1985 Chevy M1009 (CK5 build thread part 2)

[cheavyk10]

Engine Cross Member:
I also jumped on ORD's 4th of July sale, and picked up the big block engine cross member.

It has a couple of advantages: obviously strength, clearance for cross-over steering with my low lift (hint for the future), and as a bonus, easier lift pump access, which as everyone knows, sucks with the factory x-member in place.
I run one of these on my K10, and have been happy with it.

 

[cheavyk10]

ORD Engine Crossmember installed:
This took me awhile, but really wasn't too bad.


The one issue that came up is the sway bar and disco on the drivers side will make contact at bump. But, when I do crossover, the sway bar has to go anyway. The reason I run the swaybar is to help level the front of the M1009 side to side, as the soft Skyjacker springs sit lower on the passenger side, due to the dual battery setup.

 

[cheavyk10]

Rear Pinion Seal:
After checking the vent line, which was clear, I went for replacing the rear pinion seal. Everything came apart quite easy. I used the Army TM for a guide, scribed the pinion, nut, and yoke, counted the threads, and checked the torque required to spin the pinion in inch pounds with a beam torque wrench.
Well, the problem was obvious when I pulled the yoke off:


Yuk. These pic's are after I had already sprayed it down with brake clean.
I didn't take any more pics, but reassembly was also easy, I juiced the splines with some blue loctite, and set the pinion nut just a hair tighter, to achieve the 1-5 additional inch pounds from the original reading, just as the TM describes.

 

[cheavyk10]

Happy August!!
It's going to be a good month

@kennyw with the pic at BB25

 

[cheavyk10]

Rear Pinion Seal, part 2:
There was a pretty good groove worn on the yoke when I pulled it apart the first time, but I went for it anyway. Drove about 100 miles, and unfortunately still had a leak.
So, I ordered up a new yoke from ORD, the 1350 cast version with the U-Bolts, along with their seal kit that came with a new nut and washer.
I had it all back together in a few hours yesterday.

So far, so good. On a side note, I had been running GLO's yoke girdles on the old yoke, and I can tell you the hex head socket cap bolts they include strip out super easy. So I was glad to upgrade to the U-Bolt style yoke.

 

[Cucv_M1008]

Rear Pinion Seal, part 2:
There was a pretty good groove worn on the yoke when I pulled it apart the first time, but I went for it anyway. Drove about 100 miles, and unfortunately still had a leak.
So, I ordered up a new yoke from ORD, the 1350 cast version with the U-Bolts, along with their seal kit that came with a new nut and washer.
I had it all back together in a few hours yesterday.
View attachment 532924View attachment 532925View attachment 532926
So far, so good. On a side note, I had been running GLO's yoke girdles on the old yoke, and I can tell you the hex head socket cap bolts they include strip out super easy. So I was glad to upgrade to the U-Bolt style yoke.

I have a Spicer one. I need to install someday.

 

[cheavyk10]

Went to C10's on the Capital today with @fastazz81. There were about 200 vintage Chevrolet's and GMC's on the grounds.



Quite a few folks were interested in the ol' M1009.

 

[SPLATT]

Went to C10's on the Capital today with @fastazz81. There were about 200 vintage Chevrolet's and GMC's on the grounds.
View attachment 533214
View attachment 533217
View attachment 533218
Quite a few folks were interested in the ol' M1009.

Crap! I forgot about that show.

 

[cheavyk10]

Belts, Part 2:
Last year, I had purchased an all inclusive belt "kit" from a vendor, as a one and done type of deal (installed in post #147 of this thread). Well, disappointingly, right off the bat, the belt for Gen 1 was too long, and was at the end of its adjustment. At idle, it bounced, squawked, and hit the radiator hose guard....no good.
Awhile ago, I was over on SteelSoldiers and saw a old post where a guy had figured out all of the proper Gates Fleet Runner belts for a CUCV, so I saved the picture and used it as my guide, and found them all on Amazon.
Here is that pic for reference, in case anyone else could use it:

I can tell you they all fit quite well, and the innermost power steering belt required that I completely uninstall the pump to get the belt on the pulley.
Plus, they are green which is kinda cool.
On my M1009:

 

[Barrman]

Those look a little taller in the pulley grooves than the black Gates belts. Please update how they do as you put miles on them.

