Here's some close-ups of a couple tires on the truck now. Easy to understand why I wanted to replace them:
It's funny seeing tires with such good tread and intact wear nubs dry rotted that bad, but here we are.
Here's some close-ups of a couple tires on the truck now. Easy to understand why I wanted to replace them:
It's funny seeing tires with such good tread and intact wear nubs dry rotted that bad, but here we are.
IIRC back in the Aughts Michelin had a problem with their LTX truck tires developing dry rot cracks within 30K miles of wear. A friend of mine had a set on her Tundra and went through hoops to get a pro-rated replacement set. Treadwear was great, nowhere near the wear indicators and intact wear nubs, but cracking between the treads and on the sidewall. Had to look it up to make sure it wasn't a fever dream, it really did happen https://drivenwheels.com/heres-why-michelin-tires-crack-explained/
In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
I had a few cars in the family that came with Michelin Energy MXV4 tires, and they did the same thing. I had some on a 2002 Jetta that were dry rotted by 10k miles. VW, like everything else that was wrong with that steaming pile of a car, said "Oh, that's normal".
My Trans Am's BFG's did the same thing as well. I'll replace those when the car gets used more. The early 2000's were a bad time for Michelin. They have gotten better since.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Yuck!
So, these showed up.
In person, they appear to be taller and skinnier than what's on the truck. Taller, I knew. Skinnier though, I was not prepared for, and that's probably the proportions fooling the naked eye, as they are a smidge wider than the stock 235's. I think they are going to look amazing. The sidewall siping doesn't look as goofy as I thought it would.
Hopefully I can get them mounted ASAP.
Got an appointment tomorrow morning to get those tires mounted at a local shop. And man, when did tire mounting + balancing get so damn expensive? Looking at almost $200 to get that done! Everywhere around here is the same. Pre-pandemic, this same place was $115 including disposal, and they were on the higher side.
And yeah, these should work nicely. A little taller and just a hair wider. I can't wait to get these on there.
This morning, I took the truck to get the tires mounted. One of these things is not like the others...
They said that it was basically a miracle the old ones didn't blow out on me. 14 years old by the date codes! After showing them all the EFI/Magnum stuff once the tires were installed, I took off. Truck rides so, so much better now. And it looks a lot better, too.
As expected, they are just a bit taller and slightly wider, but they do give off that tall/skinny vibe that fits this type of truck so well. I think they look great, and knowing that they aren't going to blow apart at the seams now makes me feel a lot better about driving the truck more. I can finally take it on the highway!
Now to fix everything else, starting with whatever the hell is squeaking under the truck. Still multiple squeaks, and one is rotational, so I think the last two U-joints are the next repair.
i'm not a truck guy in the least, but i love what's happening here.
Last time I paid $120 to have tires dismounted and disposed of I ordered tire machines from Amazon. Liking the look, purposeful
white walls, always out
Those look RIGHT.
In reply to fidelity101 :
Buying raised white letter tires and installing said raised white letters inside instead of facing out should be a Federal crime. It's the American way.
With the truck FINALLY sporting a new set of tires and most of the U-joints replaced, I felt better about driving the truck more, and at higher speeds. I drove the truck a lot over this weekend, and it felt great. I got it up to around 60MPH and it felt normal. If you've been following this thread for a while, you know that's a HUGE win. I'll push it to "modern" highway speeds once the last two u-joints have been replaced.
Also, the speedo is about 8mph off now, due to it being the wrong scale and the taller tires, but that's what GPS is for. I even took the wife to our job site with it this weekend... in 1987...
Our house rebuild project is humming along nicely, and one of my favorite parts is having new vantage points for cool pictures of my crappy vehicles! It looks right at home here, doesn't it?
The wife also complained about the lack of A/C this weekend, and it wasn't even that hot! I definitely want to add it in the future, but no one makes a direct fit kit, so I'll have to figure that out. It's going to have to be pieced together with a menagerie of parts.
Also, I almost forgot:
As you know, I've been chasing squeaks and squeals on this thing since I dragged it home 4+ years ago. While trying to stop a 44+ year old pickup from making strange noises is about as feasible as digging a dry hole in the ocean, I did find one. And it was in a very unexpected place!
