Re: Restoring Rusty
 

hmmm, either it's the angle or yours be a long bed truck, I wonder if the extra length or room for a bit longer exhaust pipe run helps eliminate the drone in your case?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I agree if your exhaust is dumped under the bed before I swapped mufflers I be getting tailpipes and getting it to exit.

my dad has a c30 dump. had dumped exhausted ending right before the rear axle for 20+ years. was just LOUD. not even good loud just loud. I swapped a pair of cheapo summit mufflers (think they cost $30 each) and put the exits in front of the back tires. He get complements everywhere he goes now on how awesome the truck sounds.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

my sounded terrible until I went with the full exaust

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

what are you running? FlowMasters?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

thought I would share a pic of a cool cut away of a Flowmaster muffler I saw today at a Hot Rod store while picking up some 90° elbows for my side exits

the flow is right to left <==

[all together now], ahh that's how you make the drone sound LOL

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

alright lets give the side exits a shot to see if that drowns out the drone

so the passenger side first - here it goes

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Is that hot rod store Tognotti's?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Si my brotha

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I miss going there. Stuck in socal now a desert wasteland

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

very nice I forgit what year is your truck so do you got a cat on it or no, cause the newerer rigs that must have cats may be drone free cause of that extra can in the exhaust system, just a thought

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

why don't you all grab a beer and follow me to my metal shop and we can take a look at the new and improved side exhaust Flow-a-Masters

took no time at all to cut the down pipes off and weld up some of these 90° elbows

now we are able to spew Carbon Monoxide at two Priuses at the same time whilst stopped at a red light - what's not to like

So is the drone gone? No not all the way gone but believe it or not its better, technically the drone used to be at 1000 RPM and now its at around 800 RPM (this is better on cold starts since with fast idle on your head was a poundin' till the rig warmed up)

so in the pics you can't really tell but they go out to the side and are angled a little bit down

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

not a huge fan of the Felpro header collector white gaskets, this one parished after only a couple hundred miles of service, now I aint sure if its by design that they are supposed to get this brittle after heating up, or cause its that they've been sitting on the O'Really's shelf since the Pilgrims brought them over on the Mayflower

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

got my new digital vacuum gauge installed and protected with an inline 2A amp fuseloge

love seeing it go from 16" at idle to 0" at Wide Open throttle to 23" of vacuum at off throttle while cruising

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Hey Greg. You know any exhaust system changes call for the obligatory sound clip right? ;)
And I have been thinking I might like to have a a/f meter for tuning. That's the first one in cab I've seen.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

ha ha, it's really nothing to write home about, as the resonators tamed the rumble / raspines, but I will see what I can do

go for it you will wonder how you ever tuned without one, and by the way these days seems like everyone is offering these gauges (even Holley), but I am very happy with the INNOVATE products especially the ease of use and quality of the actual hardware

Re: Restoring Rusty - Manual Steering Box Rebuild
 

the manual steering box rebuild kit arrived so it was time to git er done

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I figured I can delay it some more by doing whats completely un necessary...

come on we've all been there

time to remove the casting crests (those of you who followed along the engine rebuild know I did this to the block as well) you know those SEMA judges, picky picky - ha ha

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

this is the part that hugs the frame rail, no one will ever see this side, awesome, time well spent Greg

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I mean come on guys looks like GM had Ray Charles in charge of the Casting Quality Control (no offense to Charles he probably would have felt the imperfections and had them fixed...)

