Well, turns out this truck needed a bunch of work. Not surprised, it is kinda beat in some regards. It's all in good fun though, I'm not upset.

Went to get it inspected a few weeks back (safety only for older vehicles here in NY). While on the lift, the shop noticed loose tie rods and a leaking R/R axle seal. They wouldn't pass me but didn't charge me for the inspection which is only $10. Go and fix it and bring it back they said. I used to work for the guy (briefly) and he was a real ball buster. I had a feeling he would be difficult but the place is close to my house so I bit the bullet and went in. Lesson learned...

Anyway, a few days later I took the rear drum off to see what things looked like. First off, the wheel and axle assembly was totally loose. Kinda scary actually. Got the wheel and drum off to reveal that everything was completely coated in grease, and I mean EVERYTHING. Both the inner and outer seals were shot, there was no sealing going on at all, nor braking for that matter. In addition, the bearing adjuster retainer was completely bent and the lock was twisted over itself which was why the wheel was so loose. The brake shoe self adjuster wire was broken off and several pieces of hardware literally fell out when I slid the drum off. There was also a large chunk missing from the rear shoe pad. Guess the 'ol ball buster made a good call. Didn't anticipate this level of destruction though.



So I hadda order a bunch of parts for this thing to get it back into fighting shape including completely new rear brakes, axle bearings and seals. Had to locate a new adjuster set but luckily I found a good set locally through Steve K. Thanks Steve! I felt bad having to cut up nice Timken bearings but they were useless without properly working adjusters. I don't have a bearing splitter so out came the cut off wheel and chisels...

Funny also that the guy included a set of tie rod ends when I bought the truck. He mentioned he would throw them in and I asked him if the truck needed them. He said, "naahh, I just had 'em so I'll throw 'em in". Ok then.

Found a bunch of NOS parts on Ebay from a surplus guy - an OE wiring harness, armrests, parking lamps, seat belt retractors, a right side taillight lens and a door handle mechanism. Got an NOS bulkhead connector from another seller which was good since my original was pretty crusty. Someone on FABO offered me an NOS coolant overflow tank to replace my leaky unit so I grabbed that too. No, unfortunately, I am not made of money. All this stuff was relatively cheap if you can believe that.

Also found a cheap, reman distributor on Ebay to replace the worn out stocker. The old ignition seemed pretty weak, the reman unit looks great and should work well with the new plug wires and harness.

Lastly I put an order in for a new booster to use one of Eberg's aluminum master cylinders I had on the shelf. Made new rear brake lines and master cylinder connections. Found an adjustable prop valve hacked into the rear brake line, was surprised to see that. Not sure what it was actually doing since the right rear was doing the opposite of braking. Guess we'll see if it does anything when I get it back on the road.

While the axles were out, I took the diff out to replace the massively leaking housing gasket. There could not have been more than a pint of fluid left in the housing from all the leaks. Once I got the pumpkin out, I realized it's a 742 case so no crush sleeve, hooray for that. Thankfully no pinion seal leak. I need to top off the trans fluid as well.

Got some lowering shackles from someone on here the other day, should complete the rear end work for now.

Besides all the stuff listed here, there's a few more things I need to tackle before it starts getting cold. I put a pretty big dent in this stuff though and it turns out it was needed. Hope to have it all back together this week sometime.