Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you sir. You used to be able to walk into a pet store and buy an nice little brass valve for a couple of bucks and be good to go. But now there all plastic and they aren't very happy under the hood.

Been busy working on the WMB. I though I would post a teaser photo. I will post more after I get the metal sliver out of the end of my finger.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

That's the TH400 out of the WMB. Looking at the ID tag on it reveals a bit of a mystery. It shows a a 1968 truck transmission. (Photo #1) . I would have not been surprised if it was no longer the original transmission after all these years.
The mileage on the truck indicated 95k which seemed correct. Although the rear gears had been swapped from 3.73's to 3.07 s but, the speedometer was not recalibrated so the speedometer said 45 when you were doing 55. So it the mileage would have been low but the rear end had been replaced relatively recently so my guess is that the error would be less than 10k miles.
The mystery part is did it have to get a replacement transmission under warranty in 1968? Or did the transmission get swapped and for no real reason a 1968 get put in?
As far as the actual work being done it has been straight forward. I pulled the passenger side header for clearance and the old one was on the ground in about 2 hours.
Then it was time to remove the crossmember bolts and see if I could slide it back far enough to get the new TH350C and Gear Vendors overdrive up in place and then slide the crossmember forward into place. I might have made it happen but those hard lines I ran up through the floor for the air bags got in the way.
Okay now the plan was unbolt the GV from the TH350C and install the transmission first. This went well and I had the transmission bolted to the engine and held up with a stand. Now the fun began. I had to really fight to try and get the crossmember forward enough to put the bolts in the frame. Once I realized that the truck being on the lift was the problem, I dropped the truck back on the ground. Then with the bags fully aired up I crawled underneath and the crossmember slide right into place. Once the bolts were torqued I put the truck back up in the air. Lifting the truck from the under the frame on a 2 post lift was causing the frame rails to twist and prevent me from getting the top holes on the crossmember to line up. Once the pressure was gone the twist disappeared and everything lined up.
Then I tried to bolt the transmission mount on the transmission and once again found damaged threads. Uhggg! Not again! The first 1/2" or so of the threads in the driver's side hole looked as if someone had tried to Helicoil them and failed. I was able to get most of what I thought was the Helicoil out. Fortunately the holes in the case are about 1 1/2" deep so there is still a lot good threads but I had to do some serious searching through the bolt box to find the right length bolt so I would feel confident it would stay put. The passenger side hole wasn't as bad but none the less I was careful with my bolt selection. Once I am happy with everything the last thing I plan on doing is putting some blue Locktite on the 2 bolts and carefully torquing them down.
Once that was figured out the GV slid right into place like it belonged there. (Photo #2 & 3)
I knew that my exhaust pipes may not still work and boy was I right. Photo shows with the crossmember in position how far the pipes are off from lining up. More work for tomorrow that's for sure.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Before I reinstalled the passenger side header I noticed that the insulation on the starter's jumper from the solenoid to the starter motor was cracked and falling off. (Photo #1 black wire next to red line.) So I took some time to put some heat shrink tubing over it. Not very good quality wire as the starter only got installed last July .
After the header was back in place I then threw myself into getting the exhaust connected back together. Basically I had to shorten the collector's about 5/8" and the corresponding tube about 1 1/2'. Unfortunately that only got me close. I had to put a pretty fair sized dent in each tube to get it to clear the crossmember. (Photo # 2) The tube is pulled back from the crossmember to show the dent. When in place it gives about 1/4" of clearance between the tube and crossmember. I hope it will be enough when the exhaust is hot. Of course the other end had to be extended. So I used a coupling that I welded on one end and clamped on the other end. (Photo # 3 & 4 blue arrows show where clamps goes)The idea being that if the dented areas end up hitting the crossmember and vibrating I will be able to unbolt things instead of cutting it apart with a Sawsall.
As part of the making the tube clear the crossmember I also moved the where the O2 sensors are installed in the exhaust. I had originally installed the bungs in the exhaust pipes months before I had received the Innovate guage set. During the installation of the Air/Fuel guage I had to read the directions and that is when I learned I had put the bungs in the wrong location. :banghead: They needed to be in the top of the pipe to prevent water damage and mine were in the lower part of the tubes. Sure enough the lower of the 2 failed after several months.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Quality work!

