Build Reviving "the wife's" 80

[excessive]

lookin' good. are you going to do POR15 on the rust or anything?

 

[69LC]

Not right now. The main objective is to get it driving asap.

 

[69LC]

We finally got a nice day for working in the barn. I have all of the tough, hard to reach stuff left of the belhousing reconnected, starter mostly back in and Wifey brought me some lunch.

I have a nice fender to repaint and replace this one someday when it's warmer outside.

I want 2-3" of suspension lift. Without those solid concrete blocks, wiggling under and back out from the truck sucks.

I also can't wait to fab the new exhaust.

 

[69LC]

I need to find another pass rear door too.

 

[69LC]

Cleaned up and rebuilt driveshafts.

I just ordered the Ford racing 90' oil filter adapter too.

 

[69LC]

After fighting with the heater tube on top of the engine I finally got it wrestled into place. I'm wondering if the media baster heated the tube up to tweak it somehow.

 

[69LC]

After a few beers with the wifey, I was able to get the flex plate torque converter bolts in and torqued. I went two times around to get me back to #1 tdc at the compression stroke for future timing.

 

[69LC]

I fought to get the upper intake in place. I lost the nut that goes back by the firewall, but found another in my diminishing scrounge...

I'll tighten the hardware tomorrow. I had to get down to my short sleeved work shirt to access those hard to reach regions.

 

[69LC]

I posted this on another thread, but I bolted up the Ford oil filter adapter, found the stock filter interference and tasked my NAPA to help me find a decent fat, but shorter filter.

The one that worked is NAPA 1085.

I've also been carefully reattaching hoses and wires. The throttle body should be on soon, as well as the radiator and fan. It's coming!

 

[69LC]

Before

After

As I was getting ready to put the radiator in, I noticed how many mashed fins there were and have worked through straightening all of them.

 

[69LC]

It's been a while since I've been able to get any real work done due to recovering from some nasty viral crud and trying to work extra.

Mama wants the truck to be quiet, so I tasked my NAPA to help me find a 2.5" in and out roundish-quiet muffler. They had one in stock with offset ports on both ends.

I started fabbing flanges and cutting sanitary elbows today. My crappy Chicago Electric 90 amp welder(traded for three Sears gift cards) doesn't tack well even with SS flux core wire. I have the first elbow tacked, but the booger tacks didn't hold on the flange. Try again after church tomorrow...

What's left of the original exhaust is super flimsy-scabbed with booger welds and patch tubes. It's ugly. The farm store tractor muffler was loud...

 

[69LC]

It's all 2.5" food grade tubing and elbows I scavenged from the scrap bin at work.

 

[69LC]

After a few joint face adjustments and re-racking I have my first stretch of exhaust. I have to trim an inch off the end of the second elbow and then will tack the next two on as marked. That gets me over the frame and aiming towards the muffler inlet.

 

[excessive]

nice work man, enjoy reading through this thread, gives me inspiration to get mine done

 

[69LC]

Thanks! It's gone on way longer than I'd expected or promised to my wife. She just wants her truck...

 

[69LC]

Making slow exhaust progress. I made flanges for my new muffler today. After getting home I found that the flanges need to be rotated on both ends. Good thing I only tacked them lightly. I won't get much done tomorrow as I have to pack and drive across the state for AF Guard duty.

 

[69LC]

With a whole bunch of work and military trips coming I took a couple of days off from work to work on the 80. I did have to make two trips to work to tack more exhaust together, but I'm good now from the Y-pipe to the back of the muffler.

 

[69LC]

 

[69LC]

The more I work under the truck, the more sad it makes me with all of the Midwest cancer everywhere. I will probably be looking for a clean western truck sometime soon.

 

[2fpower]

That exhaust work is beautiful. All 304 stainless? Wow. I want to find that scrap bin.