Loaded that thing up with Fluid Film, and he quieted right down. Now to chase the 52,741 other squeaks, squeals and rattles....
Over the weekend, I decided to drive the truck everywhere and anywhere to basically see if any other issues would rear their ugly heads. I probably put 150 miles on the thing driving all over the place, and it did great! The biggest win was taking it on the highway. This was VERY risky with the old tires, but between replacing those, most of the U-joints, and the ball joints, the truck now does highway things without feeling like it's going to fly apart. I had it up to around 65mph, but with the steep gears, it's most comfortable around 60mph. It just feels like a regular old truck now, and it is a great cruiser. Getting a solid 10MPG out of it now, and I think with some minor tweaks to the tune, I can eek out a few more MPGs. But 10 is certainly better than the 5 I was getting at one point with the carbed 318, so that's ok. Still squeaks like a MFer, but I have a plan to fix that.
And for fun, here's the truck on a local back road wearing the old BFG's and the new ones.
Before:
After:
Not too much of a difference in looks, but man, it's so much better to drive! It just looks and feels RIGHT.
I'll be scheduling time to replace the last two U-joints soon at my friend's place; it's sorta up and in there (it's the front shaft to the front axle) so having a lift will be helpful. I've almost certainly pinpointed these as the sort of my mystery squeak, mainly by process of elimination. There's not much else that can be doing it, since I've replaced and/or lubed just about everything else! Maybe I'll fix that crooked front bumper while it's up there. That's driving me nuts!
Another thing that's been driving me nuts lately is the fact that the truck leans to the left in the rear. I think I've mentioned it before, but the bands that go around the leaf spring on that side have broken and the spring is collapsed a bit. Since it's unlikely to ever get them to sit even again, the only real solution is to replace them. I already did the fronts for the same reasons, so this has always been on the list.
Looking at them yesterday, these have SEVEN leaves total in the back. Not sure if these are the originals, but most W150's had either a 4+1 "standard" or 5+1 leaf "heavy duty" spring. I'm thinking someone swapped in W300 heavy duty springs at some point out back for some reason. It does look like the truck had some sort of heavy duty suspension package originally, but I replaced the heavy duty ones up front with a 3 leaf "standard duty" spring, and that did wonders for ride quality and handling, so I think I'm going to do the same out back. The truck's heavy hauling days are basically over at this point anyway, and I'm also hoping this will even out the absurd rake the truck has going on out back.
This pic is actually of the side with the collapsing spring. It's even worse on the other side! Having it leveled off would just look better.
Over the weekend, I was talking with friends about our various project vehicle's MPGs, when I realized I've been calculating my truck's MPGs wrong since I put on the new tires. With the new, taller tires, the speedometer is slow about 7mph from what my GPS registers when driving. I've been using the ACar/Fuelly app for years to calculate mileage on all my cars, but it doesn't account for this variance. To calculate the variance, you divide a GPS-indicated speed by the speedometer speed (in my case, 1.16) and then multiply it by the MPG calculation to get the real number. For example, my last tank was 9.8mpg. After accounting for the variance, that's 11.3. My best since the the tires/U-Joint work was 12.1mpg.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "That's still awful!"
But consider this: At one point, this same truck was getting 5mpg regularly with a LA318 with a 2bbl carb. I yanked that induction setup, tossed on EFI, and then swapped to a Magnum 5.9. I've essentially doubled my horsepower/torque AND doubled its efficiency in the process! Anything above 10mpg in a full-time 4WD full size truck is a massive win, as far as I'm concerned! Interested to see how high I can get that number now!
In reply to Tony Sestito :
IIRC, they make a part-time conversion kit for these critters. That will bump your efficiency, as these trucks don't drop out of 4wd until 25-30mph with the full-time transfer case. Mile Marker P/N 501 for the T-case. If you want manual hubs, you gotta do an axle swap.
In reply to Recon1342 :
I'm OK with it being full-time. In the winter, it is unreal! It will go anywhere, anytime. Also, from what I heard, the part time kit has been discontinued for the Mopar flavor of the NP203 for a long time. I checked the Mile Marker site and that still seems to be the case. They offer the Ford/GM conversions for their versions of the NP203, but not the Mopar one. I have also read that converting to part-time on these causes other internal issues like chain stretching/breaking, etc. so I'm inclined to leave it alone.
