Charlie, 
        when you make the Pumpkin holder for the jack, make two. I'll take one, that's neat.
   

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

It is well below the height of the mounting flange so there is plenty of clearance.



Lawrenceville, GA

Hope you did a quick gear clearance check on that drain plug install.  Would hate for you to get a noise you couldn't figure out.  LOL.  Just a caution.  Joe-JDC

JDC

Yeah, mig weld.  I think I'm pretty decent when I can work out in the open, with good lighting and plenty of room.  But upside down, with poor lighting and with sparks falling on me and limited space available for positioning, that makes it a little more challenging - I still need lots of practice with that.

If I had known how thick the housing is in that area, I probably would have simply drilled and tapped, but I do like that this plug is flush with the housing and it has more threads than the housing alone will allow.


Lawrenceville, GA

Nice work Charlie! Did you MIG weld the drain plug port in the rear housing? If so, it had to be tough to do.

  Ron Lane,  Meridian, ID

Got it installed a couple weeks ago.  Traction is a lot better on dry pavement and slightly better on wet.  Hopefully that will translate to more consistency, better 60 foots and lower et's.



I made a holder to use with my transmission jack.  This is a prototype, proof of concept   I'm sure I can make it better and it will probably work better with a normal, typical shop floor jack.



Also installed a drain plug, applied some epoxy to hide my gnarly weld and ensure that it is leak free.  So far it is leak free.




Lawrenceville, GA

Looking good, hope it works well for you.

My understanding is that the roll centre alters the drive characteristics such as, understeer by lowering the rear and alternatively if raised it will tail around and oversteer.
Similar to sway bars.
Don't know if it will alter straight line traction, I think that has more to do with spring and shocker placement and in your case the geometry of the caltracs.

Got some goodies today.  Detroit True Trac differential,  Moser axles and center section.  Should be strong enough for the turbo engine (when I get to that in about 30 years ) and absolutely bullet proof for the current engine.  The ratio is the same, 3.70, most likely not what I will end up running, but that needs to be the same for now so I can properly evaluate the engine changes I did last year.  Hopefully this actually results in less spinning off the line, for more conclusive test and tune results.

I plan to get them installed this weekend.




Lawrenceville, GA

Nice work Charlie. I know some grad engineers that would be jealous!

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

I think we can work something out. I don't normally do this, but for you, I'll accept an Eaton blower motor for compensation

I made a novice mistake and didn't make sure that the non-stock shocks would work. The shocks are for a '68, the axle is a '68, the bracket angle is the same, the dimensions came from the axle brackets, so I assumed they would work, but they didn't for whatever reason. Maybe the frame mounts on the '68 put them at a different angle. I had to support the truck by the frame to allow the axle to sag and ensure that there is enough clearance. When the axle is at it's lowest point is where the angle is the most extreme relative to the brackets.








Lawrenceville, GA