Gas, tires, oil.

After putting in a new clutch bearing, I needed to plumb an air line and regulator to the air conditioning compressor. First I turned it over by hand to determin which was inlet and which was outlet.

Then I cut the outlet tube off even and drilled it out to 7/16″.

Using lots of oil (aluminum likes to gall) I tapped it for 1/4″ npt (pipe threads).

At this point most people would use a pressure switch to engage/disengage the electric clutch to regulate the pressure, in fact I had a pressure switch just for this (I had picked it up at a yardsale). But I has something even better, the regulator off of a gasoline powered air compressor. Unlike electric compressors, the briggs and stratton powered ones that contractors use run all the time, they just have special pressure relief valve that keeps the tank from over pressuring. The white nylon line on the right hand side goes to that valve. The main inlet from the compressor is underneath (normally this goes to the tank).

It also has a over pressure valve in case the main one fails, you need this no matter what kind of air compressor you have, an over-pressurered air tank can let go like a bomb.
Next I wired up a toggle switch for the clutch. Even without a tank, and with the engine idling, it put out a lot of air.

Above is a rig I made to air up or down 2 tires at once. Its faster and keeps equal amounts of air side to side. To air down, I just attach the air chucks to the valve stems and open the valve. To air up, I just hook up the air hose to the compressor and open the valve. In either case the gauge doesn’t read correctly with air flowing, but its easy to close it and check every once and a while. In fact, I’ve found that its nice for even just one tire: it has a built in gauge and you don’t have to keep bending over. Unfortunately, I’ve found that it doesn’t fill both tires equally, and it takes a really long time to equalize on its own (one air chuck probably has better flow than the other). But I still hook it up to two tires at once, then I just check each one individually.

The ac on our suburban was disconnected when we bought it and since I had no plans of ever hooking it up again I decided to remove as much of it as possible. I figured that the compressor had gone bad. But when I removed it, I realized that the compressor turned fine, it was the pulley that was locked up.

You can see above that the pulley is crooked (clutch bearing is shot). Though I still had no plans of getting the ac working, I have wanted to add onboard air to the truck. My brother had a nice rig in his jeep, he put a small 110v air compressor (the kind with a tank, that you might find in any garage) in the back. Then he plumbed the ac compressor up to the tank and wired the ac electric clutch to a pressure switch. When ever the engine was running, it would keep the tank topped off. If he was somewhere with 110v power, he could also run an extension cord to the compressor so he wouldn’t have to keep the engine idling.
I just wanted to be able to re-inflate my tires after airing them down for offroad driving. First I had to fix the clutch bearing. The book says to use special tool j9401 to pull the clutch (and j9480 to reinstall it), but of course I don’t have that tool.

The inside of the hub is threaded, I found that a 1/2″ pipe fitting would kind of thread in (I suspect that it’s actually 13/16″ like an oil filter but haven’t comfirmed it). I sawed off a 1/4″ off the end so it would screw all the way in (it was loose, and since pipe threads are tapered, the farther I could screw it in the better). Then I tack welded a 1/2″ nut to on the end. Then I screwed on to the hub and screwed in a 1/2″ bolt to pull the hub.

Here’s a pic of the tool after I got the hub off.

As you can see below, the bearing was really shot.

The new bearing was pricey, about $40, but worth it in the end. Next time I show how I got an air hose to connect to the compressor and how I controll it.

I snapped this pic in Leadfield, a ghost town in Death Valley. It needs a little work but people have started with less.

Here’s an over view of the town from the pass above it.

It’s on Titus canyon road, which is a very nice drive.

A nice example of mosaic.

Some nice narrows.

And some indian pictographs near a spring.

