Todays wrenching (1 Viewer)

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Doing brake work alone sucks! Can anyone recommend a decent one man bleeding system with large reservoir?

Thanks

I can swing by some night this week if you need me to
 
Thanks for the info.

Rick - those look pretty cool and seem perfect. Have you used them before. I'm assuming that if the check valve fails, it fails in the closed position :eek:.
 
I've put them on my 80 and it's basically just pump the pedal and check your fluid level. I get about 10 pumps to any one cylinder before I need to add fluid.

Autozone carries them. The 80s are 10mmx1.0 which is probably what you will need also.
 
one this you don't want to try is having your significant other come out to help you the simple task of pumpin the pedal and stopping when told too just doesn't seem to work out well.
 
one this you don't want to try is having your significant other come out to help you the simple task of pumpin the pedal and stopping when told too just doesn't seem to work out well.

I think of all things I ask Sheri to help me with...brake bleeding is her least favorite.
 
I mean it seems like such a simple task but quickly turns into
"why are you yelling at me" and " how long is this going to take" or " you can't do this on your own"fun times
 
"why are you yelling at me" and " how long is this going to take" or " you can't do this on your own"fun times

I was removing the toilet in the basement and had the wife come down to give me a hand just incase I needed her and I got this.
 
I had a female room mate about 9 years ago. I asked her to help me bleed the brakes. After about 3 minutes of trying to figure out why there wasnt any brake fluid coming out, I found out that she was pressing on the clutch the whole time.
 
bleeding the breaks is about the only time I can get Kathy into the garage.
Seriously we have lived here and a couple weeks ago the joke of the evening was kathy had spend a whopping 15min out there BS"ing with us.
It was a record.
She still maintains that she 'put her time in' at my old shop after hanging around for HOURS while I was welding and building.
 
I had a female room mate about 9 years ago. I asked her to help me bleed the brakes. After about 3 minutes of trying to figure out why there wasnt any brake fluid coming out, I found out that she was pressing on the clutch the whole time.

same thing with my daughter only she started to cry because her leg was getting tired and cramping up. She was pushing on the foot rest to the left of the pedals. This was before she knew how to drive.
 
I bought one of those inexpensive bleeder kits at a VIP, they probably also have them at AutoZone and some of the other discounters. Simple vacuum pump, reservoir tube and adaptors. Works great. I have to use it every once in awhile on my clutch slave as it tends to leak if the truck sits for awhile.
 
Today I pulled my rear springs as the U-Bolts were very loose and the nuts wouldn't budge. I had to cut the bolts to remove them. The bolts were so loose, I could see the spring pads shift when I jacked up the axle. I've been VERY lucky that I haven't sheared off my centering bolts (pins).

The local junk yard (oops - auto recycler) makes custom ubolts with nuts and washers for $10 apiece. 9/16" stock with 7/8's nuts. Unfortunately, they didn't make them the 1" shorter I requested, but that is easily remedied with the sawzall.

While I had them out, I spread the leaves and injected some motorcycle chain lube between the leaves. The stuff I use is a dry lubricant and doesn't attract dirt like oil. I spread open the spring clamps so the leaves are more free to flex separately from one another. I hope this will eventually allow more droop.

I also drilled the clamps to put in cross bolts, not sure if I will go with 1/4" or 5/16". Anyone have a suggestion or know the approximate size of their own cross bolts in their spring clamps?

I swapped the springs left to right when I reinstalled them because I had bad cruiser lean to the left. This seems to have helped slightly.

I considered swapping them end to end as well, but I wasn't sure whether or not I had enough spline to do that and I knew I would have to trim the rear of the fender openings for tire clearance if I did that. I'm toying with doing the SOA like the guy did in the latest issue of the TLCA Magazine, so I'm not inclined to make major changes in my SUA setup at this time.

All the old hardware that was reused got a good cleaning and then a soak in phosphoric to eliminate any rust. That stuff is like a wonder drug for rusty parts.

I'm happy to get this phase of the project wrapped up today. My locker installation is on its 9th day, but I hope to have everything I need to button that up tomorrow. Like any other project, it always seems to take far longer than it should. I could have save myself a week on the locker installation if I had spent a few bucks to buy a vernier caliper. And now I see I had the time to order and receive the Man-A-Free U-Bolt Flip Kit since I haven't been able to use the truck for 10 days. :steer: ing and :wrench: ing are always in conflict :mad:

:cheers:
 
THANKS!!!
 
MEGA KUDOS TO MR BIGELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cheers:

Expecting no renumeration from me, Rick mailed me a variety of thrust washers and his digital vernier calipers! My Lock-Rite is now installed, well within specs, and freaking working perfectly! I can breathe again.

I did a run "around the block" (as I call my route when my wife wants to know where I was). It's a local 10 mile, 45 minute loop of pavement, dirt road and some trails that require 4WD low. The locker allowed me to get through the 4LO section in 2WD.

The ratcheting noise from the locker in a slow hard turn on pavement is hardly noticeable, hey, a 40 is pretty noisy to begin with. I didn't notice any handling differences on the pavement in the rain. If you floor it off road, the rear end does slide to the left as both wheels spin. Is that worse than going straight and not going anywhere? Not sure yet. Snow and ice will be the test. IN the interim, I'd recommend a lunchbox locker to anyone with a 40.

RICK'S THE MAN! :beer:

I snipped off the excess of my ubolts today. That pretty much burned up 5 blades for the sawzall. A bit more clearance in the interim. They will soon be for sale if anyone needs them.

I have a set of bottom plates for the Man-A-Free U-Bolt Flip Kit that I bought on Mud really cheap last week. Wouldn't you know that Man-A-Free emailed me yesterday (just after I installed my new ubolts for my regular setup) that they will sell me the top plates and ubolts for $105 plus S&H. I'm going to save $70 over the regular cost of the kit, but I'm out the cost of those other stupid ubolts. On the other hand, I can drive it until the other ones arrive and keep them for another project.

My 40 is tracking much better with the new ubolts I put in. Funny how a rear axle that isn't loose would do that.

:clap:
 
Tuesday I took my hard top sides in to my welding class and cut 'em up with the plasma. I could get spoiled working in a machine shop. I measured up some steel to get cut on the shears, and what would have never happened in my garage, either in time or quality was done in about 30 seconds. I finished the project in about 1 1/2 hours, where normally it would have taken 1/2 a day. Now I have sides where I can still use my hard doors in the winter.

Most of this is due to the fact that the shop is clean and organized, whereas my garage is a s***pile of tools which are pushed out of the way between projects. I need to finish cleaning and organizing my garage this weekend. It looks like my toolbox puked all over the place.
 

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