My mechanic has two lifts, a normal vehicle and big boy. The normal vehicle has a nova on it that can't be moved and Nelleybell that was on the cusp of being able to move under her own power, guess who got the most love!!!!
The original draglink was bent a decent amount so we decided to have a new one made, holy crap are the side walls thick and durable. That got the driver and passenger wheel connected to each other with no issue.
With that done we began to bleed the brakes and ran into a unexpected issue. We bench bleed the master cylinder with no issues (other than smashed fingers) and then mounted it to the truck. We then power bleed the front tires (he had a special toy that sucked the brake fluid through the line without having to pump the brake pedal) with no issue. However when we tried to bleed the rear drums we got nothing. We built up so much negative pressure in the line that when we disconnected the toy from the line you could hear air rush back into the line. We cracked the line at the cylinder and had brake fluid leak out and we discounted the line at the rubber junction and were able to pull fluid to that point in the line. This is making me think the T splitting that sits on the top of the axle is clogged and needs to be replaced. Is this a correct assumption or am I missing a step somewhere?
After realizing it was 1730 on a Friday we decided to call it a day and move her outside so she would be out of his way this weekend. Well I thought I would take advantage of this little jaunt and asked my mechanic to listen to the rear end as I moved her from low to high. Whelp he heard a loud K-chunk sound and she moved with a good quickness so the rebuild I did on her actuator worked!!!!! She has both high and low gear ranges in the rear axle.
And now onto the best finding of the entire day. The lift we used lifted her by the frame, no big deal as this is one of the safest ways to lift a vehicle. What we didn't realize is this would cause a massive amount of sag in the suspension. While in the air we needed a good inch of travel in order for the steering knuckle tie rod to be able to connect to the pitman arm correctly. When she was on the ground and had the weight of the truck pushing down on the axle we went from needing a full inch of movement to the arm itself sitting parallel to the ground. My mechanic had this apiffeny after I was able to maneuver her into a parking spot and thought to take a look just for craps and giggles. To make sure what we where seeing wasn't a fluke we got a floor jack under the front axle and turned the wheels lock to lock and had no bindings or resistance!!!!
With all that said there are only a few things keeping her from being able to drive down the street under her own power. 1. Solve the mystery of no brake fluid at the rear drums. 2. Have a rod made that will connect the brake pedal to the master cylinder (tried some all thread and it just bent like a banjo wire when we pressed on the brake) 3. Lift the front axle off the ground and actually align the center of the steering wheel to the front wheels being pointed in the forward direction
I almost forgot I have also started on her turn signals and cab lighting. I got some new old stock cab lights and a bunch of 12V bulbs. Those will go on after I fix the previously mentioned issues.
Why bring a gun to a knife fight when you can bring a howitzer?
