Crushing Gumby 71 Shortbed Patina build

[GTJ558]

nice truck good plan sweet color

[jasonvw]

Getting closer and closer to the fun stuff! Now that you have the Rivets out, you have to get the back of that bump stop plate off. Jorge just tapped it with a chisel and hammer and it fell right off


Now you have to move a few inches behind the axle and get rid of the 2 rivets that are just above your head. These are right next to each other and partially locate the rear track bar mount. Same procedure as before, Plasma through them and tap the rest out.


All that work was for this, the pay off! The C notches. These plates are great, made to fit right on the frame and locate with the factory holes you just freed up. Jorge and I mocked up the drivers side C notch and figured out where it went. A long screwdriver will help you line up the holes in the notch with the holes in the frame so you can mark where to cut the frame.


Jorge used a marker to make some rough guidelines of where to cut the frame. We decided to start small and sneak up on it with more cuts and test fits. Best to be conservative first. You can always cut more, but its harder to put material back if you cut too much! Go slow!

[jasonvw]

Ok, so now that we have the spot marked out Jorge made the first cuts to the frame and we test fit,

Followed by cutting, test fit, cut, test fit, cut and we ended up with this.

You want to get as close to the shape of the C notch as you can and not leave a big gap between the frame and the notch. Also note that you need to grind the side of the spring perch flush with the frame for the notch to lay flat against the frame. Once you have all that done, it should sit like this!

A perfect fit! The holes should all line up and the most important is that the spring bolt fits neatly back through the Notch and frame so you can bolt your springs on straight! Take the time to get this right now. Jorge and I decided to use a few bolts to get the notch sitting in the right spot and instead of bolting it in, we opted to weld it for more strength. Jorge cleaned the frame up and laid down some nice welds making the notch a permanent part of the frame.

Here is a better idea of how it will all look once the Notch is in.

[lolife99]

The only thing I would add,... is to verify the location of the notch prior to installing it.
(I do this by swinging the rearend up, until it touches the frame)

[jasonvw]

Now we are getting somewhere! Also a side note, you need to support the rear of the frame when you are cutting it to install these notches. We decided that since King Kong, my name for the rear bumper, was very well secured to the frame, we supported it from there and did our cuts.


And here is Jorge going to town on the passenger side. Progress is fast. Only a few hours in and the hard part is almost over.

[jasonvw]

Originally Posted by lolife99

The only thing I would add,... is to verify the location of the notch prior to installing it.
(I do this by swinging the rearend up, until it touches the frame)

Yes thats a good call as well!

[jasonvw]

So now we have the notches in, and we installed the small rubber bump stops in the tops of the notches, don't forget those! Since the notches come in bare metal, I prepped them with some primer and then hit them with some thick high temp black spray paint just to keep the rust away. Take the time and get all the bare metal covered so you don't have any rust in the future. Now you can install your new rear lowering springs. Keep in mind that you may have to undo the shocks at the point to get them in. I am running a 6 inch drop spring so they just fell into place as is.

The rear is almost all dialed in at this point, just a few more things to bolt in. Now was the right time to start getting all the axle bolts off. We used a tranny jack to steady the axle and Jorge got the U-bolts that secure the axle to the trailing arms all loosened up.

Now you want to use the trans Jack and lift the rear end off the trailing arms to give you some space between the axle and the trailing arm. If you are just using a standard kit from ECE you need only about a 1/4 inch space to shove in the spacer on the drivers side and the same on the passenger side to install the super Track bar mount. In my case, I am using a 1 inch lowering block as well as the track bar kit, so we needed to get the axle way off the trailing arm. Jorge did the heavy lifting (perk of having a shop do the work) and I got the block and spacer in. After you line all that up, put in the included longer U-bolt and you can drop the rear end back into place.

On the passenger side it was the same deal, but in place of the spacer, we put in the ECE Super track bar mount. Its a 2 position mount that keeps the rear end centered under the truck which is a total necessity when going this low.

[jasonvw]

The last few things are simple. First, there are 2 brand new upper and lower shock mounts included with the ECE kit. The top ones need to have rivets removed just like you did with the C-notches. The new ones bolt in with the included hardware. The lower mounts attach at the bottom of the U-bolts and from there, you bolt on the new shocks.


After that all thats left is to bolt on the Track bar. Keep in mind that if you go more than 5 inches lower than stock, you will mount the bar in the lower of the 2 positions. Put the truck on the ground and measure from a fixed point on the chassis to get the rear end centered under the truck before you bolt in the track bar. You want the rear end as close to dead center side to side as you can so take your time here. With that handled, you have the rear all done!


