Minnesota Daily Driver

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Not much new to report. Just been driving it daily. The good news is that I was able to find some more pictures.

Here's wire wheeling the frame.

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Here's the underside of the box painted.

[y5mgisi]

Good fun!

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Figured I'd update the thread. Recently went to back out of the garage and found that the shifter wouldn't come out of park. Dropped the pan and found it was hitting the edge. This was pretty strange as the pans been on for more than 15,000 miles. Ground in some clearance and it was good to go.

Here's a pic of the mark it left hitting the pan.

[MTCK]

That's odd. Wonder if something with the shift linkage geometry outside the case...

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Forgot to mention I had retightened the bolts in the pan before it happened. I think the gasket may have collapsed just enough or the pan shifted slightly. Ive heard with these pans that sometimes more clearance needs to be added for the shifter. Just odd it happened after being on the truck for so long.

Luckily, the shifter linkages are all still tight.

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I had reconditioned the original door panels when I reassembled the truck but they were showing their age and were starting to crack. So I ordered some from Rockauto. Pretty happy with how they turned out. I need to paint the kick panels to match.

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Also replaced the power window switches as the passenger side had started acting up.

Driver door.

[MTCK]

Nice, those look the same as the ones I got for the front of my crew, in a different color of course. I popped the inserts off and recovered them in matching seat fabric which wasn't hard to do.

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Originally Posted by MTCK

Nice, those look the same as the ones I got for the front of my crew, in a different color of course. I popped the inserts off and recovered them in matching seat fabric which wasn't hard to do.

Thanks. The inserts on these be ones were glued on. Is that how yours were? The factory panels had speed nuts holding them on.

[MTCK]

Yep. I popped them off, scraped off the loose adhesive, peeled off the fabric they came with and used 3M spray adhesive to put it all back together.

[y5mgisi]

Nice! Is that the color the rock auto panels came in? Or did you paint them?

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Originally Posted by y5mgisi

Nice! Is that the color the rock auto panels came in? Or did you paint them?

That was how they came. They had different colors available. This was as close to my interior as I could get. Now I just need to decide if I want to paint the kick panels to match the new door panels or vice versa.

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And another pic of the truck.

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Recently I've noticed an intermittent hesitation when taking off from a stop. I figured out the tranny wasn't always shifting back into 1st when coming to a stop.

To fix it I started by pulling and cleaning the governor which seemed to help. I still wanted to clean & inspect the valve body as it appears the trany's never been worked on. All I've done was change the fluid & filter and install a deeper pan. I figured while I was in there I'd install a shift kit.

Got it installed and went for a test drive. It's definitely shifting back to 1st. Light throttle shifts seem the same and heavy throttle has been improved. So it was a success.

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Repacked the front wheel bearings. Also lubed the inner spindle bearing.

Spindle reinstalled and ready for the hub.

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Hubs ready to install.

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Also replaced the auto locking hubs with manual. Had a couple times going down the road below 0 last year they tried engaging themselves. So it was time for manual.

[MTCK]

Good looking hubs! I had lots of trouble with the auto hubs on my 83. Good marketing tool, poor idea in the long run.

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A few updates:

1st - The truck has had an intermittent off idle flat spot. It would only happen when accelerating after slowing down from highway speeds. After a quick check of a few things I decided to pull the cap and take a look.

Here's what I found.

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There was a lot of dust in the cap. Very strange as the distributor was rebuild less than 30,000 miles ago.

Pulled the rotor to take a look at the weights. Here's the rotor.

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Turns out the weights were wearing away. These were cheap weights but the only ones available at the local parts store when I was rebuilding the distributor.

Here's a pic of the wear.

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A reman ACDelco distributor has been installed. So far so good with that.

Next was the steering. The parts house brand reman steering gear was becoming sloppy. I decided to just replace it with an ACDelco and be done with it. Also installed an ACDelco steering pump.

To go with the steering gear, I installed a drop pitman arm. When the lift was installed, I put the raised steering arm on the axle but there was still a 2" drop from the pitman arm to the axle. This resulted in the wheels turning right as the suspension compressed. Which is most noticeable when braking or when pulling a trailer. Now the drag link is nearly level.

[LT7A]

Nice lookin purpose-built rig.

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Originally Posted by LT7A

Nice lookin purpose-built rig.

Thanks!