 

[cheavyk10]

Hard Top Paint:
I had been meaning to get to painting the hardtop for awhile, it has sat outside on my trailer since I painted the rest of the truck back in May. I hit the top with a quick DAing of some 320 grit, and laid on the Rapco 383 green. I went through about 4 cans.




I think it came out pretty good.
I also ordered up a new rear glass seal for the top, and the inner and outer tailgate window seals, which are absolutely roached.
And I need to get after replacing the front output seal on the 208, it has started leaking enough to leave a spot wherever I park.
Luckily, I have had this complete reseal kit from ORD sitting on the shelf for a few years:

 

[cheavyk10]

Window and tailgate seals:
In addition to the tailgate window seals, I ended up ordering a complete window channel kit from LMC. It was not marked in the catalog, but the kit turned out to be from Precision, and included the inner and outer door window seals and the glass runs for both sides.

The window runs and rubber were in various states of disrepair, the glass rattled and all that fun stuff. It came apart in pieces, but was also a good time to clean the inside of the doors.

The new Precision stuff fit well, although I did notice a few differences from side to side with the glass runs, but this ain't no show truck:


The tailgate window seals were also hammered:

The new ones fit well, basically just snap in place, and hold the glass alot better:

 

[cheavyk10]

Tailgate Seal:
Since I was doing all the seals, I had remembered that @kennyw had thrown in a Precision tailgate seal when I purchased the M1009 about 2.5 years ago.
The original tailgate seal was brittle and pretty much wasted, and the tailgate rattled as such:

Upon removing it and scraping off all of the adhesive, I found rust hiding at the center of the tailgate and a few other places. So that led to me sanding those areas and treating them with Seymour rust converter:

Which then led to a quick painting of the whole inside of the tailgate:

After the paint dried for a few days, I was then able to install the seal, which gets glued on using 3M weatherstrip adhesive:

And finally, after 24 hours of curing, I have a new seal installed. This kinda snowballed, but thats how it goes sometimes!


It seals up real nice now, and the tailgate doesn't rattle around anymore.

 

[cheavyk10]

Hardtop Season:
Once again, here we are. I swapped a little early this year, but I needed the space it was taking up in my shop. The paint matched up well, and I installed a new rear window upper rubber in the hardtop from LMC which fit just OK, not great.

 

[cheavyk10]

ORD FUSH and OE spring plates:
Back on Labor Day ORD was having a sale, so I picked up the FUSH kit along with the corresponding HD shackles. I knew the original upper hanger was worn out on the passenger side from the bushing being blown out, which I discovered when I installed the Skyjacker lift:

Side by side comparo:

I have installed one of these kits before, so it took me about four hours, I ground off the rivets, enlarged the center hole with a reamer, and drilled out the old rivet holes to accept the new bolts.


One thing I noticed while putting it all together is the frame rails at the hangers are both bent inward at the bottom, which is to say the frame rail is not vertical here. My guess is someone hucked the M1009 at some point, and the OE springs got stuffed into the frame, based on the completely bent up bump stop brackets that I ended up straightening out when I first got this rig. To try and alleviate some of the angle at the hanger, I installed two washers between the frame and top of the FUSH (you can kinda see the gap in the pic above). Its close now, but not perfect.

I was running a set of ORD spring plates, but I wanted a better bump stop landing pad, so as not to tear up the poly bumpstop, and I needed to limit the uptravel a bit. The Skyjacker Black Max shocks that are spec'd for the 2" kit are the same as the 4" kit, so they don't have much uptravel. With the OE D60 spring plates installed, I now have 2" of free uptravel until I hit the bump, and the shocks have 3" of shaft showing at ride height, which should be OK, although ideally the shocks should have 4", in case I totally blow through the bump stop. I took the pics at droop, and right after I ground the hanger rivets, so its a mess with shavings everywhere:


Also, when I had installed all the door glass rubber and seals awhile ago, I had forgotten to replace the door glass stop bumpers, which the widow frame rests on when its all the way down. I found out the first time I rolled the window down with the truck running, haha, it rattled like crazy. So, I had to take the door panels off again to install the $2 bumpers.