That OD is gonna be awesome. I just installed a poor mans OD in mine last week. 31/10.50's lol

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Looks good. Those O2 sensors definitely need to be installed at least 10 degrees above level so that any moisture or condensation runs off the sensor.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks. I hope it will be awesome, I've been planning on it for years now.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks! Its a $80 lesson learned! :lol:


I got the driveshaft shortened by about 20 inches and installed. I checked the U-joint angles afterward and to my surprise I didn't have to change any of the shims and the angles got better than before. With a .5 degree on the front, 1 degree in the middle, and .5 degree at the rear. I could believe it so I went through the whole process twice.
Then the E-brake strap needed to go as it no longer had anything to bolt to. (4th photo)

In the last photo the GV switch panel. Double sided tape is holding in place for now as I'm not satisfied with how it looks.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I forgot to mention that I had to slot the transmission mount holes in the crossmember towards the rear of the truck about 3/16" to get things to line up. (Photo #1)

I mounted the GV controller to the bottom of the glove box. (Photo #2) I wish it had been smaller. After all the years GV has been offered this controller around I'm sure that this box could be significantly smaller with modern electronics.

The hook up of the wiring is really simple. One RCA jack for 12v positive, one for 12v negative then one phone jack each for the speed generator, for the solenoid on the gear box, for the dash switch panel, and for the manual control switch (foot switch).

After reading the manual several times I'm not sold on the whole foot switch operation. I know if this was being installed in a car with a floor shifter I would mount a switch on the shifter. Their description of how to shift makes it sound awkward at best. So I decided not to do a permanent mount of the foot switch, no sense in drilling extra holes in the firewall for nothing if I change my mind about the foot switch. So on to alternative mountings.

First I mounted the foot switch to an electrical box cover. Then I stuck Velcro to the back of the cover. I marked where I thought I might like the switch to be on the firewall. When I stuck the other half of the Velcro I offset the 2 pieces so I can have the ability to move the switch if I need to. It has passed the initial test drive so the Velcro is a go for now.

That pretty much wraps up the GV installation. Now on to the Th350C part.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

First thing done on the TH350C was to put a drain plug in the pan. (Photo 1) There should be a special place in hell for the bean counter who decided that it wasn't necessary. :sumo:

The TH350 I installed is an early 80's version which has a lockup converter like a 2004r or a 700r4 would. There was no computer control of the earliest versions so it is a simple control circuit to operate the lockup. The transmission will automatically lockup the converter in 3rd gear once pressure rises high enough. Usually around 45 MPH. There is also solenoid inside the transmission that has to be energized to allow the lock up to occur.
The lock up needs to be released when braking and when accelerating. To get braking cut out I replaced the factory brake switch with a brake switch for a 72 C10 with cruise control. Amazingly this switch is still readily available at NAPA. (Photo #2)

The acceleration cutout comes from a vacuum switch that opens a set of contacts at about 6 inches of vacuum. So the contacts are closed when at cruise when manifold vaccum is high. Then when the throttle is punched vacuum drops and the lock up is released. I found that the original GM switch has been discontinued for quite some years and there are 2 aftermarket options available. TCI makes one and since I needed to order a new O2 sensor and Summit had both of them I got the TCI version.

It was much smaller than I imagined from the photos. It also doesn't look to be robust enough to live under the hood without some protection. This necessitated finding some sort of box to put it in. (Photo #3) I robbed the box off a set of under counter lights I was planning on putting in the kitchen but didn't. There were a couple of holes to plug with snap in plugs with some 5 minute epoxy to seal the gaps and keep them in place. 5 minutes with a Dremel and I had modified the original power jack so the vacuum hose and wires would pass through.
To mount the switch I used double sided tape. I noticed that there is a small hole in the back (Photo #4) that if I were to cover with the tape might prevent the switch from working properly, so I used 2 pieces of tape to leave a gap for air around the hole. If you look close at the front of the switch you can see a small Allen head that gives some adjustability of the set point of the switch.

