Saturday, August 7, 2004  -  Between the new baby in the Dickson household and several other things, I haven't had many opportunities lately to spend any time in the shop working on my truck. I thought I was going to spend the day today working on my brother-in-law's car, but on the spur of the moment he decided he didn't want to mess with it anymore, and ended up going to the local dealer and buying a new vehicle. I'd like to think that his choice of a '97 F-150 XL was partly due to my salesmanship.

Anyway, since I suddenly found I had some time to myself, I headed to the shop where I was going to get started installing the front end. Just to get you up to speed, I sent the I-beams and spindles to the machine shop last week with a new kingpin set to get installed, but when I went to pick them up last Saturday, it dawned on me that he hadn't pressed in the pivot bushing shells, required because I'm using PST polygraphite bushings. I dropped them back off to get the shells pressed in but wasn't able to make it back to pick everything up before they closed shop for the day, so I had to wait until early this week to pick them up. I got them on Wednesday afternoon and dropped them off at the shop. So I hit the shop today hoping to get started getting things installed.

However, I ran into another snag. When assembling the parts for my front end, I'd decided to use the entire front-end assembly from a '79 F-150, so I could upgrade to disc brakes. The '79 came with a 300 I-6, however, and since I'm going to be installing a 390, I grabbed the front springs from a '70 F-100 equipped with a 360. But when I got started assembling the front end today, I noticed that the '70 springs wouldn't fit the lower spring pad from the '79 front end, due to the pigtail on the bottom of the '70 spring being smaller than that of the '79 spring. Since I'd already powdercoated the entire '79 front end, including the '70 springs, I had to find some way of using the older springs. I ended up modifying the bottom side of the '70 spring pad a bit to allow it to sit flat on the '79 radius arm. Since the '70 spring pads needed cleaned up, I went ahead and fired up the sandblaster and spent the rest of the day sandblasting various parts, as long as I had everything set up. In addition to the front coil spring pads, I also sandblasted and painted the rear brake backing plates, and since mounting the auxiliary fuel tank would be next on the list of things to mount, I also cleaned and painted the tank mounting brackets and straps. I'll be getting in touch with someone in the very near future to get the tank cleaned out and internally sealed, and then I'll be sandblasting and painting it as well.

Below: While waiting for the painted front end parts to dry, I got out the auxiliary fuel tank and cleaned up the mounting brackets, and did a quick trial fit to make sure I had all the pieces.

I've already set aside one day for next weekend to spend most of the day in the shop, and hopefully THIS time I can go ahead and get the front end installed. Stay tuned!

Fig. 1  -  Here's a shot of the dash-mounted VIN tag on my '68 F-100 parts truck...the first one I've seen.

Fig. 2 - On the left is the '79 spring, on the right is the '70, with the '79 spring pad sitting on top of each spring. You can see how the '70 spring will not fit onto the '79 pad.

Fig. 3 - You can see the modification to the '70 spring pad to allow it to sit flat on the '79 radius arm. This pic was taken while trial-fitting the pads. I dressed them a bit more, then they both got sandblasted and painted.

Fig. 4 - I also sandblasted and painted the rear brake backing plates and the auxiliary fuel tank mounting hardware.