Pretty good night on the lv tonight, lot of work done and a pretty funny story to tell I think.....at least funny to tell now, but not funny at the time. I'll explain what got done on the lv and then the incident.......
Got home and blasted a couple TRE clamps I was short, sprayed them with the spray bomb and then proceeded to install my new SOR swaybar bushing kit. Got that done then installed the fuel sender back in the fuel tank. Before putting it back in I looked in there with a flashlight, fuel looked super clean, very happy with that. I un-hooked several portions of my wiring harness up front and re-routed it a little higher, just wasn't comfortable with it laying next to the head's as hot as this motor has been. Change fuel filters, both again to the high micron steel ones. Added a couple quarts of Dexron III, started, checked, added 2 more. 4 qts low.
Mechanic buddy shows up, jumps in and fires it up. 6" off the ground again on the hoist, shifts it into gear and goes. Hit all 5 gears just like it was supposed to, had it up to 65 mph on the hoist, even went into the overdrive. Lifted it back up and spent a good 45 minutes going over the entire under carriage again. Checking, double checking all nuts and bolts. Making sure nothing was hitting anything or against anything that was going to get hot. After all that it was time.......
Dropped it down and drove it out

Slowly drove out to the asphalt rural county highway, buddy was driving at this time.....I was in the passenger seat with the camera and fire-extinguisher.....just in case?? Down the highway we went, went pretty good. My friend said it was shifting to soon into all the gears, but said that was no big deal, tranny needed to be adjusted. Got it up to about 55 to 60 mph, he even took his hands off the wheel, tracked down the highway just fine. After a few miles we pulled over just to look underneath the hood, make sure everything was ok. My buddy made a couple adjustments to the carb, few pics of him out there digging underneath the hood. So we turn around and were heading back and he says, "lets go a few more miles and see how it goes...." I didn't care, I was grinning from ear to ear at this point... So now here is the part that is funny I guess, or your going to really think I'm the villiage idiot now......
Just to set the scene here....I live in a very rural area. This particular county highway at 8:30 in the evening sees a car about every hour....needless to say there are never any cars. So were driving along about 45 to 50 mph talking and listening to noises. A vehicle is approaching from behind, no big deal, we figure there going to just pass anyway? We'll it's a county cop......I look behind and notice the light bar on top. Now your saying, "who cares?" Yea, but........No rear tailights.....no license plates.....no insurance.....(this is where you start refering to the villiage idiot part). Keep in mind, we usually don't see a car on this road, let alone a cop so when we left we weren't really that concerned about the things I just mentioned since we were going to just go out for a few minutes and come back.
So my buddy is quizzing me about all this stuff as he's driving thinking of all the tickets he's going to get. I just told him to pull over, he's going to stop us here pretty soon anyway.......so he pulls over on the next gravel road, cop pulls over also. We get out and I imeadiatly start explaining myself as he seems to be more interested in the vehicle. He's kinda looking over the lv as he's looking at me babbling, kinda smiles. I'm explaining why we don't have anything of these things, how it's the first time out, blah, blah, blah. He just smiles and says, "smells new, can smell that motor". He kinda looks it over and starts asking me a bunch of questions, what year, what is it, looks like a ton of work went into this? Well, long story short he lets me squirm for a while and says it's ok, but would like to follow me home, which I gladly agree to!! Ok, now here's where I really shoot myself in the foot........
There's a local Minnesota state patrol women who has kinda a rep are area for being an extreme hardass!! So, were talking and joking about this with him as were about to leave and I say....., "at least it wasn't Sylvia" (that being the female trooper hardass) And he the county cop says in a discerning look and voice, "your not making any points with me, that's my wife...."
Ok, now at this point I'm thinking of how many thousands of dollars that statement just cost me........he waits for a bit and kinda smiles again and says, "get in and lets go, getting dark"......woooo......dodge that bulllet.
So now were heading home and my friends in the passenger seat now laughing his ass off of how fricking stupid I am......, about a mile in , 45 mph per and all of a sudden....major death wobble!!!!! So I pull over on the shoulder and the cop pulls over and gets out.....said your tires were just wobbling back and forth, big time......We looked everything over, couldn't find anything wrong at the time. Get back in and keep going, but now at about 30 mph for another 4 miles, no problems at this speed. Turn off at the house, cop keeps going and waves.........Awesome law enforcement official for understanding our cruiser cause!!
Ok, back to lv.....got it back in the shop, checked all the lug nuts first.....maybe a couple needed to be re-torqued, but nothing that we thought would cause that. I grabbed the front tire and moved it back and forth as my buddy looked......then he saw it..... U-bolts were moving!! Not a lot, but they were loose. We had tightened them last year, but obviously not enough!!! Back up on the hoist and hit'm hard with the impact. Sucked them up a lot, they were pretty loose. So, were thinking that's what cause the death wobble?? At least for now, heading back out tomorrow night to try again so we'll see, but I believe that was it??
Well, thats the story for tonight, 10.2 miles on the lv and the first time I have ever seen it drive and driven in it.....last pic is of the cop following us home
Matt