I should have painted the box before I mounted it. Dhoo! The PO''s rattle can paint job of the firewall expired over the winter. So things are really looking sorry under the hood.

The box got bolted to a metal plate that got bolted down using 2 of the brake booster bolts.

For power I used the 12v positive lead that originally was used to power the TH400 kick down. It was ran to the brake switch then out through firewall and down to the transmission. There is a 4 prong plug on the transmission but only 2 of the pins are used in this application. The forward driver's side pin is the 12 positive from the brake switch. The back driver's side pin is hooked to a good ground. Before going to ground I ran the wire through the vacuum switch. I ran a vacuum line from behind the carburetor teeing into the line that goes to the modulator on the transmission.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Went out Overdriving today! There were a few hiccups. I've never had a vehicle with a TH350 before and I wasn't aware of the whole kick down cable adjustment thing. I had to remove the bracket on the manifold and pull the cable as far out on the passenger side of the engine compartment to get a good look at the cable before I figured out that you have to lift the tab, then floor the accelerator, then push the tab back down to get it to set to the right length. Kind of like a 700r4 TV cable. Needless to say before I did all that my first test drive was quite short and never got out of 1st gear.

I also had to readjust the new brake light switch. I set it to the same distance the old one was at, but in that position only the brake light contacts had continuity the 2nd set for the lock up were still open. It took 20 minutes with a voltmeter to fix that little detail. And the last item to correct was that I had overfilled the transmission by 3/4 of a quart. Fortunately I had my MityVac and it was easy enough to remove the extra fluid.

Once on the road the GV shifts into overdrive at just above 40 mph. It shifts into overdrive quite firmly although it may feel harder as it appears that the converter is locking up before the GV shifts up. There is a hook up on the GV controller that will unlock the converter momentarily as the GV shifts. I may look into using that function since it's there and would only require me to add 5 or so feet to the existing ground wire on the lock up circuit

I need to rig a way to hook up my hand held tachometer to be able to get some accurate RPMs to post. The factory tachometer in the dash reads approximately 7-900 RPMs high. So for now with about 20 miles of testing the RPM at 55 mph is about 2000. The old TH400 was turning about 2700 at 55 mph. The lock up drops the RPM at 45 mph about 200 RPM.
I didn't do much messing around with the manual shifting. I just left it in auto and paid attention to all the noises with my fingers crossed I didn't hear a bad one.

It will take some time to adjust as I noticed myself driving faster. The truck is definitely quieter with the lower RPMs and I apparently keep my speed by listening to the truck.

More to follow.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

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Sounds like it is going to work out good. There is an adjustment screw on the back of the tach but I'm not sure how that works. There are a couple of posts about it but I don't remember exactly what they said.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks Doc! I'll do some searching.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Congrats on the install. Nice work!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks Joe!
With some more miles driven I have more comments. I have found that leaving the unit in automatic I can turn the overdrive on and off with the foot switch, but I think it will take me some time before I have the muscle memory to do it without thinking. Not that different than driving my S10 Blazer where I only put it in OD when I will be driving above 45 mph for at least 2 or so miles.
I can do regular traffic around town with the OD off and then if conditions are right then switch it into OD. For example morning commute is 8 miles some which about 1/3 of the way is 40 mph and the rest of the trip is faster. So at 0430 when I leave the house I have found that I can stay in OD the whole way. But on the way home at 5:00 pm traffic is such that only first 1/3 of the way home is moving fast enough to be in OD without it shifting in and out a lot.
The other thing I've noticed which probably is restricted to my unit only. Sometimes when in OD and above 55 mph there is a noticeable vibration that goes away if I shift out of OD. It will go away or is much reduced when I shift it back into OD.
I called GV to talk about wiring the lockup into their controller, but their tech guy is off for a medical reason for several weeks. So it may be a while before I get an answer on the vibration and the lock out interrupt feature. I did learn that they use the 2 outside pins on the phone jacks. So with some experimentation I should be able to figure out what they are doing.