When I went to Death Valley last spring, I got a stone bruise on one of my tires on the nasty washboard road to the Racetrack Playa (I was talking to a couple of guys I met at the Eureka sand dunes, and one of them said that he actually saw a couple bolts fall off the front of his old FJ on that road, he couldn’t find them and had to replace them with bolts from somewhere else on his truck). I got it plugged, but I didn’t trust it anymore. Rather than get a new tire, I decided to go to 16″ tires rather than the 15″ tires that were stock on 1/2 ton trucks in ‘82. The main reason is to get more load capacity: the 15″ tires only have a load range C with a weight rating of 1985 lbs. With the whole family and some camping stuff, the suburban is well over 6000 lbs., so it is very near maximum weight for the tires. And I’m pulling a double axle camper trailer. I also wanted taller tires to make up some of the difference in my axle switch (3.42 to 4.11 gears). However, lots of newer model trucks also use 16″ tires on 1/2 ton trucks. This means that some tire sizes are availible in load ranges C, D and E, which means that just going to 16″ is not sufficient. Unfortunately, I can’t use the stock rims 6 lug rims that come on newer chevy trucks because they have too much backspace and hit the tie rod on the older trucks. After lots of searching for used rims, I gave up and ordered a set of Cragar Soft 8 16″x7″ rims from Summit. Then I started seaching for tires. I wanted a set 255-85/16 tires, I had this size (Kelly Springfield MSR) on a 3/4 ton suburban in the past and really liked them. They are 33+” tall but not too wide. Calling around, everyone wanted $650+ for these tires, so I started to look for used on ebay and craigslist. One morning on my way to work I stopped by a local tire shop that sold used tires. The guy didn’t speak english, so after a bit of non-communication he went over to a tahoe parked inside the building and started beating on the side. Eventually a bleary eyed younger guy (his son) opened the door. He apologized for being so hung over and said he couldn’t get out of the truck because of an injury to his foot (I didn’t ask details). So I started looking through the used tires, coming back to roust him up to ask the prices. Eventually I found a set of 295-75/16 bfg ko’s with ok tread. A little wider and shorter than I wanted, but I got the set for $110 (plus $20 for a 265-75/16 for a spare). They fit fine with no lift.

Unfortunately my tire chains will no longer fit, so I’ll have to watch the weather if I want to go over any passes in winter. But these tires have a weight rating of 3415 lbs. so they should have a lot less sway when towing (stiffer side walls) and I’ll be able to air them down a lot more when going offroad. Of course this means having a way of re-inflating them, so I started working on converting the air conditioning compressor to an air compressor, but that’s for another post.

The 14 bolt semi-float axle that I bought for my suburban had recently been in a ‘70 chevy pickup (it was originally out of an ‘88) and the distance between spring perches was not right for the ‘82 suburban. So, first I pulled out the stock 10 bolt rear and put it next to the 14 bolt for comparison.

Next I ground off the welds with a 4 1/2″ angle grinder and knocked off the perches with a hammer. Then I cleaned them up and champhered the edge in preparation for re-welding them.

I needed to be able to measure the center to center distance of the perches, but the differential prevents you from being able to just measure them with a tape measure. So what I did is use a set of outside calipers to measure the width of the center section.

Then I could use a set of inside calipers to set the distance from the perches to the center section.

I also needed to set the angle. I the angle between the perches the the yoke with a magnetic protractor, setting it to be the same as the stock 10 bolt.

Then it was just welding them on.

Not only did the awful washboard road in Death Valley cause me to lose a power steering line, the exhaust system and a tire on my ‘82 diesel suburban, but when I went to open the rear door, the button pushed in and fell inside the door. To get the spare out, my wife had to crawl in the back and drag it over our luggage. Later back at camp, I used my makita to take off the door panel and retrieve the push button.

Back at home, I pulled the handle off and discovered the problem, a little diecast potmetal tab had broken. It retains the return spring and centers the rod that extends from the back of the button. The spring and broken piece are shown below the handle:

I rigged up a replacement with plumber’s tape (the metal equivilent of duct tape). If you don’t know, it’s a roll of sheet metal that has a series of pre-punched holes and is used to make pipe hangers and such. A little forming with pliers and a couple pop rivets and it’s done:

While I had the door apart, I wanted to add an interior door lock and latch. Stock, the only way to lock the rear doors is from the outside with a key, the only way to open the door is with exterior handle. This is not ideal, when locking the vehicle, you can just push down all the door locks in the front, but you need the key for the rear doors. We also occasionally sleep in the back when camping and you can’t get out the back, you have to crawl over the front seats. I’ve also had the rear doors swing closed while I was in the back getting something, again having to crawl out the front (a problem if the back is piled high with stuff). While the handle was off I saw how the latch and lock works. The rod on the button pushes against a plate that opens the latch. The lock works by lowering the plate so that the rod passes over it. So, first I determined that the little pull things on for door locks use #10-24 screw threads (at least older gm cars and trucks). Therefore I used some #10-24 all-thread (or “ready-rod”, continuously threaded rod) to make the lock (and latch) pull.

