I have a cousin who moved to the Phoenix area about three or four years ago. She got a job drawing electrical circuits for a company that builds windmills. The day after she put "needs a sign for my cubicle- does not work well with others" on facebook last spring, she got layed off. Her fiancee (who is 40 and felt the umbilicle being stretched rather tight in Phoenix) talked her into moving back to NW Pennsylvania. I asked her what the h$ll she was thinking. Now, 9 months and two interviews later, she is asking herself the same thing.

She was lucky, she found someone to rent the house to for the mortgage payment.

 

That is why I don't do any of that social networking stuff. You are allowed your opinion in this country, but they are allowed to fire you for it. On the fire dept. I couldn't keep my mouth shut and often said what everyone else was thinking. but too smart to say anything. There where a few chiefs that were not too sad to see me retire...Mark

 

They were looking to lose someone, and she thought it was stupid to get rid of her, because she made a lot less than the engineers.

But the engineers can make a drawing, she can't do the engineering.

And if you have two people, and need to get rid of one, the one who admits she needs the "does not work well with others" sign would be the one who got my boot, unless the other one is just flat useless.

 

My 91 works great. My 92 is like stepping on a rotten plumb. I think the RWAL valve in the back is bad. Don't want to bypass it because of all the ice we get around here.

 

I currently own 2 of these trucks. I test drove 2 others before buying these. I found that the rear brakes on these trucks get ignored by the majority of the operators. I've been told countless times that "Oh, they just need to be bled" or "they need to be adjusted" when what they really need is $400 dollars in parts and 8 hours of "adjusting". I also find the ABS to be a necessary evil. My D250 has working RWAL, recently repaired rear brakes 2.5" shoes. When I removed the rear drums I found the shoes were all jumbled up(wrong side and mixed up front to back) , cables were not attached, and the adjusters were not functioning. $14 hardware kit and lots of trial and error adjusting were spent getting it right but now the brakes are very good. The truck also has sticky tires its wearing $225 ea hankook dynapro mt3's. I hate the noise, roughness, and mileage loss but stab the brake pedal and they'll load up and howl for mercy but never lock up braking is very good. On the other hand my D350 has strong brakes but its terrifying to stop in the wet. It had completely trashed rear brakes when I bought it. It cost $300 in parts plus several afternoons of labor to get them right. However the RWAL is non functional, the penalty is the truck will get out of shape quickly even under moderate braking. In the wet an emergency stop will put you in a ditch. This truck wears cheap chinese tires and they are terrible! terrible! terrible! terrible! Do NOT buy YKS tires. We call them "Yikes Radials" for that special something in your life! I sympathize we you guys that have the problem trucks. Anyone want to buy one?

 

One fix for too-quick-to-grab rear brakes is to not adjust them up quite so tight.

Having a bit farther to travel before contact requires the wheel-cylinders to wait for more fluid to spread the shoes, thus giving the front brakes time to set up.


Once I get the rear brakes back to even doing anything at all, then I am going to install an old-school proportioning valve.


We never had any problems back before RWAL and anti-lock came along.


I had for sure rather drive a truck with old-school brakes on solid ice than any anti-lock mess I have yet had dealings with; anti-lock is only good to get someone killed.

 

I have a "spicer 70" (I think) rear axle, is there a disc brake conversion kit for these? My truck doesn't stop, I usually have to pump the brakes to get the truck to stop sadly. I more do a lot of down shifting to slow the truck while trying to apply brakes. I know one of my calipers was wet so I will be replacing those. I was looking into rear disc brakes, I just don't like working on drums honestly.

 

Spicer and dana are the same company, so you have a dana 70 also, so yes there are various. See BC847's how to in the sticky. I will be posting some ptcs of my conversion a little later today...Mark

 

Awesome, I didn't know that. Thanks!

 

haha bearkiller, just another feature to distance people from actual driving. Most are just along for the ride...AND THEY ARE BEHIND THE WHEEL!!?!?!?!?!? Thus saying that i blew out another wheel cylinder, time to hit the parts store and buy 2 sets of everything and i'll just do both trucks at once.

 

I have to say that after a 900 dollar rear brake conversion and a 350 mile trip to Mexico, with very many oportunities to brake that IT WAS MONEY WELL SPENT. The braking itself is not much better than it was when my brakes worked well, but at least, I am losing my fear of the brakes going to the floor without warning. Along with the new king pins, tie rod ends, drag link and my home adjustment of the toe in at 1/8th", the front end is very stable, tracks straight and it brakes perfecly straight. Those of us that have suffered from death wobble know about the feeling of impending doom that precedes the wobble, I can say that it seems that I am "free at last, free at last. free at last" (MLK as if you didn't know). It is a short test, but so far so good. Tomorrow I am towing my boat, this should tell me more, soooo, I will be thinking of y'all as I am out trying to catch a big dorado or Marlin, but I will take a trigger fish. Adios from war torn Mexico....."Hasta la vista baby" (the governator)

 

MAYBE, i really need to do camber& toe in ---home style, where do i look on here??? I have 2- 1st gens., 1 stoped great , the other one ,,,,, took the impact with out flenchin. lol.

 

I believe that the only easy adjustment is toe in. What I did was put the wheels straight, jack up the front and strap a straight edge to each wheel, just below the hub, with at least 10 inches or so sticking out. I then measured out from the edge of the tire's corner about 6 inches and made a mark, both to the front and rear. This is because the way was clear for a tape measure 6" back. I then measured mark to mark, front and back and adjusted untill I had 1/8th" closer in front than in back. It was surprisingly easy. Mark Hupperz posted to spin the tires and mark the center of the tire and measure from there. I am sure that there are other ways just as good or better, I would just search alignment or toe in. As far as the camber goes, I believe this involves shims and such, again this is talked about on this site. I intended to have mine set professionally, but it tracks so good, it has to be close...Mark

 

My 92 stops great. I swaped out the diff for a 2001 housing with rear discs and converted it to hydroboost. The master cylinder and hydroboost I used were from a very large motorhome= excellent brakes for our trucks

 

Being around the tire business my entire life, I have had many dealings with so-called professional front-end alignment shops and few of those dealings have impressed me.

Most of these shops have high-priced equipment and no one on the place that actually knows what they are doing.

They get by because 95% of the driving public have less idea about the process than they do; plus, in most cases, the vehicle has such obviously worn-out components that merely replacing these bad parts makes such a difference that the customer drives away with a smile and gives them a good report, when all they did was swap a few parts --- no Einstein required there.


My truck drives better, tracks better, and wears tires better, after I QUIT fooling with the so-called professionals and just did it myself with a tape-measure, as per 368s description.

A thing or two I will add; make positive that the sticks you clamp to the tires are at the exact same plane with each other; as in height and angle to the floor; if the end of one stick is an inch higher than the other, it will throw off your measurements.