Another issue I have discovered is that I need a different bracket for the TH350 kick down cable. The one I have only lets me open the secondary throttle plates about 30%. It's kind of liking driving around with the worn out 305 again. :lol:
Looks like a trip to the wrecking yard is in my future.

With practice you are going to get good at it. A friend who drag raced his 69 Cougar Eliminator (that he bought new in 1968) with a 428 and 4:30 gears installed a Gear Vendors overdrive behind his C6 automatic. He said it made his car a 6 speed at the track!

Paul
Posted via Mobile Device

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Now days it takes me way more practice than it used to. :lol:

Dude I know the feeling! This guy was in his late 60’s though when he installed it though!
Posted via Mobile Device

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Update time. The bracket I used for the detent cable (kickdown cable) ended up being wrong. It would not let me get more than about 30% opening of the secondaries. In addition it would want to down shift too often. I spent several hours looking through the interweb I came up with no real information other than folks saying "I used this $Xxxx dollar aftermarket piece". I didn't see a need to go that route as the GM bracket had to be out there. Just trying to keep that "Great GM feeling". :lol:
I started a thread looking for more information on the truck side and got a lead from member AussieinNC. So off to the wrecking yard I went an gathered up 4 different brackets and came home. Several hours later I had found a solution that gave me proper shift down and 100% throttle opening.

Here is the basic bracket differences from the thread and some photos:

After spending half a day at the u-pull it yard I came home with 4 different brackets. They came off of 83 GMC Caballero (2), a 1995 Van (3), a 79 C10 (4), and a 77 Oldsmobile Cutlass (5).
The photo also shows the one I had installed on the WMB (1) that was incorrect. The brackets are sort of arranged to show the the difference in the detent cable locations. (Blue lines.) The red arrow indicates the bolt hole that the last bolt on the intake manifold would go through. The #5 bracket only bolts to the carburetor back bolts so I was less accurate in placing it.
I initially went with the #5 bracket as I liked the all in one bracket and it was within the range of adjustment for the detent cable. However after I got it cleaned up, painted, and installed I realized that I could only get 90% opening of the secondaries. The angle to the throttle shaft arm was wrong. 90% was much better than before but I real want 100%. So I ended up pulling it off and using the #2 bracket and my original (Original in that it was on the truck when I bought it.) bracket. Now I have full throttle opening and the transmission shifts down nicely.
The 2nd photo doesn't have the throttle cable bracket installed and the 3rd photo shows the original detent cable bracket. Poor photos are really showing what I would like to show. Hopefully folks get the idea. If not let me know and I can get some clearer pictures.

Here is the complete thread if anyone is interested.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=630289



