Ce la vie. I was in shock and all I could do is think, "damn", calmly. I bought it a long time ago for this long-time project. I wanted 3.42s for it for the in between ration that is as tall as I'd want (4spd) if I never got a Gear Vendors unit and still be not too tall if I did. I've always been a 4.10 guy, but most of my life the national limit was 55mph. I was trying to change with the times but started thinking I'd rather have 3.73s with the M22. I'd also rather have an Auburn Gear posi. I guess my mind got made up for me
. It would have been nice to be able to sell the 3.42 posi, though.
There's another "damn" to the bigger picture of this story. I hauled the rolling frame on a dolly back from Florida. I bought it from an abandoned project with everything rebuilt and a 4/6 drop. On the trip back I stopped for fuel in the hills north of Chatanooga. The truck stopped a bit short of where I figured it would at the pump. I pulled up a bit while looking in the rearview and saw the rear wheels turning in opposite directions. Not a good sign. The pinion nut hadn't been torqued down and had backed off, broke some ring gear teeth. I had to swap ends on the dolly. Ever haul a vehicle with the rear wheels up on the dolly? Not how it's meant to work.
The plan had been to swing by Bills Bowtie's place in S/W VA and bolt a SWB floor along with another SWB bed to this chassis and get it all up the road. I had to cancel that out. I used the 3" ratchet straps to hold the front wheels straight. Worked pretty good, except making turns
. No problem on the interstate once I had them adjusted right, but every time I had to pull off, I had to stop to adjust them right a time or two. I'd get up to about 50 and it would start waggin' the tail if they weren't right. It was a white knuckle ride the rest of the trip, and a slow one. I pulled off about an hour from home and noticed the front tires were toed in too much, which meant toed out going backwards. The inner tread on both tires had about scrubbed off and I wasn't sure they'd last the rest of the way, so it was 2-lanes and about two more hours of whiter knuckles. I made it!