I don't drive it as a daily, so as a weekend parts getter/fun cruiser, the MPG is fine.
Not much new to report this week, other than yesterday's fun...
It was absolutely perfect outside yesterday, so my wife wanted to get out of the house to go on a cruise. Normally, we would take her CX-50 for this purpose, but I somehow convinced her to take the truck instead. She isn't the biggest fan of the thing for two reasons:
-She is short and getting in/out is hard
-There is no A/C, and it can get hot in the cab on warmer days
I was able to get the rear slider to do rear slider things recently after soaking the dry gaskets in silicone spray, so with those open, the vent windows positioned, and the cab vents opened up, it was downright breezy in the truck. We drove the thing about 75-100 miles, all the way down to the South Coast, Cape Cod, through some other really cool rural areas in southeastern MA, and more. The truck didn't skip a beat, and she even complimented the ride and how well it ran after all the work I've done this year. That validation felt great!
It's really coming into its own as a fun cruiser that can tackle our weird New England roads, and once I fix/tweak a few more things, it should be pretty darn close to perfect for an old, patina'ed 4x4 rig. I love this stupid truck.
It's been a couple months since the last update. Since then, I've been doing lots of Truck Stuff related to our house build project, making runs to the dump to get rid of construction debris and going to the home improvement store to pick up everything from wiring and lighting to bathroom fixtures. Truck has been earning its keep, despite the issues with the bad leaf spring out back and the fact that I need to get the last two U-joints swapped in. It just keeps working, and I need it!
Over the weekend, I was coming back from a dump run, and I hit a particularly rough bump, and I felt the floor "pop". So when I got back to the house, I took a peek at the floors...
There seems to be less floor attached to the truck than when I left the apartment in the morning. I think the truck is politely asking me to weld in the floors that I bought the week I dragged it home nearly 5 years ago. So yeah... I'll have to add that to my list of things to do. I was hoping to get this done after the house was done, but I may not be able to wait. The best part is that these have been patched in the past (albeit terribly) and that rotted through as well!
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Look a the positives, you will be able to see what not to do!
My biggest fear is digging into the floors and finding all sorts of other stuff that needs to be addressed; opening a "can of worms" is not ideal right now, since I not only need the truck for Truck Stuff, I have no place to really work on it. And winter is coming.
The plan already on the agenda was to pull the seat, replace the floors, modify the seat frame to sit lower (been meaning to do this since summer 2022), seam seal/paint/undercoat, and fix the D/S seat belt mounting area. I also wanted to do sound deadening and installing a rubber floor instead of carpet (already have the flooring from ACC and most of the sound deadener). That's a lot to cover in a weekend, even without finding other unknown issues. If I can line up time with some friends to do a weekend thrash session, I can probably get it done.
If I can slap a patch on it for now, even if it's screwed in, that would be better than nothing. I'm just not sure there's anything to "slap a patch" onto without replacing everything.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I'm always careful with timing and opening the can of worms especially since someone has already been in there.
In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah, at least I know what's in this can, mostly. I can see the lack of good sheet metal from under the truck! The tricky parts are the inner rockers and the seatbelt mount on the driver's side. I already replaced the one on the passenger side. Even in dry climates, the floors are the first thing to go on these. What I'm afraid of are issues with crossmembers and cab mounts that aren't entirely visible underneath. I know someone has been in there with the cab mounts, which is less than good.
The other problem is that the windshield leaks. That's another can of worms I can't tackle right now. The area surrounding the windshield looks really suspect, so I may try using some sort of sealant there for now. I'd love to get a new cab for the thing, but that's not in the cards right now. That's slated for when I "make the truck nice". Maybe.
I have a welder, I have the pre-fab floor pans, I have a new reinforced seatbelt mounting point, and I probably have some scrap metal to make the rest of the bits I need. It's really just a matter of having the time and place to do the work; none of this really scares me after doing floors in a few other vehicles that were much worse. I can't lay it up at home, since we're in the middle of construction and I don't have outdoor power yet. That's the tricky part.
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