HI ALL.
Its been a tuff 8 months of this year for Me and My truck already, ( I cant believe 8 months into the year already), My transmission has been making noise for 2 years now and grinding when going into 3rd gear so I've been double clutching 3rd for 2 years now, I'm finding that's a Hard Habit to break , Clutch chattering so bad it would shake your teeth loose , I would just take off in first gear just to get the truck rolling for second gear,, So the end of March I went and pulled the transmission out to rebuild it,, That's when I saw the frame rot just behind where the trans skid plate bolt onto the frame, With fixing that and ordering transmission parts it took a couple, OK 3 1/2 months, of course the weather did not cooperate either, My OPEN AIR Garage (driveway) does not like the 40 days of rain we had in the North East , Then in the process of that I see my coil spring perch's do not look to good, I Need to get a few more years out of my truck before I can afford another one, SO I Need to replace them.
So I do some research to find that Dorman sells replacement ones, I called Dorman tech line to get some specs on them, After talking to their tech, Dorman's buckets are 2.5mm thick, Which is a little thicker than 3/32, So I looked elsewhere, I found this guy on eBay in New Hampshire he hand makes the buckets from 3/16 , and 1/8 steel , Cuts them on a water jet and TIG welds them together, He does a heck of a good job. SO last week I did the first one, Ordered the second one right away, His are twice as much as Dormans but 3 times better. So NOW hopefully all the big stuff is done for a while, Transmission now has 1500 miles on it after my rebuild and going strong, NO MORE Double clutching , I repaired the frame and the coil buckets, I did a stress test today and went to the gravel bank and got 1 1/2 ton of 3/4 inch stone in the bed of the truck, Made it home and Nothing fell apart. Stress test done.

OK, That's enough for this year, Frame fix, Coil spring Buckets, Rebuilt NV4500 , New Clutch Kit, machine flywheel , New Rear main seal, Rear Shackles , All New U Joint's and Center Bearing ,I NEED a Vacation..



Ready to cut out

Old one removed ready to fit the new one

Fitted ready for paint and weld

Painted Ready for install

Driver side welded in Ready for final paint

Passengers side, Start of the day.

Passenger side Done, With new sway bar links.

Start of Frame Repair.

Frame fixed ready for stress test.

NV4500 Rebuilt ready for cover then Install in truck

 

Wow, that's some serious rust! I guess you must get a lot of road salt in your area?

I love the look of those spring perches. They look good and beefy. What did you find in your transmission rebuild--just synchros? The gears look pretty good, but I wouldn't know the first thing about rebuilding a manual transmission.

 

I would welcome Road salt,, They use liquid here, Like calcium chloride or something like that, You can see the white lines it leaves on the roads and you really hate to drive on it, Not much you can do.
Coil Perches are awesome, Very Beefy.

As far as trans, 1600 miles and counting, its amazing how the miles add up so quick. Short cut to that post below.

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...-parts-331861/

 

That looks like salt water damage! A friend on the Rez drives his truck on the beaches to collect his gear and it looks similar underneath, but its a 70's Ford. Those perches look like good ones....

Those fresh blocker rings will help smooth things out, too!

 

Love the truck! Doing the body and interior on my 72, the plastic parts of the dash are toast, any good recommendations on where to get?

 

there’s some really good tin grille groups on Facebook. Wreckers are your best bet unfortunately. I’ve got some stuff from Moparts in Canada for a really good price and cheap freight. Good luck.

 

Those are well made , so I ordered a couple . The front axle I gotten from a 2001 had a bit of rust on just the buckets. The rest of the axle and attachments look good . I using this axle to add 3 gen brakes to my 95 . I spent a couple dollars buys every think I think I may need . So I decided I just add these buckets to my axle . I could just pad weld the buckets but that will never be as nice as these pieces . The drain holes is a nice touch also

 

I not a expert on replacing these buckets . Mine were no where this bad . My truck has not been in the Salt as far as I know . The front axle I got out of a 2001 4x4 had a bit of rust in the area where the spring sits . . So I decided to just replace them with these pieces. So after I got the axle up in some pipe stands and I used 2 inch pipe slid up in the axle housing . S I can rotate the axle and not have it on my foot . I used a long level across the spring buckets and the flat center of the buckets are not level with each other . So I finally leveled each side individually and cut out and welded in . I contacted the builder of the buckets and he also mentioned he was aware of this . I cut out the original buckets with a Metabo and a gringer to get a decent fit up . I used 7018 to weld in