Project "River Truck" - CCLB 4x4

[arrover]

A previous owner already has cut speaker holes all four lower doors so I'm going to use those locations. I welded in plates over the stock speaker locations.

[arrover]

Then I used expanding foam to fill the cracks and speaker locations. After it cured I cut it off almost flush with the dash and sanded it down the rest of the way flush. I used the regular expanding foam, not the big gap filler/high expanding.

[rusty76]

Looks like you are making progress..

[Budman56]

I think if you did this again the process is good up to the material, thats were I would stop and take it to a shop and have them spay it with bed liner and then you can paint to match after that all done.

[arrover]

I read a thread somewhere where that was done and it worked well. I think they may have used bondo in the cracks. I just didn't want a bedliner coverd dash.

[arrover]

Nothing to exciting going on with the truck. I was changing the front and rear diff fluid and found that the pilot bearing in the rear (14 bolt FF) was gone. All of the bearing rollers were stuck to the magnet at the bottom of the rear end. Installing the new pilot bearing wasn't too bad.

Couple of tiny projects over the last couple of days:
I cleaned the shifter boot and painted the trim ring and screws. Do you like my carpet? It was originally red....

[arrover]

One of the previous owners had installed some threaded rings through bed floor in order to tie down loads. I need tie downs in the bed but having them in the bed floor won't let me use a bed mat. Today I bought some stainless threaded rings and replaced the bottom bolt that attaches the front bed panel to the side panel. I backed the rings with some large washers and nylock nuts. These won't be for holding lots of weight. Just to keep things from rolling around or sliding out the back when the tailgate is down.

[Sodell]

It's the little things that keep you going! I will bring over a case of beer, and a bottle of apple pie if you will do my dash in black....

[BONUSCAB]

Truck looks great! Subbing!

[arrover]

Thanks guys. Sodell, thanks for the offer but I really don't feel qualified to do a dash for someone elses truck, and honestly, I just don't want to do another one! Haha! We'll have to try to meet up sometime though.

[arrover]

Not much progress lately but a few things....

A friend of mine gave me his old bed mat. It has a flap cut in it for a goose neck ball but it's not bad for $0.

[arrover]

The GMC logo on my grill was pretty faded so I repainted it red. At some point I'm going to need to get a new grill but this helped a little.

[arrover]

Friday I stopped by a junk yard and found a Jeep Cherokee XJ steering shaft for $35. Saturday I installed it. It's a fairly straight forward install but unfortunately it didn't help my particular truck. The play in my system must be somewhere else.

[terrylgreenjr]

do you have any more info about the steering shaft swap? I need to replace my rag joint on my shaft but this looks like a good upgrade to factory stuff

[arrover]

There are some good threads on colorodok5.com. Some of them you may need to be a paying member. I'm going to build a video with some more information on it. I just haven't had a chance to do that yet.

Try this thread: http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2932920

This one is about 37 pages long but I think you have to be a paying member: http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthr...steering+shaft

[arrover]

Here's the Jeep Cherokee steering shaft how-to video. Make sure and read the video description because there is additional information in there.

73-87 Chevy/GMC Truck Steering Upgrade - Jeep...

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

Cool build its looking great so far. Like the little things you have done that add character to it. Keep up the good work and have fun using it as well

[arrover]

I've been working on several truck projects this week and I figured it was time to update the build thread.

Apparently the truck has had a power steering leak for a long time.... It had a super thick coating of dirt and power steering fluid caked on the axle and steering components. I scraped it off, used degreaser and a power washer and most of the grime is off now. After that I was able to figure out that the steering box is leaking at it's input. It sounds like this is a fairly common problem. I haven't fix it yet. After the cleaning I greased all of the steering joints and found a broken grease zerk on the underside of the Dana 60 drivers side kingpin. Luckily it came out pretty easily with a screw extractor and I had a new one to replace it with.

[arrover]

Even though the Jeep XJ steering shaft install went well, it didn't make much difference in my steering looseness. I just misdiagnosed the problem. Even after the shaft swap I still had about 40-50 degrees of play in my steering wheel before the truck would start to turn. It was enough that I haven't wanted to drive the truck very far. All of the steering rod and tie rod ends seemed to be tight. No one else was around so I started the truck and turned the steering wheel through the wing window and the dang steering box was still moving quite a bit on the frame. I had tightened this up after I first bough the truck and it helped, but didn't cure it. After the steering box was removed from the frame, you can see how the bolt holes were ovalized. I decided to buy a weld in frame repair kit and the bolt in steering box brace from ORD: http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/steeringkit.htm . The total was $233 shipped and the install was what I consider to be difficult. Welding in difficult locations and bolting through tight holes in the ORD brace, frame, weld in plate, and the steering box.... It took much longer than I thought it would. The white paint on the frame is weld through primer. I figured I didn't want the frame and plates to be uncoated where they aren't welded. I did have to take a little bit of metal off the front of the weld in plate because it interfered with the bumper bracket. Oh yeah, I took the bumper off and it made working under the truck alot easier. The brace comes with bolts but you need to buy longer bolts if you use the weld in plate. Lowes has the grade 8 bolts, nuts, etc. I used three 7/16-14 x 3.5" bolts and one 7/16-14 x 2"??? bolt. I also loctited the bolts and used nuts on the outside of the steering box. After it was all welded I sprayed it black.

[arrover]

The bolt in brace kit has two braces. One large bracket that goes behind the front crossmember and one small one that goes in front of that crossmember. You have to take a small bracket out to install the small ORD brace and the instructions say that you can leave the stock bracket out or put it back in for max strength. I put it back in and I don't know why you wouldn't. It's easy. Some of these trucks come with oil coolers like mine and the oil lines are in the way of the main brace. I checked around and several people wrapped rubber hose around the oil lines to protect them so thats what I did.

The great news is that all of the work was worth it. The truck is MUCH tighter now. It's not quite as tight as my modern truck but it doesn't have much play at all. I no longer have to concentrate on steering and I will feel ok about driving the truck more now.

[arrover]

Since power steering fluid was covering everything for a long time, the rubber tierod and steering arm boots were either badly deteriorated or missing completely. I bought 4 new polyurethane boots from Classic Parts. I think they were $4.50 for two boots. They sent Prothane brand and they seem to fit well. I wanted to use poly boots because they are supposed to resist oils (power steering fluid) and chemicals better than regular rubber.

[Sodell]

I know how you feel. I get started on one thing..hours later my wife opens the garage door and asks "do you know its 11?" LOL

[Sodell]

BTW, if you replace that rear sport bumper, please let me know...

[arrover]

I'll keep you in mind Sodell. I have thought about switching the rear to something else but I'm not sure yet.

[Sodell]

I have a work type bumper in the garage you can have. I took it off when I replaced it with a sport bumper. The chrome is faded but it would look good with some paint.