Project: 1966 Stepside LWB

[b2948kevin]

Ok, I had to go get myself an air chisel to chisel out the rivets on the top and a ball joint tool to press the lower ball joint out and press the new one in. This took me forever as the new joint kept wanting to press in crooked. I finally got it right with a lot of hammer work and some finesse.

Right now, I have the new front left drop spindle on with the 6 lug conversion specific hub/rotor and bearings and all on just so I could get the tire on for the night and take a look at the drop. I got new tie rods that I'll install next and then start getting the brakes hooked up. After that, I'll start on the right side.

Stay posted for pics soon.

[b2948kevin]

Ok, I slacked on posting this up, but on 6/9/12 I took some time and pulled my rear drums apart to confirm if I had put the brake pads on correctly. It turns out that I didn't, as you can see in the pic below. This is my first experience with drum brakes and I really didn't know that there were primary and secondary pads. I thought they were all the same. Live and learn

I swapped the pads around into the correct locations and I replaced the passenger side piston. I was going to swap the driver's side as well, but I can't get the brake line off with out destroying the line, which I didn't want to do at the time. I will revisit this at another time.

[b2948kevin]

Ok, here are some of the first progress pics in quite a while. I hope to power through this and make it a daily driver soon.

McMurphy, I'm back!

When I pulled the hub/drum off, the first thing I noticed was that, like the rears, I did (as I suspected) put both of the secondary pads (the ones with more pad material) on the driver side. This means that both of the primary pads (the ones with less pad material) were on the passenger side in both the front and back! This pretty well explains why the braking sucked and why it was pulling to the left (which in hindsight, I failed to mention as a symptom).

[markeb01]

Don't feel too bad, reversing the shoes is very common. Unless you grew up in a shop with experienced guys around, it's happened to most of us at least once.

[b2948kevin]

Glad to hear . I felt a little dumb when I realized what happened. I only thought of this when I was reading through another thread on here that mentioned a primary/secondary pad. This forum is a stellar resource.

Thanks for stopping in, Markeb01! More to come soon!

[b2948kevin]

So, yesterday I tore into my driver's side suspension. I finally finished acquiring all of the parts that I should need to do my disc brake conversion. You can see here that I need new tie rod ends.

[b2948kevin]

I am pretty sure that I did this the hard way, but I took the drum brakes completely apart, pulled the bolts on the backing plate and exposed just the spindle itself before removing the ball joint nuts and getting at it with a pickle fork.

Next time, I am going to disconnect the tie rod, turn the spindle to access the nuts, remove them and then use the pickle fork without removing all the drum components. This will surely be easier, and I am pretty sure I should be able to do it.

[b2948kevin]

Next job to tackle was to replace the ball joints. The top was riveted on from the factory and I had to grind the top of the rivet off with an angle grinder. I then tried to drive them out with a punch and mini sledge, but they didn't even think about moving. I did some research and found out that an air hammer/chisel is the way to remove these, so I headed down and bought one from Harbor Freight for $15. I usually don't buy power or air tools from them, but for $15, I couldn't lose. It worked great and I was able to use the punch attachment to drive the rivets down and out from the top.

You can see the old upper ball joint and what's left of the rivets in my hand here. The new joint is hand tight in the correct location.

[b2948kevin]

I didn't get any pictures of this, but to get the lower ball joints in/out, you have to use a press. There's no hardware attaching them to their location, just an extremely tight fit which you need a specialized tool to accomodate. I picked one up from harbor freight with worked fairly well, but I kept getting the joint fed into the receiver crooked and having to redo it. I spent a couple hours just trying to get this right. Eventually it worked.

After I got the ball joints replaced, I put the spring back, the new spindle on, torqued the nuts down and set the cotter pins. I then pulled out the new bearings (for 71 - 87, I think) and put them on the new conversion hub/rotor, slid it all on, and bolted the wheel on for the night. As it sits, I still need to replace and connect the tie rods, install the caliper and new conversion brake hose. Then the real work will begin .

[b2948kevin]

Here are some pics of how it sits right now. Looks pretty good, but I think I want to go a little lower even. What do you guys think? I am thinking of cutting a half or full coil on the front springs.

I went and measured the clearance on each of the wheels from the middle of the wheel hub to the top of the wheel well lip on the fender. Here is what I found:

Driver Front: 16 3/4"
Passenger Front: 18 1/4"
Driver Back: 16 1/4"
Passenger Back:16"

[CRGRS 66]

Thanks for sharing in such detail. I am formulating my plan for lowing my 66 SWB Fleet. I am definitely going with 2.5" spindles, and either 1" or 2" springs. I like your new ride height on the front, but, ya, another inch would be where I would want to be. Are the tires that are on the truck now what you plan to run long term, or at least the size? Reason I ask is that tire size actually has a big effect on the finished look. I recently put 225/60/15's on the front which lowered the ride height from the 235/70/15's by about 1-1/8", but this also increased the distance from the top of the tire to the bottom of the fender by the same amount. Causing me to really put my thinking cap on about how much drop I want/need.

Again, I am glad you are sharing what you are doing in such detail, as I will be diving into this same bit of work at the end of Summer. Thanks!!

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by b2948kevin

Ok, here are some of the first progress pics in quite a while. I hope to power through this and make it a daily driver soon.

McMurphy, I'm back!

DUDE !!!
Welcome back ....... but ummmmm why did you single me out, do I have something stuck in my teeth??

Ok.... you probably just saved me a couple hundred bucks with your updates.
If you can tear into your front suspension then I sure as heck can.... I think.

Great job, once again, you inspire me! I feel like such a slacker after I read up on the stuff you have done, go figure.

