Been a few days since I last posted. Kathy and I both have been fighting colds. For a couple of days I just sat on the couch with a blanket over me and watched YouTube. But we're back to 100% now.
I decided to take a break from fighting tinworm and assemble the rear end. The housing ends were in kind of bad shape, but I found some on eBay that were CNC machined, and they've been sitting in a box on my parts table for months. I lopped off the old ends and then dug out my line-up bar and the necessary donuts. While I was at it, I narrowed the housing an inch. I could have gone as much as two inches but the splined recess on the Truetrac is much shorter on one side, and I didn't want to take a chance on the axle fitment. It's all a crapshoot anyway until you get it in place and mockup some tires in the wheel wells.
I welded the upper brackets for the four link and then shot everything with a few coats of Feather Fill. After some sanding the surface pitting was no longer showing. Almost looks new now.
All that was left was to assemble everything. I still don't have the calipers installed because Wilwood is sending me the correct wheel registers for the Currie axles, and they haven't arrived yet. When I called them, they said the ones I need aren't listed in their catalog, but the tech was nice enough to send the right ones free of charge. Doesn't get any better than that.
I also marked both bumper brackets on the subframes when I test fit the rear bumper recently. I drilled and slotted the subframes to match the bracket hole pattern. I then tacked in some spacers to keep the frame rails from collapsing when I bolt the brackets on. All in all, at least a little progress to report. The weather has been pretty nice, so I've been able to open the doors and get some fresh air in the shop.