'Hay Burner' 69 LWB Frame Off Restore

[Qknf4u69]

Like my weights in the bed? 200 pounds of dog food should help with what the actual ride height should be with a full tank and the rest of the wood and hardware.

And Now!

[Qknf4u69]

What you do when you do not want to go pull weeds in the back yard or go clean up the garage mess from sorting through all the Christmas decoration that had to be done before going back in storage.

Well, you try your skills in AutoCad. Measure your truck a few hundred time and draw up the next expensive part. A custom piece drive line will someday make her go back and forth... at least for now until a steering column is installed.

Over thinking is my specialty...

[Qknf4u69]

Had the local shop tack weld up my new driveline from my CAD drawing. Went with the heavy duty carrier bearing, not that I needed it, bullet proof is what I asked for from the shop. Measurements were pretty close to the drawing when I mocked it up under the truck. I could have had them add about 1/8" more on the rear shaft but the slip joint has 1-1/2" from center in/out. I figured there was really no reason to have them cut a new piece of tube to get the 1/8" back when there really isn't much change in full travel of the rear end.

Gave it back to shop to finish welding, balancing and paint, should see it in a few days.

[Qknf4u69]

Well today I picked up the finished driveline. Smells of black paint in the garage, never a bad thing if you ask me. Cost a bit, but as I have seen on many other posts, "Good work isn’t cheap, Cheap work isn’t good".

Family is in town this week so unfortunately it will have to wait on the floor a few days before I drill the spacer and the bolt holes in the cross member.

[Qknf4u69]

The engine can finally exert some of its influence to the wheels. I made it out to the garage to install the new 2 piece driveshafts. It looks great and is a giant milestone. After I bolted everything down I zeroed out the frame and checked the Front shaft to see if it followed the frame. It was running up hill to the carrier bearing by 0.2º so I made a shim to move the transmission up by an 1/8" and that made me just under 0.1º the other way. I doubt that there would have been any vibration from it but the shop guru didn't like it when I told him so I followed his advice and shimmed the tranny up.

Of course I had to start the engine up and let the transmission spin the new parts. It was the first time that the transmission has ever been tested since it was built by 'R.W.' with TCI in 4-11-1994 and tested by 'S.D.' (Maybe Scoobi Doo) 3 days later. Good job guys, it worked as intended, one of those purchases from so long ago, glad it worked!

FYI
I did remember to take my string line off before spinning the shaft...