Im going to start this thread about my truck that I bought a couple months ago. It's going to include everything I do to it and pictures when I can. I hope you all enjoy.

So this is how it all started


And this is what I got

 

So the first major thing I wanted to tackle was the steering, it was really loose and would track all over the road (especially the bumpy ones).

I rebuilt the steering coupler, that took out a decent amount of play. In taking off the coupler I ruined the gearbox seal and it started leaking, it also had some play in it so I replaced that. I broke my pitman arm puller (using a 4ft cheater bar will do that) so once I got another one I got it off. That took out all the rest of the play. It still liked to track on the bumpy roads though, so I looked at the front tires and sure enough they were a little out of alignment, so I went ahead and adjusted the tie rod ends and now she steers great.

 

New plugs, wires, rotor and cap and sealed some vacuum leaks. That seems to have fixed my hesitant starting (occasionally).. It's hard to diagnose something that's not fully broken..

Found a stock bench seat for 20 bucks so put that in there. It was a lot better then the second gen bucket seats that were in it. (way to tall)

New heavy duty coil springs and shocks and 2 inches of spacers on the springs upfront.
Add a leaf kit and shocks for the rear

New cragar soft 8's 16 in rim from craigslist and 265-75-16 tires. The tires and rims gave me 2 inches from previous height. Don't have the suspension in yet to get a height but ill get it in this weekend and get back to you guys and hopefully with a few pictures!

 

Ones suggestion on the steering. Check out a Borgusion (not sure spelling) steering shaft. Much better than the stock shaft with a coupler, it uses a u-joint. Since you just rebuilt the coupler and if it works good then I wouldnt worry but if it goes bad again, check them out. Well worth it.

 

Looks like youre off to a good start. What does she have in there? 318/auto? I love the short box trucks.

 

I had looked at the borgeson (spelling) shaft but it was out of my price range.. the rebuild kit was a lot cheaper :P

Eric, yeah it has the 318 and 3 speed auto in it. I think it's a lean burn? not sure though. It has the big computer box in the driver fender, I was told that means its lean burn. The previous owner did some engine work and removed the smog pump and stuff, but i'm not sure what all he did... Other then just visually seeing whats missing..

 

What year is it? If its 88-91, its throttle body injection.

 

It's an 87

 

Well I got the front end all done this past weekend. I only went with one inch of spacers. With everything installed I gained almost 5 inches, the front is just about an inch higher than the rear right now, but the add-a-leaf will correct that. It should give me a minimum of an inch. Once I get the rear end done i'll take some pictures and get them on here. The truck looks so good!

 

Nice truck! Those leanburn computers suck. You can do an hei ignition swap and have a way better ignition system. It also gets rid of a lot of wire and cleans up the engine bay.