[Vic1947]

I knew all along that forum members were a sharp-eyed bunch. Good catch Hotrod C10, I should have pointed out I lurked as a guest for nearly a year before actually joining the group. Time flies when you're having fun!

As for the brake lines, I'm not sure what the previous owner was thinking with the plumbing. My guess is that they were experiencing the same problem with the brakes that I did ...only front brakes working. This led them to replace the m/c and booster with a new unit which likely didn't help. At that point, they may have thought they could increase line pressure and/or flow by routing lines from both sides of the m/c and running them into a tee. This is just speculation on my part.

During the course of troubleshooting the problem, I installed a new proportioning valve and removed the redundant lines. In the end, I actually traced the brake problem to the flexible line that connects to the tee on the rear axle. It was either collapsed or plugged to the extent that no fluid was moving thru it. As you will see later, I moved the proportioning valve to the other side of the m/c during the frame off resto.

After getting the brakes in working order and bringing some other safety items up to spec, it passed inspection. The starter was also dragging on hot starts. The header on the starter side was wrapped with a woven heat tape, but the real culprit wasn't the heat, but rather the battery cable. An interesting splice was preventing full current from reaching the starter motor.

With these problems fixed, we were on the road and attended several cruise in's around the KC area in the spring of 2011. We met some nice folks along the way but I kept feeling the need to improve the underhood and interior appearance. So toward the end of July, we decided to take it apart and clean up the grunge. My goal was to have it back together by the middle of September for the Midwest All Truck Nationals in nearby Riverside. Looking back, I can't believe how crazy that notion was.

Below are some shots as it is coming apart. I've got a lot more, but I need to figure out how guys are getting more than 5 pictures to upload at a time. My guess is they're embedding links to the photos from a hosting site like Photobucket, but I need to research how to do that. More to come!