1970 Dart Swinger FINALLY UNDERWAY

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Alright well I'll be swapping everything, got my bearing set and whatnot in today.

Funny, speaking of wasted military tools. I had to go in to my unit for the day today to make up for a training day I took off. Spent most of the morning running around with a skid loader moving scrap wood, metal, and rubber to their respective locations. Of course this gave me a chance to shuffle through the scrap metal crate while I was taking a smoke break. SCORE, busted up red tool box in the bottom and a metal drawer with some stuff. Ended up recovering two 1 1/2in deep well snap-on impact sockets along a specialized looking snap on wrench, not sure what it's purpose is but it's a 9/16. Got two spinner pliers, an allen key set, some other little odds and ends, and what appears to be a complete set of ratcheting 12 point wrenches. All made in the USA, they appear to be Imperial Stride, good stuff. I also found a handful of seal driver attachments but didn't grab them since they were wayyyy bigger than anything I would need.

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MMMMM safety wire pliers...used to use those ALL the time. Airplanes are full of safety wire...
 
Well the new job certainly has it's perks, mainly being able to bring in my own stuff when I'm off the clock to work on. Brought the axle in today with me and changed out the pinion bearings after I was done for the day. Those bearings were TOASTED! Glad I'm changing them, both axles had pitted bearings and races. Got the pinion shafts out of both housings, hammered in new races and pressed a new bearing onto the shaft. new wheel bearings and seals are in. Only thing I didn't do was the pinion seal because I want to clean it up a bit around the edges before I paint it.

Having access to a hydraulic press sure makes this stuff a hell of a lot easier and less knuckle-bustingly difficult. :violent1:

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As a bonus here's a battery cable off a Peterbilt 379 with 1/2in of crustyness on it.

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Right on! So you work at a big rig repair shop? I had to go to one of those to get my rear axle U bolts made (for my 7.25") because no one in town carried any.
 
Yep, I just started last week as a full time diesel mechanic. Funny story about that, it's actually a place I used to work security at making garbage, one of the terminal managers knew I had been a mechanic in the Army and offered me a job in the shop. It's been great so far and I work with a really good group of guys. The other two truck mechanics are many years older than me, I'm the young gun, but they help me out a lot with little tricks or any questions I have since military trucks were pretty different.

Speaking of U-bolts I spent most of the day today getting the front axle on this truck disassembled and pulled out to get both kingpins replaced. We ended up just torching the U-bolts off to save some time and dropping the axle. This thing is a mess though, it has electrical issues, needs a window, the heat is stuck on, and the driver said it "needs a brake job" which from what I can see means "I backed into something and bent the brake chamber sideways and bent the frame." Fun.

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Been working on trucks [not pickups] for 30+ years. A 4lb cross pean hammer becomes your best friend. The torch striker is always in your back pocket cause that is the second tool you grab after hammer, and SAVE YOUR BACK. Being 50 and still wrenching sucks when your are in pain every day. I was iron man in my 20's and would carry 6-71 heads and flip duals all day long. Now I regret it. I like your build and will be posting mine soon
 
Wow-sounds like he worked a doozy on ya there...not cool. But, like the man said-save your back...wear a brace/support if you can and lift with your legs. I'm only in my 30s and already starting to feel what I did to myself for the first 20 some odd years of my life.
 
Ha ha, yeah that truck is a piece of work, we're going to have it for a while. Found out today the driver has been going so long on the wobbly kingpins that the both spindles are trashed. It's got a busted air line, leaking differential, leaking axle seal, all the shoes and drums were trash, the heat is stuck on, drivers side window is busted, and I broke two filter wrenches on it because drivers like to crank their filters on like it's a lug nut after we send them back.

and yeah I have a 4lb hammer on top of my box that use for everything :violent1:
 
Had a regular customer com in on a Saturday and after having his truck serviced at one of those quickie oil changes took me 2 hours, 3 filter wrenches trashed including 2 Snap On strap wrenches and a 4' cheater bar to get oil filter off
 
Jo Diesel said:
Had a regular customer com in on a Saturday and after having his truck serviced at one of those quickie oil changes took me 2 hours, 3 filter wrenches trashed including 2 Snap On strap wrenches and a 4' cheater bar to get oil filter off
Click to expand...

Wow...guess folks don't realize oil filters don't require hyperbolic over-tightening...
 
Just got back from my AT on friday, got a little time to finish up the axle over the weekend. Finally got the remainder of the scale off, I discovered that beating the housing directly with the mallet was very effective at cracking through the scale, then cleaned it up with a masonry chisel. Came out well and I finished up the day by treating the metal and brushing it with POR-15. Still need to rattle can a few areas.

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Looks good dude, even thought those axle tube-to-housing welds look atrocious.
What crackpot welder did you let do those? I'd fire him.

I'll try to get that oil pan sorted out this week. I should be around most nights this week if you want a hand with anything.
 
New issue to resolve, when I was assembling the hubs today we noticed that on both sides the rotor is contacting the lower ball joint bolts. I'm wondering if maybe they are backwards. Unfortunately if they are and I have to flip them around I will be SOL because flipping those bolts causes them to contact the LCA leaving me with no steering.

Choices choices

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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZy_LIe0YeM"]YouTube[/ame]
 
When I did the swap, the same thing happened. I just ended up swapping back to the factory bolts and problem solved. If you can't do that, I agree with above, just hack off the end of the bolts.
 
It's hitting the nut. I don't know whether or not these are factory bolts, they're just what came with the parts when I bought them.
 
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