peteandvanessa

I made a brake line pressure bleeder from a garden sprayer, drilled and tapped a fitting to push the brake fluid through the top of the master cylinder. Should really help with setting up the brakes.

Just getting ready to align the brake shoes to the drum before bleeding the brakes (using a home made garden pump sprayer for the bleeder). I looked on line how to align the brake shoes and made this cheap tool that fits over the axel from some kitchen piping. It slides tightly over the axel and you can then turn the axel to get the toe and heal of the brake shoes aligned, also allows the in,out distance of the shoes to be set to the drum diameter, it think it will work out pretty good.

Started the cleanup under the chassis, yet another dirty job. After the cleanup I went back over the chassis with some Rust-Oleum rusty metal primer, have to finish the other side of the chassis and add a top coat.

Don't you just love previous owners and their upgrades ?

The passenger side rear is complete and back on the truck. But I can't finish the drivers side rear until I return the parts and re-order them, here's a pic of the drivers side rear indicating the orientation of the brake pistons that I need (the passenger side rear is an exact copy of the drivers side rear, so I'm wondering whether some Previous owner swapped a backing plate at sometime in the past???):

Almost done with the brake refresh. but I hit this problem. I ordered a full set of rear brake pistons from a well known supplier to do both rear brakes. The rears use two half brake pistons (one at the top and one at the bottom). Well, I was happily reassembling them, and one went together just fine, but the second one, it appeared that I had the wrong parts, (or some previous owner swapped one of the backing plates), so I need help to identify what's going on here. In the pic below, I matched up the old brake pistons with the new ones. The top row in the pic matches just fine, but the bottom row doesn't:

I fought the rear brake drum for five hours today. I won eventually, man that drum was on there tight. Got it off in the end. Cleaned it up, it's ready for the new brake Pistons, Hardline and shoes.

I plan on installing this new tank, it's the closest I can find to the factory original fuel tank. I'll have to fab a bracket up and change the filler hose a little, but I'll fit a fuel level at the same time before I install the tank.

The fuel tank picked a fight with me today, it lost, now I can start pulling the new hard fuel line next weekend. The fuel tank is junk, underneath it's Swiss cheese, probably go with the repo tank. I know the repo tank is shorter than the original tank, so I'll make up a bracket for it.

Here's what the front right brake looks like when I pulled it off today. The right brake lining actually fell off when I pulled the drum. Notice the hokey return spring, someone was creative there for sure. ?

Yeah, I haven't adjusted any of them yet, saving that job when all the brakes have new Pistons and hardware, makes pulling the drums off easier ?

Thanks for the tip, that's going to save me from worry, I'll sleep soundly tonight.

I'm being dumb, I just looked up the studs you recommended, it's obvious now ?

Just a dumb question, but with the studs, wouldn't I need to tap the holes into the drum then screw the studs in, or something else?

Started on the brakes today, I'm renewing the all the hard lines, soft lines and cleaning up the brakes themselves. Well, I found out that the front left drum mounting lug holes are all stripped out (yup all five of them), and knowing that the drums are pretty hard to find, i'm having to think of a solution to repair the current drum. I'm hoping I can drill out the stripped drum threads and go up to the next size lug (well I'm hoping that's a solution, unless anyone else has any ideas?). I carried on and did a full cleanup of the front left brake, man, it was dirty work.Still need to refresh a few things in there, but it's cleaned up well, installed new brake pistons and the soft lines. once down and three to go.

I bring ma tools ?

Thanks for the offer on parts, it's very much appreciated. Here's the growing list of parts that I'm missing: I'm missing the floor panels (I have them but they are very rusty), accelerator pedal, door lock, front left and right parking/running lights and trim. Main lights trim rings, left and right door glass (mine are broken), rear center cab glass (again mines broken), emergency brake parts (all I have is the brake shoes that goes round the drive shaft), tailgate. Horn, fuel tank and sender (see I have a big list ?)