The next issue is the converter lockup doesn't work internally as I had been led to believe. I was under the belief that the lockup pressure was tied to vehicle speed in 3rd gear i.e. if the vehicle was going 40 mph there would be 40 psi, 50 mph would be 50 psi. The lockup wouldn't lockup until the minimum pressure was met. I was lead to believe that GM had set the minimum pressures to 50 psi so the lock up would not work below 50 psi.
Unfortunately for me the converter locks up as soon as the truck gets into 3rd gear. Which can be as low as 30 mph. So at 35 mph any part throttle acceleration results in pretty serious detonation. By disconnecting the power to the lockup circuit the problem disappears. At this point I will have to go with manual operation of the lock up until I can get quite a bit more sophisticated with my control circuit.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Yesterday was another exciting day with the WMB. After running down to Milwaukee and then up to Vancouver and then home. Well almost home (10 blocks to go.) After pulling off of the freeway and stopping, I started away from the stop sign when there was a loud BAM. Then lots of very depressing grinding sounds. Uhhhggg.....
The truck would not move itself out of the intersection. Fortunately it was on a slope and several young men jumped out to help me push it off to the side of the road. I called my buddy Karl, who luckily was just leaving work and could meet me at my house in 15 minutes. After I hoofed it home and threw some straps in my S10 Blazer we headed off and towed the WMB home. With some manual pushing and pulling we got it into the driveway. I have always been amazed by how easy the WMB is to push. On flat pavement it has always been relatively easily to push around.
Anyway today I put it up in the air so I could get a listen to figure out whether the problem was in the transmission or the GV unit. With things securely on jack stands I fired things up and there was no noise in park, then no noise in neutral which wasn't the case last night. Then into drive and still no noise but the speedometer was showing 25 mph. What the...
So carefully I got out and looked. First thing I noticed is that the rear wheels were not turning. Looking further I see the front drive shaft is spinning ,but the rear one isn't. Bingo! The tail end of the front shaft was stuck in the carrier bearing and just spinning like everything was okay. I literally have a 2 piece drive shaft. :lol:
Big sign of relief! This will be so much less expensive than every other scenario I had come up with on the overnight. I've had a large number of transmission failures over the years. Most of them were in my GTO. Use to be I would have to replace/rebuild the transmission in it every 18 to 24 months. So needless to say I was expecting the worst.
I will see what the drive line shop has to say on Monday about why it sheared. I'm pretty sure it wasn't from the monster torque generated from the 350.:lol:.
There has been a slight vibration at highway speeds for a while. It did become more pronounced after the transmission swap and especially when in overdrive. Maybe there was some bad machining that led to a crack that eventually failed. The old transmission was pretty slushy and the new one shifts firmer and the GV shifts even more firmly which I would consider to be contributing factors in the failure, if in fact there was a crack. I'm certain that all of the full throttle testing I've been doing as of late had nothing to do with it. :lol:
I feel lucky in that the drive shaft stayed trapped in the front of the carrier bearing and didn't go flailing around destroying everything in its path. That and it waited to fail until I was close to home and not in Vancouver or worse on the I-5 bridge in traffic. All in all this could have been much worse than it is.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

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Wow! that sheared off pretty clean. Definitely some stress there somewhere.... Looks like that Billet bearing paid for itself there.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Yes it did. It's now my favorite reason to run a billet carrier. :lol:
I talked with my Machinist friend and he said if there was no radius between the angled face and the surface the carrier rides on it you could get this kind of failure.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

