Project "Vertically Challenged"

[70k52wd]

Originally Posted by 72BlckButy

Definitely coming along... can't wait to see this thing all rolling.

Now... are you keeping the rally's???? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yea I'm getting fired up thinking about when I'm done...As far as rally's go. I am a big rally fan. However, they will one day be my second set of rims. I just gotta run 20's. But by budget default, I will run rally's for...till I get $$$ for rims. Just don't ask me what rims I like. That gets confusing to me, there are so many styles that would look crazy on it. I did find some centerlines I like, billet specialties are nice also.

[70k52wd]

O.K. I had a real head scratcher of a time today. I was going to do what should have been an easy job. I was mounting my driverside lower control arm today. I first have to remount my saddles, no problem right. Well Here are pics to explain my confusion. First pic is all 4 saddles.



As you can see, only two of the saddles have the factory rivets installed, one is an alignment rivet used to index the cross shaft. I purposely did not drill the rivets out of them so that there would be no confusion as to what goes where. The factory round rivets are to be placed towards the front of the truck, the square to rear. That's the way they came from the factory. At least on 67-72 trucks. I have a 73 crossmember. The factory control arms have two index holes on the cross shaft. Only one hole is used for indexing...O.K. here was the confusing part. Since I didn't drill all the saddles out, that confirms to me that I have a correct pair for one side and I have a correct pair for the other side. Right? So, I went on my merry way this morning, knowing that I would have a great deal of the front end put back together today...Not so. O.K., so I have my drilled out saddles to go on the drivers side. I mounted them up, went to put lower CA on, and realized, that ain't right. The front saddle was ok, but the rear saddle was clocked totally different. So I loosened it and spun it 180 degrees, thinking that would make the difference. Nope. Then I thought, maybe I put the front on the back and back on front. So I switched them. Same thing. That just didn't make sense to me, because I still have the undrilled saddles for the other side. Right? Well it took me a while to figure out to set one of the undrilled saddles on the cross shaft in question. Tah dah, a fit. I still have know idea of what is going on here. The only thing I have thought of, is that in 73 when they went to a double drilled cross shaft, it was to be able to use up all there old stock, and that way on the line, it wouldn't matter if they indexed them in front or in back. Here is a few more pics. This is passengerside Ca



This was what I was trying to get done. You can see where one rivet is drilled out, and the other was what I thought would be for the passengerside.



This pic is for Keith. I didn't switch it back to the front yet, but when I do the alignment will be even worse. As you may be able to see, I have the one and only shim that was on that side. It looks like it should be on the rear stud. But both sides were that way when I pulled it apart. I just put it back.



That's all...