Meet Betty White

[ARJMN]

Birfs installed, fasteners torqued and marked, caliper on, brake lines next.

LH side all buttoned up.

Front axle completed. Time for wheel and tie rods.

Remaining brake lines, bearings, seals, and ABS plugs waiting on the rear.

 

[ARJMN]

That is where I am at currently on Betty White. My truck going down with a blown tranny forced me to evict Betty to get Lexi Jo back in DD shape, and now with my year end break coming soon, and parts showing up for Clappy, she may be pushed off for a bit. How do you eat an elephant? I am told one bite at a time, but I wouldn’t know. I have only ever seen elephants in zoos and nothing is trying to eat them there.

 

[MaddBaggins]

Marlin Crawler and Wit-End served up another does of new parts for the reassembly. All new bearings, seals, and SS braided brake lines are on the menu. I did this same treatment on Lexi Jo and the brakes lines with the ABS delete made a big difference in the braking.
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Laying it out and taking account of it all.
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RH side was up first. Knuckle in place and the preload checked, I was ready to move forward with birf installation.
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Fully cleaned, packed, and ready to fly home.
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Nearly complete RH side with Powerstop Rotor installed.
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I just bought those rotors for my 80, along with EBC green stuff pads. I need to install while it’s still cool out so I better do it soon

 

[ARJMN]

For a quick update, Betty has been in park up for a bit with my time being spent on other projects. The heat will be in a very short two months, so I really need to make some hay on this front.....

 

[ARJMN]

Let's catch up a bit here. Getting past having to focus on Lexi Jo as a DD while my 68RFE was going under the knife, I brought Betty White back to the house and kept chipping away at the endless list of to do items on the build. In a chat with my buddy Rob, who's rig this is, we decided that there was no better time to do a refresh on the engine than...now. So, I pulled the engine, stripped it down, and hauled it to Baker Machine.

 

[ARJMN]

Accessory drive removed.

Flex plate removed.

Uber ride to the spa.

 

[ARJMN]

I want to take the time to fully clean the engine bay, paint it, and lay in some sounds insulation on the tunnel. Anyone in the auto industry can tell you NVH is a big area of concern, and it makes a big difference.

 

[ARJMN]

Next up was the teardown of the rear axle. New seals for the rear and a locker install for the 3rd member. It was getting really hot around this point so I haven't made as much progress on the soak and respray of the hubs. New brakes will be thrown at the rear as well.

 

[ARJMN]

80s have pretty darn stout running gear when pared with up to 37" tires. The rear is a 9.5" ring gear. The 3rd member is currently out at Lloyd's getting an Eston E-Locker installed.

 

[ARJMN]

Last update for today is that I got the bum torn down. I will be installing an Avid Offroad rear bumper on the ole girl, so the factory tow hitch and tire hoist gotta go.

Funny to think that this is the hottest day thus this year at 109 degrees in Marana and I am still trying to spend some time in the garage to chip away at the mountain of work. I need a break from the heat and from work!

 

[ARJMN]

Received a package from the UAE this week. Got a full set of suspension bushings for the ole girl. Still too dang hot to be in the garage for a bit, but hopefully we will get a break next month.

 

[ARJMN]

I made a trip up to Queen Creek this past weekend to pay a visit to Avid Offroad and pick up Betty's bumper. This being my buddy Rob's rig, he arranged to have two receiver tubes cut and welded into the left and right sides. He is designing a system of tools and carriers for use with the bumper, and I will share details on those after I hand the rig back over to him.

 

[SKULLGRINDER]

Received a package from the UAE this week. Got a full set of suspension bushings for the ole girl. Still too dang hot to be in the garage for a bit, but hopefully we will get a break next month.

View attachment 3965090What was the lead time to Tucson? Need some parts for my 1HDT but hesitant to order out of CONUS given whats going on.

 

[ARJMN]

It was about 8 days from order to delivery. Got hung in customs for a couple days and that had me nervous about tariffs, but I was told that if you keep the order below $800 it goes through without tariffs.

 

[SKULLGRINDER]

It was about 8 days from order to delivery. Got hung in customs for a couple days and that had me nervous about tariffs, but I was told that if you keep the order below $800 it goes through without tariffs.

right onnnnn thats good to know!

 

[ARJMN]

While the satin black paint will be here tomorrow, I still needed to get something on the bare metal to protect it from rust. Seeing that I needed to apply primer anyway, I went ahead and broke it down and sprayed three cans of self etching primer on it. Conditions were not ideal due to it being so damn hot. The finish ended up being grainy because the primer was partially flashing in transit to the surface. I had to shorten the hold off to cut down on the flash, which then led to some runs in places. I have painted one car in my life, a 1968 VW Beetle with my dad back in high school. That was enough to show me I am not a paint guy. I can lay spray bumpers though. IF this was a rig that was never going to leave the tarmac, powder coat would have been the better option. My issue with powder coat is that when you drag it across rocks, it tends to scrape off in chunks which then leaves relief in addition to being impossible to touch up. So what happens? You rattle can it and it forever catches your eye as a touch up. All that blathering to say that I am using satin black spray paint on the bumper and sliders. The bumper is an ARB Deluxe in satin powder coat. No choice there.

 

[ARJMN]

With the arrival of the Satin Black TURBOOOOOOO cans of paint, I was able to start laying on the layers. I may have said before that we decided to order all the bumpers, sliders, and armor raw so we could prime/paint them all the same as well as keep a can of paint in the rig for post trail touch ups. Kinda hard to touch up powder coat...

A total of 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint were applied, and despite my admission that I am clearly not a paint and body guy, it came out really nice.

Fully reassembled and ready for install in a few weeks.

 

[ARJMN]

With the locker install complete, the third member was ready to go back in. I got a fresh gasket and rubbed it down with Loctite 518. I found this stuff working with the technicians in the mines. They swear by it and I am a believer. If it can seal up industrial diesels, gear boxes, and final drives, it can seal up this axle.

 

[ARJMN]

I had an exciting week that drove the need to get Betty back on her feet, so I could roll her out of the garage for a weekend. That meant I had to get all the rear axle bits back home. I after a wash and detail of the park brake assemblies, I decided not to rebuild them due to being in great shape. Plenty of friction material left and it was not contaminated. That saved an entire day in the garage dealing with a Rube Goldberg of a job. Having previously recieved the Marlin Crawler rear axle rebuild kit, those went in next. The freshly stripped and painted hubs got new seals and bearings.

 

[ARJMN]

My knee mill is still the single most expensive tool I have ever purchased and I continue to spend a small fortune on the tooling, but the payoff is worth it to me for all the fun I have with it, as well as the value it adds when I need it. I have had this 54mm hubs socket for years and always wished it had slots for the rear hub preload nut. How do I resolve that? I grab a 1/2" ball nose end mill and make it a slotted socket.

Test fit was spot on.

Needed some deburring, but that is side project #1 of the day complete.

Everything except the service brakes are back on the axle, but that all I needed to get it back rolling. The calipers are getting some TLC and fresh paint currently and will be installed when pull the links to install the new bushings. A keen eye might also notice the Slee bling. Slee is a bit Gucci, but I love that stuff.