It seems to me that the carrier bearing may be too stiff, causing the failure. If the broken tailshaft naturally wants to spin at an angle and is forced to remain parallel to the bearing mount surface, it would be continuously under stress. The only way to avoid this would be to have the carrier bearing at the same height as the transmission output.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks for the information. The shaft is at the shop now and they said I could talk to the foreman when I pick it up to determine the cause.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The repair of the driveshaft has turned sour on me. I took it back to Potter Webster's Driveline Express. The same place that built it originally and then shortened it. They absolutely denied any responsibility for the failure. They said the only thing that would have caused this kind of failure would be excessive torque and abuse from the engine. Which never happened as my generic 350 doesn't have that kind of power. :lol: They dismissed anything I said.
So I had them go ahead and repair the shaft. They called me the next day to pick it up. They said it was $280.00. Ouch I thought, but maybe they had to replace the carrier bearing.
It's on the counter when I walk in and the first thing I see is that it has one of the $35 factory style carrier bearings on it now. I said your kidding right? Why would I go back to that style bearing? He says they use them on lots of vehicles without problems. I said "Remember yesterday when you would not warranty the driveshaft with less than 200 miles on it, as I must have too much horsepower, and now your saying I should use this because it has worked for other people? Why didn't you call and ask if I would be ok with the substitution I told him that I wasn't going to accept the driveline with that carrier bearing. So they said they would get another billet one, but it would be 3 or 4 days.
Uggghh....
So Friday rolls around and they call and say it is ready. As I walk in the guy is carring it out to the counter. By this time they recognize my truck. He says it will be $580. Jaw drops. Uhhh... I told him no how no way, so he goes into the back and talks to someone and 5 minutes later he takes me back to talk to the sales manager. After a couple of minutes of he said, I said, I pointed out that they want to charge me more to build half the drive line now than than they did to build a complete new one 3 years ago. Then it was the old song about how much prices have gone up. (They were charging me $171.xx for the new billet carrier bearing plus shipping. Obviously they haven't heard of Jegs.) But they could give me a $50 break. I thought about it for a moment and said "No I won't pay that. Give me my parts back and I will go elsewhere. Time for his jaw to drop.
So I stood around 30 minutes while 3 of them disassembled it and hunt up the old pieces. Then I asked the manager if he understood why I was this angry? He said "Uhhh you don't like the price." No I told him was pissed because I didn't like the refusal of any kind of responsiblity for the failure, and it was obvious that they had jacked the price the second time to make up for their screw up the first time with the wrong carrier bearing.
So maybe Monday I can find somewhere else to build a shaft.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Wow!. I wouldn't have accepted that either. That is insane. You would have thought they would have at least give you a break on it.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Wow!!! That shop sounds like they're crazy.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks guys it's good to know I'm not the crazy one for once.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I did some seat spring repairs yesterday. The drivers side bolster spring was only half there. I got some what I call S spring and reconfigured it to sort of match the spring on the passenger side. I had to make new attachment bands as one I tried to remove flew off to never, never be found land. And the other one had gone there long ago. I cut up a Simpson Tie nail on reinforcement plate to make the connection bands.
Rebending the spring wasn't too tough. One needs to be careful though as it is a spring and it will throw the tool your using to bend it across the room. Don't ask!
I used a small vice and probably spent as much time looking for a better tool to bend the spring for each different bend than actually bending the spring.
The first photo is what was left of the broken spring. The 2nd photo is the intact passenger side. The 3rd photo is the S spring I used as a base material. And finally the finished repair.
Hopefully it will pass the test of time.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Nice job HO455...I had so many broken springs on my front bench that I only thought about fixing it myself for about a half second, then realized that the upholsterer would have everything needed to pull it off. Seeing everything else you have done yourself, I'm not surprised you took on the challenge! Have a happy 4th! :flagw:


Woody

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you sir. You have a good Independence Day yourself and be careful out there.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I can't believe this driveline thing is still ongoing. I took the back half of the driveline to a second shop on the 22nd of last month. Driveline Service of Portland looked at what I had and what I needed and said " typically we charge $600 to $700 to build a complete driveline like yours, so it should be about half of that." They said they were very busy and short handed and it would take 7 to 10 days. 13 days later they called and said it was ready for pickup. The next dayI went to pick it up and they said it was $680! Basically twice the quote. So after some back and forth they admitted to the quote and that they failed to call me and ask if I was okay with the cost being double the quote. I told them I felt that they had bait and switched me and were hoping that I would pay the increased cost just to get the truck back on the road. Since the only thing they do is drivelines I couldn't see any other reason for being so far off of the quote. Once again I left a shop with half a driveline.

