One of those Days

["David Willmon" <dwillmo@domain.elided>]

Well, there's days when you slay the dragon and days when the dragon gets
you and yesterday was one of those days.  I had such a good day the day
before, finishing up painting the frame.  Looked so good.  Had the rear axle
painted, ready to go back on.  Could hardly wait to get home from work
yesterday morning to start putting the axles back under it. Well, first of
all, I was convinced those spring bushings where not right (wrote about that
earlier).  Well they are right, but the insert tube, is I guess a little
short, maybe 1/8 inch.  You really have to tighten down on the flange part
of the bushing to get the shackle to bottom out against the tubing.  It
really shouldn't be that tight.  Anyway, in farting around with it, taking
it out, putting it back in, I almost completely destroyed one bushing.  I
think I saved it, but it won't last long.  This was on the front axles. So
then, the bushing is a little long, for the fixed shackles on the frame.  I
was going to spread them just a tiny bit with a hammer, I hit one, not even
hard, and the whole side fell off. I guess when they bent those shackles
back in 67, it weakened it a little and probably the only thing holding it
on was the bolt and the other side. So that had to be welded back on. 
Screwed up the paint a little. 

Then, moved to the back axle, rolled it under and bolted the back shackles
on, no problem, but getting them into the front shackles was like wrestling
an Anaconda.  I fought that battle for an hour and had moved on to something
else when my son comes up and says he thinks the parking brake cables are
hanging down too far.  I say, No, they've still got to go up here in these
things on the frame---then I notice that they need to go on top of the
springs and that means taking springs loose from those frame shackles again.
 Oh boy, here we go again.  

Got everything bolted back in place.  All that's left is the front axle,
which I'm hesitant to weld back up, even though moving those knuckles even 1
degree is impossible. I couldn't do it using one of the old drive shafts
through the king-pin eyes. I keep thinking maybe I'll have too much castor.
I added about 12 degrees of castor.  But since I don't have the engine and
transmission and trans case on the frame, I really have no way to tell what
angle I need to have the pinion at anyway.  So, I figure, I won't weld it at
all, just put the axle back together and bolt it in place until I get the
engine in, then check the angle.  

It never says anywhere in my service manual how much castor is recommended. 
I went to the library and found in a Chilton manual a listing of castor on
different models.  It varied from 1-2 degrees to 4-5 on some. I figure I can
live with up to 4 or 5 degrees without hurting anything.  So that means I
need to rotate the pinion up at least 8 degrees. Seems like a lot to me. 
I'm not going to beat those knuckles off again, that's for sure. That Dana
27 aint worth it.  If it ain't right, I'm gonna find a Dana 44. The 27 will
probably get tore up in the first six months anyway. 

And, since everybody seems to be interested in telling what they got...

PwrMac 6500/250
2- Mac IIs
SE20
Mac Plus
Mac 512  

David Willmon
Voice 409/875-3140  Fax 409/8875-3100
dwillmo@domain.elided