Sent a message Mazdeuce; hopefully it worked!
P.S.- footwear of choice here is Chucks. 
Sent a message Mazdeuce; hopefully it worked!
P.S.- footwear of choice here is Chucks.
Shirts look great and email sent as well
I, and am sure others, are waiting your and duecewife's movie review.
Email sent....I can't PM without Admin approval
What's with the coil springs up front? They don't look like they're really supposed to be there.
In reply to Crackers :
Helper springs I'd guess, I agree that they don't look like they're supposed to be there between there being no obvious manner of holding them in beyond friction and how it looks like they'd hit coil bind before you touched the bump stops.
In reply to BrokenYugo :
Exactly.
Someone decided they were needed. With ALL the weight off the front they are basically hanging there by the welds on top. My inclination at this point is to hit the welds with the grinder and pop them out. Maybe they were needed when the tow truck bed was on there?
Address sent. Thanks for all you do. I certainly appreciate it.
*Welded* to the frame? 
Nothing sketchy about that at all...
Wait a sec, isn't welding spring steel kind of, uh, bad?
I think the coil needs to go.
in favor of a bag setup!
The springs are welded to the frame reinforcements for the bump stops. My assumption is that these guys were good, because the springs and the welds look great. Old school South Dakota welding witchcraft. If the truck sags I'll put bags where the springs were. Standard procedure for Dakar trucks is to run long single or double springs primarily for locating the axle and either airbags or extra coils on the shocks. There are a bunch of improvements over a stack of 30 leaves.
And I did work on the truck again. Pulled of the shift rods, the power steering pump and reservoir, the clutch line, vacuum lines for the brake booster, unthreaded all the electrics, and unbolted the battery box. Just a couple more things and it will be a bare frame with cab, steering, and brake lines. It was not my intention to go this deep, but here I am. Clean and paint, assembly is the reverse.
In all fairness, I've been wearing Crocs as long as I've been wearing Birkenstocks. Crocs are just more comfortable. Birkenstocks are better for roofing.
I am one with the Jerusalem cruisers...and anyone that wears socks between March and November in Houston is a communist.
Shirts look great, thank you again for all your hard work and generosity. E-mail sent.
R63 full of shirts headed to the post office!
The biggest challenge in all of this is data management. Mrs. Deuce took over and now things seem to be running smoothly. If you sent an address and don't hear anything from us it's because there is a shirt on the way. If we need clarification (user name to cross you off the list or size or something) then you'll hear back. If you haven't sent an address yet then I'll start pinging people with PM's in a little bit.
mck1117 said:Wait a sec, isn't welding spring steel kind of, uh, bad?
It mostly depends on the alloy, the style of joinery, and the filler rod/wire.
Most of the OEM stuff older than the 80's is pretty easy to weld, the primary concern becomes crystalization through improper/inadequate heat cycling. Proper pre/post heating is critical to prevent making glass springs.
IMO the primary concern here is the idea of welding flexy bits to non-flexy bits. Secondly, I don't like how the axle leverages the leaf spring against the coil spring.
I'd imagine the reasoning behind the added spring wasn't actually for loaded weight, but to help reduce front end dive under braking while towing.
Older sling type tow rigs were particularly bad about excessive weight transfer under hard braking. I used to operate a 69 GMC 1 ton sling truck, and it would bottom out the front suspension in an emergency stop with a full size vehicle on.
Standard procedure for Dakar trucks is to run long single or double springs primarily for locating the axle and either airbags or extra coils on the shocks.
wow that's an interesting solution to maybe make my one ton van ride more smoothly. And MazD, the offer for large sockets is always open. Let me know if you need one or a bunch! Pm sent for shirt shipping details. And my real vs user name isn't hard to discern. Lol
Thanks
Paul
Shirts look Great. PM sent.
This picture is mostly for me so I can figure out where the cable for the parking brake and the speedometer cable go. The booster is out and I just need to remove the horns and the bracketry that holds the hydraulics. The intention was to get that done today but we're having our first afternoon rain shower in a long time. Rain delay.
mck1117 said:Wait a sec, isn't welding spring steel kind of, uh, bad?
Depends how good you are, old mechanics will tell you about taking broken leaves to be forge welded at the blacksmith shop
mazdeuce said:Standard procedure for Dakar trucks is to run long single or double springs primarily for locating the axle and either airbags or extra coils on the shocks.
I like where this (may be) going...
I'll pm my address to you.
In reply to XLR99 :
The thing is, I can SEE it. Leaves front and rear is easy and period correct. If I wanted to build it to be a "drive fast in the dirt" truck it would make the most sense to switch to 1 ton running gear and disk brakes. It already has 38's on it, something around a 42-44 should fit the wheel arches, especially with the bit of lift that a driven front axle would require. I'd track down another set of front fenders and run them over the rear tires, keep the bed as narrow as the cab and run a canvas top over bows. It would look like a narrow truck with huge flares. Motor choice would be secondary to the whole thing at that point but it would be gas and spin to 8k because high rpm gas engines are glorious.
So I can see it. Technically none of it is hard though I've never actually done a lot of it. The big question is whether or not I drop the $10k+ it would take to make it happen. At this point it makes the most sense to spend very small $ and make it work. Taking a couple of months to do that costs me almost nothing but time, and in exchange I get to learn about all of the existing systems on the truck instead of just throwing them away.
If anyone sees another one of these in a junkyard or field, let me know, I need the front fenders. 
In reply to mazdeuce :
I feel like the further you dig into this... and find the ways that it's already been modified will give you more license to take it into whatever direction fits your fancy... vs trying to keep it "as is"... I say while understanding the value in living with a thing long enough to hear it when whisper it's own directions
The electric over hydraulic I was thinking of was the trailer stuff.
Since the 1-ton GM trucks use independent front suspension you could fab up some end pieces for a tube axle that would hold the ifs front spindles like on a 4wd straight axle truck but let the dif mount to the frame like a DeDion axle. Space the inner end of the axle shafts out so that you get the right width and bam, the pinnacle of 60s suspension technology. Two front Rockwells would be easier though.
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