Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

cleaned and gooped the three contact points per shoe where the shoes rub against the backing plate ~ when these squeak your wife will let you know about it, jk so it don't hurt to prevent that from happening

I must say I am not a fan of drum brake assemblage it seems to me as though someone took a dozen of automotive engineers, gave them a brown bag of random bits, bicycle handlebars, a fork, a wrench, a couple different sized slinkys, some large diameter pipe, etc. etc. and said you are not allowed to leave this room until you build some DRUM BRAKES out of all these bits !!!

so cleaned, lubed up, and reassembled

[flashed]

If I remember right those little springs they dont include are not real cheap but you gotta have em.Keep up the good work ,everything is looking great .

[SkinnyG]

WAIT!

Your shoes are not in the correct place.

The small one(s) face front, the large one(s) face rear.

This is because they are self-energizing brakes, and the smaller front shoe is merely to help apply the larger rear shoe using the rotation of the drum.

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

WAIT!

Your shoes are not in the correct place.

The small one(s) face front, the large one(s) face rear.

This is because they are self-energizing brakes, and the smaller front shoe is merely to help apply the larger rear shoe using the rotation of the drum.

Nice catch. He needs to swap a wide front with a narrow rear shoe.

Get this kit. http://www.harborfreight.com/3-piece...kit-97804.html
I found the pliers to be darn close to useless except for the spring tool on the end of one handle. The star wheel spoon was not that useful till I sharpened the end with a bench grinder... Not actually sharp but no longer 3/16" thick at the business end. They are nice to have for drum brakes.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

WAIT!

Your shoes are not in the correct place.

The small one(s) face front, the large one(s) face rear.

This is because they are self-energizing brakes, and the smaller front shoe is merely to help apply the larger rear shoe using the rotation of the drum.

Dang it, I think I see it now, one side has the longer friction area shoes the other side has the shorter friction area shoes

[SkinnyG]

Measure their LENGTH; they are different front-and-back.

[greg64]

Great progress, Greg. The guys are right about the shoes; the longer shoe goes to the rear.

[Chaplain]

Nice work as usual. In honor of you I dunks some parts in muriatic acid today.

BTW keep the blue, vintage, California tag.

[rich weyand]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

BTW keep the blue, vintage, California tag.

Agreed. Soak it overnight in Evaporust, which will turn all the ugly orange rust stuck on there to ugly black different-oxide-of-iron that just wipes off, without dissolving anything else. Then spray with clear to keep the rust from coming back.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

Nice work as usual. In honor of you I dunks some parts in muriatic acid today.

BTW keep the blue, vintage, California tag.

thank you, pics or it didn't happen, better yet link to your thread, LOL

[JacobSchni]

by the way if you need to start you truck still and the ignition rack is broke, use pliers to pull the rod that attaches to the rack. itll still start. i had to do that to drive mine for a while

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by JacobSchni

by the way if you need to start you truck still and the ignition rack is broke, use pliers to pull the rod that attaches to the rack. itll still start. i had to do that to drive mine for a while

Thanks, didn't have to do that on this truck, but drove my '85 Blazer S10 like that for weeks after it was stolen then recovered, before I bought a replacement steering column.

[rusty76]

Nice break down of the column.

[Chaplain]

More to come I hope.

[Gregski]

huge thanks to SkinnyG for pointing out a big mistake I made by mounting both front facing shoes on the driver side and both rear facing shoes on the passenger side

the shoe on the left in the first pic goes closer to the front of the truck the shoe on the right goes closer to the rear of the truck

so today I think I finally got it right

[Gregski]

guys lets talk headlight for a minute, I like to understand how to test them when there is a problem and not just run out and buy a replacement, but I don't get how they work

here is how they are wired, they each have three prongs so if we look at them from the back the left most vertical prong has black wires going to it, so we assume that is negative, opposite that prong is another vertical prong on the right this one has light green wires going to it, and then there is a horizontal prong above with light brown wires going to it

when I took a test light to the wiring harness here were my test results even on the working side (cause only driver side low beam does not work)

Black & Green = light on

Black & Brown = no light

So do they work such that when Black and Green is on then that's low beams and when Black and Brown is on then that's high beams for example? Or is high beams when all three are on?

[Gregski]

after trying to do all the headlight math I decided to do what I always do, stare and compare, or swap/replace and compare, so I plugged the working headlight from the passenger side to the driver side harness and tested it, and both low beam and high beam worked, so I took off for the parts house

now being The Greg and already dealing with a Wagner beam on one side and an Atlas brand on the other, neither of which I could find today, I decided to splurge $10 bucks a piece on two brand new [literally shinny] SYLVANIA beauties

but the Truck Gods would not smile upon us today!

you see these new beamers have shorter nipples, or no nipples at all if you ask me, see last pic (old on left, new on right), so I was unable to plug the stock harness on to them, and cutting it to make it work I was not willing to do, so tomorrow I return these headlights and I bet I will have to pay double for ones that actually work

as my college roommate used to say... "It Aint Easy!"

[enaberif]

Headlight wiring is split

The reason for 2 wires off each one is that it goes to the opposing light. 1 green in and 1 green out to the opposite light. Same with the brown and and black.

Oh and good luck finding bulbs that work with the connector on these trucks. Many people end up cutting the plastic piece to fit properly or completely switch over to a H4 setup.

I have the same issue with my connector and it keeps falling off :\

Looks like PHILIPS Part # H6024 will work.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

Looks like PHILIPS Part # H6024 will work.

1,000 thanks, I picked one up at Pep Boys today $13 bucks, they only had one, darn, my OCD is going to be tested

[Gregski]

in related news The Greg noticed the retaining ring was broken on the passenger side, so I see a junkyard trip in my near future

gotta love old cars, fix one thing another one breaks

[greg64]

Good stuff Greg. I've got a headlight retainer ring with the same problem. I was going to buy two new ones from LMC. Anybody used them before? I really want to change the headlight buckets too, due to rust and the fasteners being pretty much peckered.

[Gregski]

Any tips on fixin' #8 above?

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Gregski

Any tips on fixin' #8 above?

What is wrong with them? Not coming on?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

What is wrong with them? Not coming on?

yes

[Titomars]

Originally Posted by Gregski

Any tips on fixin' #8 above?

First let me state the obvious because it has bitten many a pro too (me included) check the bulbs! Now for yours the first check I would do is pull the connector off the switch at the trans and jump the wires. With the key on the lights should light up at that point. If not take a volt meter and see if you get power at that connector. if not the problem is towards the dash or fuse panel. If there is power there but bulbs are not lighting look to the rear. Check sockets, grounds, also look for bad wiring along the frame.