The retruckification of my 38 starts.

[Tinker]

So now that I have finished my wife truck it's on to mine. It's going to be a long build as I will be working only at night and weekends.

The truck has been in my family for about 40yrs and has spent 30+yrs of that time in a pole shed. The truck was hauled down and I've had the truck in my garage since 07. Work has been done to get it road worthy, including an engine rebuild, rewire, and brakes. Then, I drove it and collected the needed sheetmetal pieces.

I initially put a drop axle under the truck. Over the years my taste have changed and, being it's a truck, I want to bring it back to that feeling and look of a truck. The drop axle was nice, but I never really liked that the track width was shortened.

First was to reestablish my ride height. The front had a new 3" drop axle with new drop spindles/arms. So out with the new and in with the old! I saved every little bolt, clip, etc that has been taken off this truck. Cleaned up the original axle, put new bushings in the spindles and the machine shop fit the kingpins (I don't have a reamer). Replaced tierod ends, shackles, along with the kingpins. Rear ride height was addressed by removing the lowering shackles and replacing them with standard shackles. I kept the reverse eye spring on the rear, but it will get it's old spring back with the extra pack springs removed. (original spring for the rear had 18 leaves, a 2 pack setup with a smaller stiffening pack on the bottom. those will not be making a reappearance and will level the ride height.)

Where is was a week ago...

Where it rides now...


So it begins, warning there will be a few modern additions for drive-ablity and safety.