Day 4: Grinding Screeching Halt (or "90 Miles an Hour Into a Brick Wall")
I spent 3 hours of my day chasing brake line fittings, a power steering return line and lug nuts. Then, while I was running the tubing for the fronts, I thought I'd dry fit the power steering pump so I could know where not to route my lines.
Big surprise! Even though the newer generation 5.7L (a.k.a. "metric 350") is drilled for the old style power steering bracket, it won't fit because the harmonic balancer interferes with the bracket. What I didn't notice was it's 1.25" larger than the old 350 I pulled out.
Now I need to make my way out to P-N-P tomorrow and see if that p/s pump I yanked is still sitting there on that truck I saw 2 weeks ago.
I did get the front brake lines in. I installed an inner fender so I could get the lines where I wanted without interfering with the fender when it comes time to replace the "dog-house"
I had to get creative with the brake hose feed-through retainers - turns out nobody in the world carries these. I know, I looked!
I was able to put the new shocks on too. I ran the back brake line across the back of the cross-member (not shown 'cause I'm too fat to get a picture of it) to the last run up to the proportioning valve. The line I bought for that is about a foot too long. I'm buying a shorter one tomorrow.
I'm pooped!