I hear ya on that. Still and all, do you really want to drive an old beater? Or your SST?

 

LOLOL my SST of course.... we will see, still looking for a garage to rent

 

well my truck was finally finished on Wednesday.. WELLLLLLL the body work was done and the alignment was done
BUT on the way back from the alignment shop the left rear metal brake line ( side it got hit on ) started leaking so the truck lost the brakes..

of course any thing EXPOSED to the weather will have a surface rust on it BUT state farm said it wasn't due to the accident
and they wouldn't cover it.. awful convenient that that's the side its hit on and that's the side that is now leaking.. I called and bitched that
every thing was gone over last year by a mechanic with 30 years of experience and that it all got the green light with the truck only seeing
1200 miles of use since then..

they said OK we will send out another adjuster to look at the truck in 5 DAYS!! ( that's business days and the weekend doesn't count )

after speaking with the shop manager he said he has seen it before and that their argument would be the surface rust on the brake line
and refuse to pay, it will be one month tomorrow that I have been without my truck so instead of waiting until the middle of next week
my truck can be fixed by tomorrow so I am having it towed to my friends house today and it will be taken care of..

they owe me another 5 or 6 days of loss of use so that will pay for the brake line and labor , truck looks great though and so long as
it drives as good as it did before the hit I will be happy

 

Yeah, that rear brake line is a VERY common failure on these trucks....... It was going to fail anyway, at some point, the accident just hurried that event along.

 

got the truck to my friends and he said " the line was like brand new and had been replaced in the last couple years " his feeling is it was damaged when they removed
the bed and YES it was twisted badly that much I was able to see myself..

is what it is so I told him to give it a going over once again and if any other lines throughout the truck look sketchy just to replace.. truck really does look good and he even said they did a great job
as he does body off restorations on the side ( mostly Mopars ) and was looking at the welds and quality of the paint job..

 

only line needing replacement was the was the damaged one, everything else inspected and is good to go.. new line is copper.

so with that said I finally got to drive it, happy with everything EXCEPT and as I feared there is a pinion bearing noise in the rear
that wasn't there before the hit, had the rear rebuilt to the tune of just under $1k 2 years and not even 3500 miles ago..

noise comes on right at 55- 60 MPH and I can make it come and go at will with the throttle SO it is back to the body shop tomorrow
to see what is going to be done about it

 

Hopefully those are nickel/copper lines.

 

Better yet stainless steel.

 

i assume it was NiCopp as he does restorations and said I would never have to worry about this line going
again..

already called body shop this AM and they called insurance and got the OK for me to drop it back off and they will
take it back to where I had it rebuilt in the first place to diagnose...

definitely the pinion as I had that same thing with my 69 superbee at right around the same speed and could make it come and
go under load with the throttle.. don't want to speculate but the rear did move forward on the left side and contacted the front of the
wheel well in the accident BUT then it was driven to the alignment shop and back with the wrong leaf spring so the rear was canted
1/2 forward on the left side and maybe put enough side load to chew up the pinion bearling

oh well we will see

 

the shop that they took it to for the rear diagnosed a DEFINITE pinion noise ( which I said ) , pulled the cover but nothing was visible
so now I am in limbo waiting for the insurance company to go look as they need to give authorization for them to tear it down
further.