IFS Install This Weekend - Need Advice

[Dan in Pasadena]

Ok, running parallel threads now because I'm trying to keep all my history in one place. I guess I'll post today's progress and then let this die. I'll also try to answer some comments made above. Here's today:

The rear suspension came out pretty easily. My shackle pins screwed out by hand as the front had. I had NO idea how to remove the front of the rear leafs. The cast iron shackle "body" was totally-covered-with-rock-hard-grease. But digging around it with a putty knife I found what turned out to be retainer pin bolts. Removing the emergency brake cable was a pain but other than that we just wheeled the rear ended out as you see it.l

Tomorrow but my brother in law will come over and remove the leafs. He didn't want to be responsible for cutting the spring seats off so I'll do that. Hopefully I cut through the axle tubes. I'll take it slow with a grinding rather than cutting wheel one the big chucks are off.

We also removed the rear crossmember for mounting a larger gas tank. We had to beat the hell out of the rivets (& ourselves!) to get them out. Especially hard was the rivets that hold the rear shackle body AND the cross member. We had to grind/pound from below which was TOUGH on the arms to swing a single jack overhead and sparks were falling on us so we had to cover up like terrorists! They also started a small fire in a nearby planter but luckily we noticed it quickly and it didn't catch our trellis/fence!


Last was removing EVERYTHING necessary to pull the cab. Seat, gas tank, straps, hold down (nearly frozen) scraping a ton of crap from under the seat. Then we couldn't lift it even enough to lay it back the frame like planned. I'll ask my son in law and a simple minded friend (ha ha) to come help us lift.

I'm very tempted to search for a local sandblaster to completely blast the cab, front clip and bed and epoxy prime it. Anyone local know someone I can trust not to warp the crap out of my bodywork?