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CUCV mild usage build. Nothing radical here, move along now.

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Come to think of it, my blazer had death wobble however, you couldn't tell unless the engine died while you were moving forward. The full hydro made it a non issue and everything on that was brand new.

Crew cab had a little bit of death wobble, shimmed the king pin spring and it stopped. Same exact tires as these.
 
mine was all new parts as well, and you saw how that turned out on the Maiden voyage in Moab!
its a helluva mystery...just hydro it, I know a guy that supplies parts for that!
 
Got it all sorted out now.

We put the rears on the front with some bead balancing and shimmed the king pin spring a little tighter and all the death wobble has gone away.

I think we need to increase the tow in just a little bit now. Seems to wander a little bit when you drive on the highway. That's an easy fix.

I think next thing up is a trans pan gasket and we'll change the filter out while we are there of course.

Before winter strikes we'll throw some seats in it and replace the dash pad. If we had more time, we'd do an aluminum dash.
 
Yep, Jimmy is happy. We got a few things to do yet before the white stuff starts hitting the ground but he is happy.
 
Transmission pan is no longer leaking.

We've been working on getting it to shift a little sooner. It wouldn't grab second gear till about 35mph which made in town driving a little bit crazy. We went through all the vacuum lines and replaced them. They were pretty dried out with some definite cracking. Figured that would have solved it but it didn't really help at all oddly enough. Tried a vaccum regulator on the trans and that was a no go as well.

Then I read up on the vacuum regulator valve. Upon inspection, it was maxed out in one direction of the adjustment. We adjusted it a few times and got it shifting a lot better now. Still a little bit later than your factory gasser trans would shift. More as if there were a shift kit in it. Decided it was good enough there. Probably a bit better for the trans to slip a little less on the shifts anyway.

Next up I think we'll get a new bumper on the rear.

Got to do something about the seats pretty soon. Drivers side is pretty worn out. Lots of missing foam. I think the kid wants bucket seats.
 
I got a set of Avalanche seats out of a 04 model for my 76CC...they are a lot like the seats in my 99-2500 that we took to BB11....think about a set of those!
 
Getting back on track this weekend on this truck.

Jimmy has been super busy lately and I have as well at the shop so not much time has been spent on it. His rear bumper has been ready to put on for at least 2 months now. We'll get that put on this weekend as well as the new vacuum pump and readjust the VRV. Hopefully we can make some progress on some of the smaller stuff that needs attention.

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The VRV valve can not only be adjusted by moving it on its slotted bracket,there is another adjustment you can do on it by moving the position of the 2 nuts in a stem on it--there was a thread on this in the diesel section a long time ago..(sorry,I cant remember who discovered this and posted about it)..

I just moved my VRV valve all the way towards the firewall on its slotted mount,that is where it upshifted the earliest--I never attempted to mess with it further..
I think my vacuum pump is not putting out the correct amount of vacuum and it pulsates,(not sure if thats normal ? )-so most likely any further fiddling with the VRV wont change anything much,if at all...

With my TH400's govenor now modified with heavier weights,and a light spring added behind the modulator valve ,it'll upshift into third before 30 mph or so,whether I have the vacuum modulator & pump hooked up or not..still goes in firmly,I'm unsure if it ever had a shift kit,its supposedly rebuilt by whoever had it before I bought the truck..
 
I don't think the pulsating is correct. I put a vacuum gauge on this one and it pulsates between 9 and 15 inches. Applied to another it stayed at a very consistent 20 inches.

The second one was shifting very well.
 
We got the truck started and driving.

Made up a probe to put voltage on the starter solenoid. 18" or so of steel rod, insulated the length of the probe, save about a 1/8" of the tip. Attached a wire to the opposite end and clamped that to the battery post. Pretty much the same process as crossing the terminals on the starter solenoid itself, just a little easier to do and less chance of crossing up to the wrong piece of metal.

Since we did this to get it running and out of the way for the upcoming work week, we also eliminated the starter and batteries from the troubleshooting scenario.

While we had it running, we went ahead and adjusted the VRV after installing the new vacuum pump. What a difference! Still a nice firm shift but at a reasonable RPM.

Got a lot of other maintenance details taken care of as well. It appears when it belonged to the state of SD. Some electrical was added for their spraying duties. Those devices have since been removed but the wiring remained. We yanked a lot of that out of there. I don't like wires hanging and doing nothing. Makes electrical trouble shooting much more time consuming.

We also took the time to get all the headlights and tail lights up to par. Instrument lighting is non operational. We checked the fuse and its in good shape. Bulbs themselves, or at least the few that we checked are not burnt out. I think that leaves us with a bad switch. I have one sitting in a parts truck so next time we're working on it, we'll grab that and swap 'em out.

A shot of the probe.

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We also got the rear bumper swapped out. Much cleaner look. We'll probably go back and put some "skate board" tape on it in a few strategic locations.

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My '75 K5 I had years ago one cold winter day, had the ignition switch fail in the "crank" position,to get myself home without having to wire up a push button "permanently" in the 25 degree cold,I opted to instead put the switch in under the hood,so I could start it by pushing the button with the key "on"...(It was a manual tranny so I could push start it,but that was difficult with snow & ice on the ground,pushing it was about impossible..

Rather than screw around under the dash in the dark for an hour or more,I got it started by jumping the solenoid with a screwdriver,lying under it in slush...and I drove it to the nearest parts store,where I bought a push button switch and some wire...
I poked two cotter pins I had in the glove box's spare parts bag,into the fuse block where the wires exit it under the hood,one on the purple wire coming from the neutral safety switch,and one on the thick red wire that feeds 12V into the cab--I just twisted the wires from the switch to the cotter pin's heads and taped them up....then all I had to do was open the hood to start it up...next day I had a friend more experienced at doing steering colum repairs install a new ignition switch...
 
Sometimes you just got to have it running. Electrical troubleshooting be damned.
 
Well, new update for ya.

Truck has been sitting for quite some time again. Jimmy is just plain to busy lately to do anything. He recently purchased a new, much larger house and has been enjoying all of that. I think he started to feel a bit guilty about it sitting in my way and me working on it from time to time for him. He decided last night to just sell it to me. Although, he still wants to help me with it, time permitting and hopefully be able to borrow it from time to time.

A few days ago, I put new batteries in it for him and got it up and running again. Been driving it to and from work for the last couple days. Just getting some road time in on it from having sat most of the winter.

Yesterday I had to unload a semi truck and I found a wet spot in the alley with the fork lift. It was nice to have the truck running for that. Pulled that heavy SOB right out.

I think its time to fix some of the interior. I'm looking for tan or buckskin interior pieces including a bench seat.
Got some sweet front bumper ideas for it.
Tool box is gona find its way in the back pretty quick.
 
Yeah, just something goofy with the headlight dimmer control.
 
Man, I'd give anything to be able to work on a truck with my Dad...

Cool truck!
 
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