Hammer in with an appropriate driver



And you can see the thin bead of silicon coming out. The Ford service manual recommended this and it seemed like a good idea to me.




With the race seated there’s about a ¼” gap left where the seal sits

I used a piece of exhaust tubing to drive the seal in (note the seal is NOT fully inserted in this picture)




New king pin in place



Put in a new lower bearing support thingy (technical term)

Then turned my attention back to the frame side track bar mount. I started with this puny gusset which is probably about useless



Then got real and added this, 1.5” x 1.5” 3/16” wall square tubing

And for a little more insurance, welded a piece of angle iron to the other side. It’s not ideal since the main force really goes in the opposite direction of how this angle iron is bracing but it was easy to add and made me feel a little better about it.




Some idiot welded the truss right over the breather. I was (barely) able to get the old breather out and there was no chance of getting this 90* guy to thread in so I welded it.



And put a 1/8” barb on it

Started working on my crossmember. I’m quite happy with how its coming out. There’s a ½” hole behind the doubler adapter plate where a bushing/bolt go to support the weight of the 203.






On the passenger side I’m going to add another piece that connects the crossmember to the frame in line with the ZF. On the driver side the driveshaft will be in the way if I try to do that so I’m not sure what I’m gonna do but I’d like to tie it into the frame somehow but real estate is at a premium with the upper link mount and the driveshaft in there.

After taking the 60 out and putting it back under the truck countless times, it should be in for good for now…

Got the ballistic fab high steer arms on with there weld on extension piece to tie into the stock tie rod arm on the knuckle. I have a ¾” bolt with a DOM sleeve that connects the 2. Should add a nice bit of strength.





Track bar was the first of the links put together so its installed… I’m reusing the track bar that I’ve been using with my 44 SAS for years, it has 1” shank Currie Johnny Joints at either end.




My aluminum links are on their way and I’ve ordered rotors, calipers and pads to finish putting the front end back together. I’m hoping to do some mid-week wrenching and cram some wrench time in next weekend. There’s a chance this thing will have 4 tires on it again in the next week… Fingers crossed!

Finally looking like something!



With the links in, I measured for the upper link so I can make that now. I was also able to tack the frame mounts for the lower links and then remove the crossmember to weld. It needs a gusset or 12 but I'm pretty happy with the design.



I ordered rotors, calipers and pads online through Autozone so it would be ready to go when I got to the store. They emailed me saying it was ready so I print the receipt and head down. The guy at the parts counter looks at me like I was crazy when I said I ordered parts online for store pick up and handed him the receipt. So I explain their own process to him. He asks the manager, who's also confused so he just resorts to pulling parts off the shelf and they no longer had my pads in stock because they sold them to someone else. Really frustrating and disappointing experience. I don't expect much in the way of customer service from any parts store but this was terrible. Silver lining: I earned another $20 on my rewards card...

autozone ftl

So Rich and I got all the links hooked up, springs in place and put the truck on the suspension for the first time in 2 months. Ride height is about where I started which was the goal. While this was good and felt like an accomplishment it was quickly overshadowed. With the height of the truss, despite my trimming of the crossmember, I was limited to about 2" of up travel, which just aint gonna work.

So after I let that realization soak in, we looked at the various points that were hitting (truss to crossmember, track bar to crossmember, track bar to truss, upper link mount to track bar frame mount brace) took the axle out and started cutting. We took out my fancy little bolt in crossmember that I made and cut a bunch more out of the factory crossmember. After the first round of trimming, we put the axle back in and had gained another 1.5" or so of uptravel, looked at what else was hitting and cut and trimmed some more. I'm about ready to test fit again but I think there should be about 4.5" of uptravel now, which isn't bad but I wanted more like 5 or 6, but as is I think the truss will be about an inch away from the oil pan so the only way to get more uptravel would be to raise the motor or lift the truck. I could easily lift it more with the adjustable coil buckets but I think I'd rather sacrifice an inch of travel than gain an inch of lift.

I've already welded in 2 pieces of square tube to reconnect the engine crossmember, one goes in the very front and one in the very back so the truss, track bar and steering kinda slides up the middle. I ordered the daystar stinger bump stops and 2.0 can mounts and I've got a plan going to mount those. Also have a few last parts in the mail. The optimist in me thinks it's not that far off and despite the weekends set backs it was cool to have the springs in and the weight on the suspension, even if it was only for 10 minutes.




I put in a little time last night after work. I welded plate across the frame behind the coil buckets, (essentially boxing the frame) this is where (I expect) the bump stops will mount. Pretty satisfied with how thats going, it looks good on paper at least, for now I'll take the slight feeling of victory

Then I put the axle back in with all the links hooked up and stuffed it. The truss isn't even the problem right now. The first thing that hits is the upper link on the track bar brace I welded in. But there's 3-4 other things that are really close. The upper link is 3/4" from part of the back of the crossmember by the motor mount, the track bar is 1/2" from the front of the crossmember, track bar is also close to the upper link mount and the truss on its lower bracket... Basically there's a bunch of stuff thats hitting or really close to hitting. The truss is a good 2" off the oil pan so there's some room there but with all these other contact points it doesn't matter a whole lot. And really if I cut, trimmed and welded all these other points, I'm only looking at another inch or so of up travel. So yeah...

It's about at the point where its drive-able so thats what I'm gonna do. Finish the steering, assemble the rest of the axle, slap some tires on it and see what it looks like. I still don't know exactly what ride height is going to look like, that may dictate future suspension stuffage plans if I decide I want it lower or higher. Then get it on the road. It's possible I'll be tearing this all apart because it drives like a 3 wheeled pinto





Been squeezing some wrenching time in this week. Current goal is to get it drive-able which is actually pretty close. There won't be shocks and there's a bunch of stuff that needs to be straigtened out but even a lap around the block will make me feel better. I also want to see how the front lift looks with the tires on and weight on the suspension. I have this optimistic hope that it'll be lower than I want and I can lift it a little more to help with my front clearance issues.

It's driveway driveable! I moved it 25 feet backwards down the driveway. No brakes, steering's loose, every link is loose, upper link has a hole drilled through the tube with a 1/2" bolt through it, no shocks, track bar adjustment is way off, driver coil runs into the bucket... Other than that its awesome



Update, no pics

I put it back on jackstands to start to address the myriad of issues I'm facing. I pulled the springs to cycle the suspension and start to figure out what I'm cutting, hacking and re-doing (again) and realized that at about 2" of up-travel the tie rod runs into the frame side track bar mount. I hadn't cycled the suspension with the tie rod in yet so this was a previously unforeseen issue. At that point, I threw everything that was out inside the garage, shut the door and came inside.

Not sure yet how to fix it but I suspect it will involve hiems instead of johnny joints as they are thinner, all new bracketry and a bunch of cutting, grinding and welding (again)...








Been slacking on pictures and general updates… Let’s start with the good news. I drove it. On the freeway. And not only did I live to tell about it but so did the truck. Bad news isn’t too bad but we’ll come to that.

First, some catching up




I got the steering all built and realized the tie rod runs into the track bar mount on the frame. The problem is actually worse than these pictures show because I ended up moving the axle backwards a little to align the wheelbase