instrument cluster lens, repaired steering wheel, etc. I took aluminum foil + WD40 to the shift lever too - cleaned up nicely.

Here are a few shots of the current state of things under the hood too. Getting pretty close to having this complete and ready to fire the engine up. I still need to bend & run new transmission cooling lines, fill the transmission the rest of the way, fill the coolant, and install the driveshaft (which the driveline shop is working on and should be ready the end of this week or beginning of next).





My passenger side intake ducting looks OK - need to get the pieces to hook up the driver side, but even if that doesn't get done before the driveshaft is in, I can drive around without it until I get it sorted out.