Family Truckster LJ build

hokie_yj · Feb 14, 2023

ridered3 said:
Looks much better.

Random story from the plug and play/matching wires. Years ago I had a buddy call having issues wiring his aftermarket radio. Was a plug and play kit.

Me: Match the same color wires together and you are done. Green to green. Red to red. Etc.

Him: I don't have those color wires.

Me: what colors do you have?

Him: Grey. Lighter grey. Black. Darker black….

Me: Are you color blind?

Him: yes. Now that you mention it, I probably shouldn't be doing any wiring…

Me: correct.

Yeah, being colorblind would make that part difficult. Lol. I'm a control system maintenance tech in a chemical plant. We were doing interlock checks once and needed some extra help to verify actions in the field. So they sent one of the old mechanics out with us. I said stand right here and watch these lights and tell me if the red or green comes on. I went to the IO room and tripped the interlock and asked him over the radio which one came on. He said well a light came on. I said was it red or green. He said I don't know, I'm colorblind. Lol. We put him in charge of watching block valves to see if they closed instead.

It's a great upgrade over stock, and really easy to do. It took me maybe an hour and a half spread out over two mornings before I left for work.

ridered3 · Feb 14, 2023

hokie_yj said:
Yeah, being colorblind would make that part difficult. Lol. I'm a control system maintenance tech in a chemical plant. We were doing interlock checks once and needed some extra help to verify actions in the field. So they sent one of the old mechanics out with us. I said stand right here and watch these lights and tell me if the red or green comes on. I went to the IO room and tripped the interlock and asked him over the radio which one came on. He said well a light came on. I said was it red or green. He said I don't know, I'm colorblind. Lol. We put him in charge of watching block valves to see if they closed instead.

It's a great upgrade over stock, and really easy to do. It took me maybe an hour and a half spread out over two mornings before I left for work.

Ha sounds about right for that guy.

That's cool on radio upgrade being relatively simple.

jeeptj99 · May 16, 2023

ridered3 said:
Looks much better.

Random story from the plug and play/matching wires. Years ago I had a buddy call having issues wiring his aftermarket radio. Was a plug and play kit.

Me: Match the same color wires together and you are done. Green to green. Red to red. Etc.

Him: I don't have those color wires.

Me: what colors do you have?

Him: Grey. Lighter grey. Black. Darker black….

Me: Are you color blind?

Him: yes. Now that you mention it, I probably shouldn't be doing any wiring…

Me: correct.

my dad is color blind and watching wire anything with more than 3 wires is hilarious.

tcDawg · May 30, 2023

hokie_yj said:
I finished up a major upgrade this morning before work. I swapped out the factory stereo for a Sony XAV-AX1000 double din unit with Apple CarPlay. Lol.

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hokie_yj · Nov 10, 2023

I finally drug the tons out of the barn and into the shop a few weeks ago. Got the 60 disassembled a little at a time over the last couple weeks. Today I had a solid few hours to work so I got out my favorite tools of destruction and went to work cutting all the brackets/casting off. Wasn't the funnest thing I've ever done. Had everything off in 2-3 hours, but it probably needs another hour with a grinder/flap wheel. Then I'll start getting the truss fitted up.

ridered3 · Nov 11, 2023

Glad to see some progress even though it doesn't look like much fun.

hokie_yj · Nov 14, 2023

Welp… Got all the grinding finished up today.

Then I went at the whole thing with a wire wheel. The very last part I had to clean was the passenger side inner C. Something's not right here…

I bought the axle out of '06 F-250 at a local junkyard. I saw the truck before they pulled the axles. It wasn't a front end collision. I don't "think" the housing is bent, haven't had time to confirm yet. I believe it was caused by a bad/loose balljoint at some point.

Not sure what the next step will be now. I have a set of the American Iron balljoint deletes for the build. They use a bearing, tapered steel bushing and a through bolt in place of the balljoint. I've talked a bit to the owner of the company, he said to test fit the bushing in the C and see how sloppy it is. If it's not too bad he said the bushing could be welded in to the C.

A local buddy has a bad housing with good Cs if I do have to go down the path of replacing the whole C. I really don't want to have to do that, but I really can't afford another $500 plus for a new axle right now either.

hokie_yj · Nov 14, 2023

Well upon further inspection this morning the C is totally screwed. The bottom pad of the C is twisted up 1/8" on the back side. The tubes are straight as can be though so I don't know what in the world happened.