Talk me into, or out of, it...

Money changes everything.

Drove the critter to work on Friday, despite my better judgement. It was mid 90's and ridiculously humid as usual for us. No A/C and no headliner, but whatever; we're Texans and we're tough! LOL

Truck definitely needs more attention. It made the trip back and forth on its own without a wrecker this time but the trip home it got a little squirrelly in the handling. I know I need to make another pass or two on re-torquing the U-bolts, but I can see now the real issue is I'll need to trim some length off of them to get a proper torquing, because last pass didn't make it. A couple of them are loose to the point I can wiggle the washers with my finger. Not good.

Also noticed the coolant reservoir was empty other than some rusty sludge. After I'd dealt with the hoses and such a while back I made sure it was level full and air bled. Noticed the reservoir hose is leaking at the radiator, evidenced by the rusty trail down the tank. Guess I'll replace the hose next and use a better clamp than the three decade old plastic thingy.

Richard

someotherguy said:

I can see now the real issue is I'll need to trim some length off of them to get a proper torquing, because last pass didn't make it. A couple of them are loose to the point I can wiggle the washers with my finger. Not good.

Click to expand...

I had to do this same thing. Mine were the same and I was very surprised by how many turns they made before the torque wrench clicked

Made some time to work on the critter today but had to make room to work on it, too. No pictures of this mess - I'm no carpenter - but I rough cut some 4x4 blocks and bored a shallow hole in them to raise my work table up about 3" so the generator could get stashed under it, along with the gas cans. Pressure washer already fit under it, and the weed whacker behind it. Had to shove a few misc. parts still in boxes around but finally had some room to work.

Since the u-bolts were a little bit too long for the socket, I death-wheeled about 3/4" off each one.


Man, I'm glad I went ahead and splurged for the new angle grinder when I did the drop job. Blade guard sure is nice, plus being able to change the wheel out without a fight. My old grinder sucks.


Got 'em all torqued down to 110, and took this pic as a reminder to re-torque then in another 500 miles, at 161093. A couple of them were scary loose, which easily explains how squirrelly the truck was. Drove it around the neighborhood, up to 50mph or so on the big road, feels pretty solid. Also kicked all the tires up to 60psi; haven't decided what pressure I'm gonna settle on though.


Small details, that rusty sludge had really stained the coolant reservoir from when the PO was running straight water. Made it hard to tell where the level was. I took the reservoir off and filled it about 1" with white vinegar, and used an old piece of sponge ziptied to a socket extension to scrub the stains out; worked great. As far as the leak at the radiator neck, no big surprise. Popped the hose off and noticed the hose nipple had been smushed kind of square-shaped, so the hose couldn't seal. Gently used a punch to tap it back round and cut a little off the end of the hose, stuck it back on.


Then dumbass me went and did the yardwork. It's hot and ridiculous humid today. It even rained on me for a couple brief moments then full sunlight came right back out to make things super steamy.

Richard

Are those Grade 8 u-bolts? My 5/8 Grade 8’s had to be torqued to 177 lbs.

Yours look like 3/4”.

Hunh?

62barsoom said:

Hunh?

Click to expand...

Sorry, when I first posted, your quote was stuck in the machine.

Caman96 said:

Are those Grade 8 u-bolts? My 5/8 Grade 8’s had to be torqued to 177 lbs.

Click to expand...

Not sure. Belltech instructions say 95-110lb-ft. They're 5/8" and appear to be cad plated but no indication of grade, not even in the parts list.

I am a little amused by the opening page of the instructions that suggest you'll need a torque wrench of 0-75lb-ft range. That just goes to show us the Belltech guys are human, just like us, and imperfect.

Richard

Factory service manual calls for 110 ft lb on them as well.

So everybody wants to be heavy duty clutch gangstas until it's time to do heavy duty clutch gangsta sht.

Popped my clutch slave on the way home this morning. Blocking a left turn lane during Monday morning rush hour at a busy intersection; fortunately opposite most of the traffic. Pool of hydraulic fluid under the transmission, no action at all, and nowhere to easily push it out of the way. Called a homie for the rescue at about 7:20AM, he was kind of far away so I shut it off and kicked the door open, and started working on the tan on the back of my head and neck. Oh, and cruising Rockauto for the clutch/slave/line kit. Ordered the Perfection kit and paid extra for it to get here tomorrow, only to notice afterwards that I overlooked the kit with the braided line and quick disconnect for only $9 more. Whatevs..


So many people continued to pull up behind me that I figured let me at least roll the truck backwards so they can go around me to the left turn spot. Good thing I did because it made room for yet another new friend. You can't see it, but he parked right on top of the clutch juice puddle.


Fortunately for me I showed him my guy wasn't far off at that point (our app at work has a map with all the driver locations) so he burned off. My guy showed up minutes later and we gave it the hook.


Got home and cleared all the other vehicles out of the way so I could stick this thing in the garage.

Not quite ready to go looking for the matches, but I do have a whole lot of gasoline on hand at the moment..

Richard