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I can't find the before pic of this angle / shot, but you get the idea it was wonky too, look like they had Ogur break the metal with his hands rather than use a hack saw, ha ha

no wonder they could crank out half a million of these trucks a year back then, their standards were "Eh Good Enuff'

IT'S A TRUCK!!!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

alright already lets get to the rebuild process

so here I am using my Polish Press to gently slide the new brass? sleeve bushing thingie in the hole (hammer did not contact the bushing that's what the small wood pieces was for)

the hardest part of this precission process is keeping your thumb out of the way

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

How is the ball screw itself? That's where a major portion of the wear seems to take place.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

ladies I would be lying to you if I told you I counted and knew exactly how many of these bee bees came out of that ball screw

I may have counted 50 and I may have read somewhere that 54 is required, please chime in if you know

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

with balls in it ZERO lateral play, I think that = good

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

When I read this it made me think of the door alignment on your truck. I looked at doors on my 73 and they have the same sagging look to them. Our doors may have been hung by the same person. They said Eh Good Enuff It's a Truck

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

harley check the bottoms of your doors, when I was a camping my truck was a bit on a hill and I was sitting in a camping chair down low enjoying a luke cold beverage if you know what I mean, and I was like are my eyes lying to me or how stiff is this drink cause my door alignment under the truck is horrible, I mean bad, looks like someone side swiped ie T boned my cab, but they didn't the bottom of the doors just hang way out over the rockers, see if yours is the same

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

so she's coming along handsomely, though the supplied new washer for this adjustment bolt (foreground pointed right at you with the flat screw driver tip) did not fit so we went back with the old one as there needs to be a bit of wiggle room play in there I suppose

and we just packed the darn thing with some 30 year old Castrol bearing multipurpose grease we have been trying to get rid of since I was a teenager

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

a couple mandatory before and after shots of this Woolly Mammoth

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

well if nothing else you sure do clean these parts pretty well bro

top pic: Razor Back

bottom: Smooooooooth

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I just love these before and after shots [oh sorry, millenials translation] pics, I meant pics

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

can we PALEAZE get this box on the truck already

alright alright...

out with the old first

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

by my estimation, assuming the power steering fluid was topped off, lets see carry the one, don't forget the belt, ... the old system weighed slightly under 712 lbs, hee hee

and yes the pitman arm is keyed wrong on the manual steering box in this pic (apparantly there are four positions it can be in - who knew, I just keyed it on the first key I saw thinking it was the only one there)

don't worry that arm came off half a dozen times before I got it aligned proper

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

ok so that took me the entire afternoon from 1330 (1:30 PM people) until 1815... no not eight o'clock... 6:15 PM oh why do I even bother impressing you with my military time know how, jk

ok, good job, looks good bro, how does it drive?

oh what's with all these questions? let's not split hairs here

Test Drive Time - TDT

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Nice work on the box.
Why'd you switch to manual?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I'm a minimalist, less is more, cleaner engine bay, one less thing to leak (power steering fluid is nasty and finding an air tight pump is impossible) tired of squeeky belt during tight end to end U turns, maybe 2 more horse power, WANTED BIGGER BICEPTS!!! seriously just wanted to try it, see how it works, I may go back to power steering and just not tell you all, ha ha, I'm a Hot Rodder = mess with things constantly especially specialize in fixing things that are not broken

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Gotcha

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

So how's the darn thing handle/steer now. I'm dying to know. You've answered several questions about swapping to manual now I just need to know your final results youngin.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Hey Gregski, remember me talking about that old lady that lives up the road that has the squarebody sitting in her garage? Well I got some details on it from another neighbor....he says that it is a 74 or 75, 3/4 ton, with only about 10,000 miles on it. He said his grandpa and the old ladies dad bought similar trucks at the same time and the old ladies dad pretty much parked his....now I might have to say it with flowers!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

LOL, First of all let me just say it took sum ballz to pull this off, sorry could't resist, hee hee

OK, after the test drive... Houston... We have a problem.

Apparently 2 is not the middle of 4 according to GM, you see [ahem] "pops" jk the passenger side hits the steer stop and the driver side stops short of it by maybe just under an inch

I think its time to blame the P.O.

Looks like the previous owner replaced the outer tie rod on the driver side only but not on the passenger side

So first this Power Nap aint going to take itself no how, so lemme git that out of the way and then git after it

Report at 11