To make the latch pull, I just drilled a hole in the door and the latch plate. I used a nylock nut on the end. While the button on the outside of the door pushes, this interior latch just pulls. The lock knob attaches to the latch by the way of a coupling nut that I cross drilled with a clearance hole (see above). Then it was just a matter of screwing on some lock pulls.

I could have used a more traditional door handle, but this was simple and unobtrusive. It sits nearly flush, so it isn’t likely to interfer cargo.

I have previously posted about my quest to visit as many sites as I can that contain the word “devil” in their name. I just got back from several days at Death Valley and added several to my list. I’ll post about them later, but today I’ll show one not listed on any map. American WWII airmen blamed gremlins, but the British term “The Devil’s Spanner” seems appropriate here. I wanted to visit the Devil’s Racetrack, home of the mysterious moving rocks. The map lists the road as designed for “high clearance vehicles” and 4x4s. Truthfully, a car can make it, the problem is that it is 37 miles of the worst washboard road in existance. I could see the bottom edge of my dash vibrating about 3″ in amplitude at speed. Slow sucked and so did fast, but at least it was over sooner. When I got to the racetrack

I heard a clanging noise underneath, both sides of the exhaust had broken off behind the mufflers and were banging the driveshaft.

Not a big deal, I just unbolted them and threw them in the back.
After having a great time at the racetrack (look for an upcoming post with lots of pics) we headed back. During the last mile I noticed that the steering didn’t feel right and the brakes had lost there powerboost. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a spray of oil down the side of the truck; the pressure side powersteering line had come unscrewed. Broken off or blown out I can see, but not unscrewed. So while I’m preparing to fix that I hear a hissing noise, a rear tire had gotten a stone cut and was going flat.

So I’m standing there surveying the damage and this guy walks up and says “I see you just came out of the racetrack, I’ve heard you need special tires to avoid flats, do you think my rental SUV will make it?”. My reply “I can’t think of a better vehicle to take down that road than a rental car”.

Sorry about not posting this week, but I’ve been working like crazy to get the suburban and the camper trailer done so we can to Death Valley tomorrow. In the past month I’ve replaced both axles on the suburban(and not just swaps either, the torch and welder were involved), installed one of the old electric brake controllers (the ones they don’t sell anymore that tap into the brakeline) and put on a trailer sway control mount. On the trailer side I’ve got the brakes going (the damn thing was wired with wire nuts, corrosion had turned the ends of the wires to dust) and installed some 12v sockets inside for lights and stuff. Plus about a million little things (checking fluid levels, belt tension, tire pressure…). I’ll post next wednesday when I get back (no wifi in death vallely I assume).

The take away message here is you can’t just smear grease on a bearing. You have to force grease between the rollers. They make a tool so you can use a grease gun, but doing it by hand is much more fun (and satisfying). First, get a big gob of bearing grease on the palm of one hand.

Then, in little bites, scrape the grease off your palm with the outer edge of the bearing’s roller cage. Here I’m doing the front wheel bearings for the dana 44 I’m putting in the suburban.

You know you’ve got it when you can see grease come out the top of the bearing like above. Then rotate the bearing till you get the whole thing.

Here is a little tool-making interlude in the saga of my 10 bolt to dana 44 axle swap in my wife’s ‘82 diesel 4x4 suburban. Turns out I had to change knuckles. The dana 44 knuckles used a drag link that mounted on top of the arms and nearly (within a 1/4″) hit the springs. So I had to swap on my 10 bolt knuckles that used a bottom mount drag link. I knew I would have to adjust the ball joints as part of this swap, but didn’t have the spanner wrench. I suppose I could have bought one, but making a custom spanner isn’t that hard. The first step is to find a socket to modify, I keep a large selection of cheap sockets just for this sort of thing, they’re harder than mild steel, but not so hard that a hacksaw won’t cut them. Plus they already have a square drive for a ratchet (or torque wrench in this case). I needed a deep socket to fit over the ball joint stud.

It was a pretty good fit, just needed a little ground off the OD. Then I made the vertical cuts with a hacksaw.

Then hogged out the majority with a hand grinder, if I was making a tool that only fit two notches I could have cut in from the sides with the hacksaw.

Then it was just hand fitting with a bastard file.

Fits nicely, back to the swap next time.