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I will be driving this thing..... no no....the one on the right..... If you see me stranded alongside the road please stop and chat. It will help distract me from my self induced misery. If you can help, generally I will have beef jerky and Pepsi to offer as payment.

I have this crazy idea that I am going to drive my flat fender from Durango, Colorado to Missoula, Montana, go on a four day spring snow-wheeling adventure with some friends, and then drive back home. Oh yeah, in late May. I am planning on taking a two lane highway route north to avoid the...

Where you able to check the pinion preload and the backlash on the ring and pinion? Both those are a pretty good indicator of bearing condition in the axle. Pinion seal?

Started the front gear install by tearing the front end apart.... I got this far. Total dis-assembly of the front for gears and all the bearings are pulled. Everything still looked really good. No loose anything anywhere. The pinion was marked +2 which is nice for a reference point. I...

Nothing so far. With the top snug the sides don't seem to flutter much. I have some velcro on the sides that I can use to hold the sides down with a little work. I am going to try and make a side curtain of some kind that I can attach easily and quickly for the odd rain shower. I don't have...

Some sewing? Cut. I dog was helping immensely. Sew. This kinda stuff always takes forever. I had to do a little work on my $25 sewing machine. It was making some odd noises which turned out to be a lack of lubrication. The change. I added two velcro wraps on the A and B pillar...

Just some little stuff while I put some break in cycles on the rear gears... I added some footman loops on the cowl to allow strapping down some longer items like champ chairs and such. In a flat fender you need to get pretty creative about gear storage. I also got the footman loops added...

Rear install done. Not much to report on the install. Pinion preload was a bit of trail and error. I think it took about 5 tries to get it right. I ended up with just about 6-8 inch pounds rolling. That is suppose to be good for used bearings. That actually felt a little tight but I will roll...

I will be around the Missoula area. The case spreader works sweet. You do need to use a dial indicator to see how much you spread the case. It is REALLY easy to get .015 of spread.

With the right wheels you might not have to convert to SRW. You could just leave it. It would be interesting to see how a set of the H1 hummer wheels fit with the 7" backspacing on the dually axles. The front might end up a touch wider than you would like but then again maybe not. You can get...

I was also going to mention about tires and wheels.... I think running some custom wheels is possible to make the dually axles work just fine. Even running different backspacing front and rear would be possible. The front axle is pretty easy to convert back to SRW with some new bearing hubs...

With your difficulty finding a truck and what you have mentioned about modifications I would think HARD about the diesel. Being a dually truck it might also have 4.10 gears too, well worth checking into. For larger tires starting with a dually rear bed minus the fender flares would save a LOT...

That was generally what I was thinking. I think I am going to add a .005 of the right side of the carrier and a .003 on the left side in preload. That will give me .011 in total preload ( I already have .003 ) and should give me just a HAIR more backlash. I would like to get a solid average...

The next rounds..... Round 4. Drive Coast Pinion shim .033 ( +.003 deeper over last ) LH carrier .050 RH carrier .035 Carrier preload, .003 Backlash average .006 ( quick average over 2-3 teeth ) This looked pretty good I think. I wanted to see what too far would do so I tried a little...

Thanks. The Long Jeep is going to be a LONG project. It is the next thing on my list for sure but I need to get a lot of ducks in a row. Getting the tub seems to be a bigger hurdle than I thought.... If you want to build an engine by all means do. A 383 small block would be fun. You can get the...

Gear setup round one thru three.... Round one. Drive Pinion shim .021-.022 LH carrier .050 RH carrier .035 Carrier preload, .003 Backlash average .009 Round two.... Drive Coast Pinion shim .025-.026 ( added .005 to the pinion depth shim ) LH carrier .050 RH carrier .035 Carrier...

Big project for sure. I like old trucks, but they are just that, old trucks. Be prepared to rebuild just about everything if you want a reliable truck. The good news is that with most of the older 1970s stuff that everything IS rebuildable or serviceable. I imagine your going to have to...

Some install notes from the rear gear install. The carrier bearings on early 19 spline pre-1970/71 rear Dana 44 are different than your normal D44 IF you retain the factory carrier. I have a rear powr-lok that I converted to 30-spline that I will be keeping for a bit. This carrier uses the...

Just remember in an emergency you can go MUCH lower if you need to for short distances. I have had my Dodge down in the low single digits trying to get myself out of some stupid situations. My best advise is learn to deal with a blown bead BEFORE it happens so you will be more comfortable airing...

I wouldn't rush it. Wait for what you really want. Get your cash together with a little extra just in case and be ready to jump. Depending on your overall scope of the project you can potentially save yourself a BUNCH of time and money waiting for the right base vehicle. It is all a balance...