Frame Notched and Chassis Reassembled

Friday night:  Cut the notch on the driver side first and partially welded in the new section.

Saturday:  Finished welding up the frame notches and rebuilt the leaf spring packs.

Sunday: Reassembled the flipped axle and leaf springs.  Put in new shackle bolts and tightened everything down.  Pulled the axles out and had to stop to clean up and reorganized.

Monday: Replaced the third member gasket.

Droppin' the Bed

Had everything I needed t install the front disc brake pads and new hoses.  During the process I discovered that the factory keeper bolt was hitting my wheel!  Quickly referenced my library of bolts and nuts and found 2 cap screws that worked in place of the Ford bolt.  Perfect fit! and front brakes done.

The kit from www.airbagit.com came in this week.  It included an axle flip kit and frame notches.  I bought shocks for it but they sent the wrong ones.  Also received the bushings for the leaf springs that needed replacing.

Again Doug graciously jumped in and we spent all afternoon Saturday working on the leaf spring bushings.  4 hours of pounding to get the 6 of them out.  I welded together a bushing tool to hit them with and it became best friends with a 3 pound sledge hammer.

  Got the axle flipped and mocked up where the frame needed to be notched.

And of course the Shackle bolts I ordered were too long.  Sent a picture of the bolt to LMC truck and no response as of yet.  Found grade 8 washers from Northern tool that took up enough shank slack that all I have to do is cut off the extra threads.

Clean out, break down and organize

I cleaned out the interior, reorganized the donor truck and unbolted the bed.  To keep things organized I built a wood frame on top of the donor bed and enlisted the help of some neighbors to lift it on top.  while waiting for help my neighbor Doug came over and said lets get busy.  In about 90 minutes we completely dismantled the truck down to the cab and frame.

Borrowed a power washer from another neighbor and wash 20 years of west Texas dust.  Lots of dust.