I got a good chance to look over the truck and degreased the engine today. It's looking a lot better. I also rolled around underneath and shot penetrating oil on everything suspension related. The rear axle is clean and it has a one piece driveshaft that looks very new. The t400 is very clean also. I will move the trans cooler up to the front as its currently sitting under the passenger side floor board.
The front end is tight so I think I'm going with the new disc kit that uses the original ball joints. The manual steering box has a slow leak; I have another and may get that rebuilt.
The big progress for today was the tailgate. This truck must have not been running one for awhile. Two bolts were broken off in the drivers side hinge location and the PO had tried to drill them out. He quit there and gave me a bunch of pricy new tailgate hardware. I continued drilling as I have a drill set that steps up in 64th's. With about 1/2 can of oil, 1/2 my tool box, and beating on them they finally gave up. I re-tapped the holes and bolted on the tailgate. I had to chase the good holes 6 times before they would go smoothly!!
Here's the pic...........notice the puddle of penetrating oil