I have to say, I was really impressed with how the back end came out. It went quickly and without any issues. After a break for lunch we came back and knocked out the front. Get ready!

[LEX]

I'm ready!

[jasonvw]

Just editing photos and resizing right now. More coming soon!

[GoaterAz]

Great build thread!

I was refreshing this thread at work waiting on the front end pictures, and now I'm at home refreshing this thread haha.

Build thread blue balls.

[Zoomin]

Now that I have personally experienced the thrill of doing this myself, on all subsequent ventures involving rivets I'm going to do what you did - go to a shop.

You make a good point about getting all the stuff to rebuild the front while you're at it too.
Posted via Mobile Device

[jasonvw]

Sorry for the delay guys, aside from resizing photos, I have been doing things on Gumby as well behind the scenes. I guess I need to get caught up on photos! So on to the front end build.
The first thing we did was get the dust caps off. I see trucks all the time that don't have these on there, and you don't want to be one of those people! Bearings will wear out quickly if you don't run these things, so make sure you have them.

While that was going on Eric hosed down the stock tie rods, ball joints etc with some PB blaster and WD-40 so that we could get all those off easily. It pays to soak these things ahead of time. Trust me, its much easier when these come off smoothly! Less shop time too

My truck came with power steering factory, which was a huge plus! Take some time and check for leaks, these things always leak! If it looks like mine, chances are its leaking from the bottom seal which you can change when you pull the steering arm. I plan to fix mine soon as its leaking, slowly. Take the time to inspect this stuff now.

Eric then took off the spindle nuts and set those and the washers aside. I like to reuse the stock hardware so we took these things out and set them aside. Now is a good time to inspect them for any damage. Luckily my truck is pretty low mileage and has never been apart so these things were in great shape.

While this was going on, Angelina was packing the new wheel bearings. A word about bearings to everyone doing this job. These things are cheap! Buy new ones! Don't try to save some cash and use your old bearings when you do this job. After years and years and heat cycle after heat cycle, bearings tend to go bad if not properly greased on a regular basis, especially on a hard working truck. Like I said, these things are cheap so buy new ones! Pop for the new seals too and you will never have to worry about doing this job twice. Spend some time packing these full of grease too. This is an area where you don't want to rush and throw them in.

[Low Elco]

Tell that girl to go to AZ and buy some latex gloves for packing bearings! Makes one of the nastiest jobs in the auto realm a non issue. I wear them constantly.

[jasonvw]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Tell that girl to go to AZ and buy some latex gloves for packing bearings! Makes one of the nastiest jobs in the auto realm a non issue. I wear them constantly.

I know right! I think we had just run out at this point and since we were doing a fast turn around, no time to make a glove run. Totally dirty job for sure!

[jasonvw]

Now that the spindles nuts are off, break loose the brake caliper

Now is the time to do some inspecting. Check your calipers. Eric took a look over mine and we both agreed that they were shot! Rust all over the piston, tough to compress and not worth trying to reuse. Teds Rod Shop had a full set of Calipers, rotors, pads and lines in stock and for the price, I agreed, it was well worth it to just replace this stuff. Again, do it once, and do it right.
We pulled the calipers off and the lines as well.

With that out of the way, you can pull the rotor off. Mine were totally worn out. In fact my rotors were the stock factory installed rotors with the factory inspection stickers still on them, so you can imagine how great 40+ year old rotors could be... Behind the rotor you have the stock brake shield held on by 3 bolts. Make sure you set that aside for the new spindles!

[jasonvw]

Since the entire front end is getting replaced with new parts we decided that we should try to remove each side as an assembly to save time. If you were re-using your stock A arms this would not be the way to go, but for my truck, it makes it much easier. Here is a look at what your dealing with. All this stuff is going bye bye...

Eric went around the front end and got rid of all the cotter pins. Then we were able to break loose the tie rod ends and pull the tie rods off the truck. Again, I am replacing all these parts so the old ones went right in the trash. I highly recommend that if you are doing this job, you do the same. No reason to try to save a few bucks by using old worn out parts.

At the same time, we got rid of the old Idler arm too since it was going in the trash. Since its somewhat pinched into place, you may need to get it out of the truck and pop it out using a vise.