I have a couple of days off this week, so that may end up being my new project for those days.
I got some work done in my cab this weekend between social events.

I would be interested to see if your height measurements changed any if you did them on a flat surface?
The closest thing to really flat that I can think of would be a gas station, I think for the Weights and Measurements Laws, they have to be pretty close to true flat. At least that is what I have observed.

[b2948kevin]

Thanks CRGRS. In addition to asking questions and getting advice on this thread, I hope for it to be useful as a reference for others when doing some of these jobs. I remember having to put tons of pieces together using multiple threads on this board to understand how to do some of these jobs, which was painful at times. That's the reason that there are so many pictures and details .

The tires are at least close to what I want to run long term. I still want it to look like a truck, and I don't plan to run big wheels anytime soon. When I took my measurements, I measured from the middle of the hub to the top of the fender wheel well lip. This allows me to compare across others measure the same, and wheel won't affect that measurement, though it will affect the measurement off the ground.

I think I am going to drop another 1-2 inches and call it a day up front.

[b2948kevin]

Originally Posted by McMurphy

DUDE !!!
Welcome back ....... but ummmmm why did you single me out, do I have something stuck in my teeth??

Haha! You are the only one that gives me a hard time for slacking on my posts

You can totally do this job. It's a little tough, but just allocate a day to each side and you should be good. Use a hammer to tap the lower ball joint in until it's fed evenly into the lower control arm, and then use the press to push it the rest of the way. That way, you won't get them crooked when you're trying to press.

Also, that Harbor Freight air chisel it worth it! I can't beleive it was so cheap, I was expecting this to be a more expensive tool.

I did not measure on a flat surface, so I realize that things might settle a little different. I think that's a really good idea though to get this on a flat pad before measuring.

[b2948kevin]

I am planning to cut either a half coil or a full coil out of the front springs today sometime. This should get my ride height about where I want it, which should be about 15.75" to 14.75" from fender lip to center of hub.

What do you guys think?

[McMurphy]

I think if you tell me we can both fly, I will let you jump off the cliff first !!

Seriously though, I want to do the same thing, but I am keeping in mind that my truck came stock with a 292cid and I am dropping in a SBC 350, so I really wanted to look at how much lower it would sit naturally before I cut any springs....

Yeah I think I will tackle my front end this weekend, maybe starting tomorrow.
With 20 hours of daylight, there wont be much fireworks going on around here anyways .......

[b2948kevin]

Ok, so this may be your answer, McMurphy

I got really motivated and decided to do the passenger side this afternoon. It took all of Saturday for me to do the driver's side, and I did the passenger's side in about 5 hours! Woot!

First, I removed the brake line, the tie rod, and loosened the nuts on the ball joint shafts. Notice that I haven't used a pickle fork yet to break the mechanical welds between the spindle and the ball joints. You can still see that the spindle hasn't engaged against the top nut.

[b2948kevin]

Here they are after I have used a pickle fork to break the mechanical welds. The spring is pushing the upper and lower control arms apart, and taking up slack on the ball joint shafts up to the nut.

You can remove the whole assembly now. No need to mess with anything inside. I wish I would have been thinking last time. This would have saved me some time.

After this, I changed both of the ball joints. The tops is done by cutting the 4 factory rivets and using an air chisel/hamer to knock them out. Grind the tops off if you can't chisel the tops off (I couldn't). Then the lower ball joint requires a press. This is seriously tough if you don't have the right tool. I even had the tool (harbor freight, admittedly) and I spent a long time trying to get the new one pressed in without getting it started crooked.

[b2948kevin]

So, I wanted to drop the front about another inch to inch and a half. I did a bunch of reading and I saw that cutting one coil would drop the front about 1-1.5 inches. Well, I decided to go for it and cut a coil out of my springs.

[b2948kevin]

And it dropped about 2.75"! :-O

From fender wheel well to center of hub, I'm right at 14 inches now. I wasn't quite trying to go this low, but I don't regret it. It will look pretty slick when I get the back lowered a little also.

[McMurphy]

Man that is totally awesome !!
I like the stance !

I am actually taking today off from my build, but I have the next 4 days to work on it straight...

I like your work man.

[b2948kevin]

Ok, it's time to show off all the progress I've made and hidden over the last month!

First, here's a picture of the drop spindles with the 6 lug hub/disc setup that I went with. I didn't add good pictures of this before, but this is what's hiding under those wheels.

[b2948kevin]

Here are the drums and spindles that I pulled off. I sold them (for barely anything) to a 15 year old kid a town away that just got his dad's old Chevy. He was super excited to get some brakes, as he was missing a lot of parts. It felt good giving a little bit back to the community.

I also got a shim for my top radiator hose. I was having trouble because my top radiator inlet was 1.75" while my thermostat cover was 1.5", and I couldn't find a flex hose that would adequately adapt down. I put a couple of band clamps on there, but I was still getting a little bit of leakage. This was a gates #26391, and thanks go out to Markeb01 for sending me over the part number and recommendation.

[b2948kevin]

I bought the Captain's brake booster bracket and fitted it up. Great quality, great product. Here are some pictures of it mounted to the firewall, in addition to some pictures of my booster/master cylinder setup that I bought complete with proportioning valve.

[b2948kevin]

I fitted the booster up to see how I was going to connect it to the pedal. The booster rod was exactly 3.75" too short. I eventually took and cut the rod for the old master cylinder, and used it to extend the rod on the new booster. This allowed me to use the same hardware and setup that was in there originally with the new booster.

The first pic is of the new booster rod coming through the firewall where it would connect to the pedal. It's too short, and this is the piece that I extended.