Well I can say that this is probably the first time that I have welcomed the warm up and melting of our snow pack. I have always loved snow and winter in general, but I really want to make progress on Kevin's truck so go ahead and melt away!
We have made some good progress in the last few days. Again, more cleaning and scraping crud from the frame and transmission. Two other things, the post office found my lost set of king pins, and the machine shop finished reamung the king pin bushings I put in the spindles. ($103.00 for sizing the two spindels.) They did a nice job, and the pins fit really nice. I do wish I had access to the reamers I used when I was a bus mechanic. It turned out that I actually purchased 1 1/2 sets of NOS repair kits. That was a good thing, as each kit was missing parts or had rustred items. I was able to get a nice set and fit with the combined sets. Kevin then had his first chance to fit then up and shim as needed. The backing plates, all cleaned up were reinstalled and now we just need the new felt grease seals to arrive to get the front wheels back on. There is a stiff spot in the steering gear. The unit had some old fairly heavy grease in it. It is pretty well thickened up over the years, so we added some 90-140 gear lubes to it. We ran it lock to lock several dozen times. There seems to be a wide range of opinions as to what "Steering gear lube" really is. In any case, the gear lube should help soften up the old grease so it can actually be changed a bit later. There is still a moderate stiff spot, but it is significantly less. BTW, it is definitely in the gear, not the new king pins.
So with that part waiting for the seals, yesterday I started to work on the left door. I used Classic Truck Parts smaller of the two inner door bottom patch panels and am very pleased with how it turned out. I removed the lower hinge bracket at the same time and straightened the area on the inside that was damaged. This morning I removed the glass and stripped all of the weather strip, and assorted window related items. I will start to fit up the new outer skin, and make the final repairs to the collision damage once I have the skin off and I have better access.
Enough typing for now, I have to get back to work.