Once we had all that done, we had free access to the front end of the truck. Like I said, everything is getting replaced on my truck so we decided that the fastest way to get everything off was to pull each side off as an assembly. To do this you first need to release the pressure on the stock spring. We put a tranny jack under the lower A arm to give us some upward pressure on the assembly and then started to slowly loosen up the upper A arm. Keep in mind, that spring is under a lot of tension, so take your time here and make sure everything is properly secured!

[jasonvw]

Once you have the upper A arm loose, you can pull it off the mounting studs slowly. The idea here is to keep the jack under the lower arm tight so you can control the spring.

Now you start to unload the spring. To do this slowly let pressure off the jack so that the lower A arm starts to move down and the spring extends. Do not rush! That spring can shoot out and kill you Go slow. Eric worked the jack letting the A arm drop.

Now that we had the tension off, the spring moved out of the upper cup and extended fully. No more worries!

Once you get to this step, the rest is no sweat! The lower A arms are held on by 2 U shaped clamps. Keep the jack under the assembly and unbolt the A arm.

Once everything is loose, you can pull it all out as an assembly. We used the trans jack to support everything and lowered it out of the way.

It helped to have an extra set of hands here to steady everything as it drops out of the truck.

[Rusbuilt]

Keep the pics coming! I can't wait to see it back on the ground!!

[jasonvw]

Just finishing up the last batch of photos. Here we go.

[jasonvw]

After stripping all the parts off the front end, this is what you are left with.

The first step was to put on the new CPP tubular lower A arm. This goes on just like the stock one, with the stock U bolts. The key with these are to line up the indents in the cross shaft with the bolt heads on the truck. This locates the arm center under the truck. Once you have that dialed, snug them up.

From here you will put the new lowering spring in the A arm. The A arm has a spring cup in it that locates the spring in a certain position. Keep this in mind as you will want the spring to lock into that cup when you compress the suspension on the next step. I went with a 3 inch spring in front so mine are a bit shorter than what you may get in your kit but the procedure is the same.

Once you have the spring in the arm, you can bolt on the upper control arm. Again, this is a CPP item and installs just like the factory item. A quick note, the stock A arms are shimmed from the factory. Keep those shims in place with the new arms. Chances are they will be close to the factory camber setting, or good enough to get you to the alignment shop. For the amount of drop Im going with, the camber setting on my truck would be too extreme for daily use. Thats why I went with the CPP arms. They correct the aggressive camber this drop causes. You could use shims on stock arms to correct some of the camber, but a shim stack that thick and the force the stock A arms would be under was just not worth it to me. I wanted to do it right, be safe and be able to get the alignment as close to perfect as possible. Trust me, if you can budget for these arms, go for it! Well worth it!

[jasonvw]

Now we are on the downhill, fast approaching the finish line. Eric mounted up the drop spindle. These are 2.5 inch drop spindles from ECE and aside from converting your truck to disc brakes if you had drums to begin with, these are just like factory. The fit is excellent!

The new shocks are shorter than stock and trust me, you do not want to try to run a stock shock on a lowered truck! These are KYB shocks and this is what comes with the ECE kit. They mount just like stock.

Here is a shot from the front of the entire front suspension.

From here you just want to put on your brake rotors. Like I said, I popped for new ones and fresh bearings. Almost there!

[jasonvw]

Just to compare, here is the old front end,

And here is the new front end


And from here we bolted on the brake caliper and the wheels and we were done! A quick note: when installing new tie rods etc, measure the length of the ones you took off and adjust the new ones to that length. Once you get the truck on the ground, you will be in the ballpark. You can then use a measuring tape to get the truck close. I always recommend that you get the truck aligned soon after doing this type of job. We did this and we got it really close as far as the eyeball is concerned.

I have to say, Teds Rod Shop knocked it out for me in short order! These guys are pros, work fast and more importantly they do it right! I was in and out quickly and I was able to jump in my truck and drive it the 80 miles back to my house with no worries about anything we missed. Like I said before if you don't want to deal with doing this on your own, Teds can handle it for you quickly and without drama. Check out their Site, www.tedsrodshop.com for parts or just to talk shop. I don't mind promoting shops that are C10 friendly and I just wanted to make sure any local C10 guys know, this is a great place to go for parts and labor.

With all that being said, the suspension is DONE! Ready to see how it came out????

[jasonvw]

Well here it is! If you remember, this is Gumby when I started, stone stock and sitting at nosebleed status


And after the drop, adding the Torque Thrust D's and new tires, this is what I ended up with, Keep in mind, the new rear bumper is yet to be installed, but you get the idea:

[jasonvw]

And a few more.