After some thought I decided to put the driveline half I had aside and convert to a one piece driveline. With the gearvendors on the back of the Th350 the driveline will be about 21 inches shorter. So I went out and pulled a line from the center of the rear yoke to the center of the yoke from the GV. A couple of small magnets held the string so I could measure to see if a 3 1/2" diameter driveline would fit through the crossmember. From my research for a 57 inch long driveline 3 1/2" diameter tubing is recommended. I measured the clearance with the rear bags aired out and fully inflated. (Photos 2,3, & 4) With the bags full and the shocks at maximum extension it is at the closest point at the bottom (photo 4). I will have to double check the clearance there once the driveline is in place. Worst case I will have modify the bottom of the cutout.
The last photo shows the driveline measurement. So now it is time to shop around for another vendor. Uggg!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I called Tom Woods 4x4 Custom Drivelines last Friday and ordered a drive shaft. It showed up Wednesday. $329 dollars as quoted.
It bolted in as expected, but I noticed that the yoke on the rear end has a damaged tab. I believe is likely one cause of the vibrations I was experiencing. Photo one is the undamaged tab and photo 2 is the damaged tab. I don't know how long the tab has been damaged. It doesn't look like it was recently damaged. To install the U-joint I put a C-clamp on the caps and pushed the U-joint to the good side. I torqued the clamp on the good side down then carefully guessed where the other side would be if the tab was undamaged. By adjusting the C-clamp it was easy to move the other cap into position. Then I tightened the bolts and secured the cap. I am fairly happy with how it came for now but obviously that yoke needs to be replaced.
Clearance wise the closest point is with the bags fully aired up and the shaft is about 5/16" from the bottom of the crossmember cutout. (Photo 3)
The last photos are of the driveline installed.

The driveshaft angles didn't come out so well this time. The front U-joint angle is 2 degrees and the back one is 0 degrees. So I need to get a pair of 2 degree shims to raise the pinion up.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I have been talking about shortening the cups on the bottom of the front air bags for a couple of years now. So since the WMB was OOC I pulled the cups off and chucked them up in my lathe. I used the lathe to make a small groove around the bottom of the cup 1/2" from the bottom. Once marked I used a Porta bandsaw to cut the cup off. I then used the lathe to true up the cut surface so it will sit flat. Getting the cups out was a bit like one of those puzzles made of wire you have to get apart. But after shortening they just dropped in.
The whole idea behind shortening the cups is to have a higher pressure in the bags at ride height. Previously the trucks best ride quality would put the front end too high. I may have to remove another 1/2" or so but I feel better sneaking up on the perfect combination a little bit at a time.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I was thinking similarly re: ride quality vs pressure and height. How did you come up with an optimal pressure figure?

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

In 2 words Freemont Bridge.
I commute across it and it has large expansion joints as well as traffic grooves worn into the surface. Before I cut the cups I would be at 80 psi at ride height. But to comfortably drive across the bridge I needed to raise the pressure about 10 psi. By comfortable I mean without the front end bouncing up and down excessively on each joint. (The shocks are fine I just don't like the 1960's Cadillac kind of ride.) Bumping the pressure up cures the up and down action, but too much pressure and then the truck starts to wander in the grooves. I believe the wandering is from the alignment no longer being correct with the front end raised. That's the reason I didn't remove more than 1/2 " I want to see how it behaves before committing to a full inch.
This is one of the things I never realized about air bags. The range of pressures you can drive on is fairly wide but the pressure where works well is very narrow. In my truck 3 psi off of optimum makes a big difference on how it feels to me. So I feel the trick is to figure out what that optimum pressure is then adjust the bag mounting to get that pressure at the ride height you desire.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Today I started the new bench seat project. That broken spring hasn't mended itself so I guess action must be taken. Several pages back I posted a picture I found in one of the seat threads (It might be Already Gone's truck but I'm not sure.) So after more research I found out that the seat was used in 92 to 96 Ford pickups. After a lot of looking (It's the top option bench seat so not real common) I did on located one on Craigslist and it ended up being only $40!
Under a 1/4" of dog hair was a fairly decent seat. Thank goodness for car wash vacuum cleaners. The first thing I did was tear it apart. :lol: It came with working lumbar support air pump and bags. After a quick check with a tape measure I tossed it in front of the back of the current seat in the truck and amazingly it seemed like it would be fairly easy to swap the seat backs and be done. For reasons I will explain I decided not to go that route.
Once the seat back was completely disassembled (That was super easy! The upholstery fabric is secured with the white plastic extruded hooks you can see in the last photo.) the Ford: Job One Quality started to show. The seat foam metal supports were broken in several places and they are so lightweight I don't think welding them would be a long term cure.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Besides the broken pieces the big deciding factor was the shape of the Ford seat back. It is the same width across the bottom but it narrows up markedly. I decided I didn't care for that look (Photo #1 Ford seat frame on top of 71 frame) and came to the decision to transfer all the pieces i wanted from the Ford seat to a 67-72 seat. This included the head rests, arm rest, and possibly the lumbar supports.
The current seat in the WMB is the most comfortable and pain free seat I have in the fleet. So changing it out is being done with some trepidation. I bought a 71 seat off of Craigslist for $25 dollars a while back with the plan being I could duct tape it in to submission and use it as a temporary seat while the current seat was being reupholstered. What I discovered is that 71/72 seats have a taller seat back than earlier trucks but shorter seat mounts. One of my dislikes with the current seat is the back is too short for me. So by swapping the 71 seat back on to the 69/70 seat that is currently in the WMB I get a taller seat back and get to keep the taller seat mounts without a bunch of modifications to the seat mounts or the bottom frame.
It took 30 minutes with a pneumatic cutoff wheel to strip the pieces from the Ford seat. Then it took another 30 minutes to remove the 2 screws that held the arm rest to the frame. More quality work. Both screws were cross threaded (Photo #2) and one of them had the Philips head completely blown out. :waah: Great more unobtainium to obtain.
Another possible problem area is the guides for the head rests. All 4 of them are broken. The top is supposed to have a disk about 1 inch in diameter and a button that releases the detent on the head rest to allow adjustment. The button and detents are gone and the disks were captured by the head rest posts but otherwise disconnected. (Photo #3 shows what is left of the guides.
Once I had everything I wanted stripped from the Ford seat, it was time to start laying things out. First thing I did was measure the current seat in the WMB as to how far it is from the edge of the seat to the center of the steering wheel. I want to have the head rest centered with the steering wheel. That came to 12 1/2".
Using a tape and a big square I was able to lay out the head rest center line. (Photo #4) If you look close I have the center line marked in silver on the top of the frame.
Up next was to modify the bracket that holds the head rest guides. The Ford seat was flattened across the top and our seats are round. Fortunately the guide brackets had lots of material and it was a matter of removing material on each side and then notching the lower edge to allow it to fit over the 71's wire foam supports. (Photo 5)

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The first picture shows an unmodified and a modified guide bracket. To get one side to fit up properly I needed to reposition one of the vertical wires in the foam supports (Photo #2 blue arrow.) There will be more on repositioning the wires later.
Once the guides fit in place I scribed a line to mark the center of the top of the bar where the head rest guide brackets mount. Then I held the guide brackets in position and scribed the holes the plastic guides fit into. With a limit of measuring I figured out where the center of each guide hole needed to be. After center punching and pilot drilling I used a 5/8" hole saw for the basic opening. (Photo #3) The guides are an odd shape that required me to use a die grinder to get the correct shape. (Photo #4) The holes in the Ford seat frame have at least 1/16" of play so need for much accuracy here.
When everything is done it looks like the last photo.
Sorry for the poor quality of some of the photos I just can't seem to get the camera on my new notebook to work as perfectly as my old one.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The arm rest was next. As the 71 seat back and the Ford seat back are virtually the same height there was not a lot of work to make it work. The bottom of the 2 straps had to be notched (Photo #1 near red half circles) to clear the wires. The top of the straps had been formed in half circles. (Photo #2 red arrow) I only had to flatten them out for now. (Photo #3) I will leave it this way until I have a chance to discuss its final location with the upholstery shop. There is about 1 inch of vertical movement to play with and I don't want to tack it down and have it be wrong in relation to the seat bottom. I don't know whether the upholstery shop will want to use the 71 foam or the Ford foam. Both will require a fair bit of modification to work.
The mock up before welding and test fitting in the truck. Pay no mind to the vise grips holding it all together.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

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Good progress! Can't wait to see it finished.....

LockDoc