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1958 Chevy Truck Total Cost Involved Leaf Spring Kit & Eaton Posi Install - Tri-Five Rear Slam & Rebuild For Under $2,000Tri-Five Rear Slam & Rebuild For Under $2,000 From the January, 2009 issue of Custom Classic Trucks By Dakota Wentz Photography by Mike Harrington
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Building an old truck from the ground up is no easy feat. It takes patience, skill, time, and most of all money. Lots of money. For that reason, a builder has to pick and choose where to spend. Sure, we would all love to build our trucks exactly how we picture them but oftentimes we have to crunch the numbers and build within a budget. When building along these lines it's always nice when someone throws you a bone, so to speak. When building '55-59 Chevy trucks pretty much everything needs to be replaced or refurbished due to age. One can redo the entire rear suspension and rearend with all new parts for around $2,000; that's someone throwing you a major bone. If you're looking to overhaul the rear suspension of your truck on a budget a great way to go is the Total Cost Involved bolt-in rear leaf kit. Their kit features all brand-new components including leaf springs, shocks, brackets, and hardware that bolt to the chassis. On top of that, this kit will also lower the rear of your truck 4 inches by flipping the axle. Best of all, it's slightly more than $500. The second part of overhauling the rear of a truck is completely rebuilding the rearend from hub to hub. By using entry-level components, in terms of function not quality, one can rebuild any rearend ending with a stout street rompin' rearend. For our GM 10-bolt rearend, which is complementing the Total Cost Involved Engineering kit in this story, we got ahold of Yukon Gear and Axle and Master Power brakes for all the necessary components, which we'll dive into later. In the end, we rebuilt the entire rearend from hub to hub for around $1,400. All together, the entire back half of this '58 Chevy was made over for just under $2,000. Not exactly chump change but seeing all we got for that amount of dough makes it an absolute steal.  Although this job can be handled...  Although this job can be handled with the bed on, it's strongly advised to remove the bed. The crew at Total Cost Involved engaged the grinder and began removing all of the factory rivets.  After they sliced all the...  After they sliced all the rivets in half, an air chisel was employed to remove what was left.  Once the entire rearend is...  Once the entire rearend is undone the weight is thrown off balance. Remember to place jackstands or equivalent under the front end to keep something disastrous from happening.  The next step is to bolt on...  The next step is to bolt on the new Total Cost Involved shock brackets. In order to locate the new mounting position, move 31/2-inches out from each of the original mounting holes.  Before any holes were drilled,...  Before any holes were drilled, a flat piece of metal, placed at the bottom of each bracket, is used in order to make sure each bracket is level.  All the hardware needed to...  All the hardware needed to install the kit is provided, next the holes are drilled and the brackets are mounted.  The leaf-spring brackets install...  The leaf-spring brackets install in the same location as the stock ones. It may be necessary to drill a few holes to align the brackets. Once in place, the leaf springs are installed.  The only welding required...  The only welding required are the spring pads to the rearend housing. Spring pads are welded to the underside of the housing at a 3-degree pinion angle.  After that, the housing is...  After that, the housing is installed to the leaf springs with the provided hardware.  The last Total Cost Involved...  The last Total Cost Involved mounting plates installed are the upper shock mount plates, mounted on the inboard side of the stock upper shock crossmember with three bolts. Once mounted, the shocks are then bolted to the upper and lower mounts.  All done. Here's the Total...  All done. Here's the Total Cost Involved leaf spring kit setup completely installed...  ...Simple, yet so efficie...  ...Simple, yet so efficient.  Now it's time to rebuild the...  Now it's time to rebuild the rearend, in this case an affordable Chevy 8.2 10-bolt. Harry at Harrison's Restorations let's run down the parts that are going into this build. The Yukon Ring and Pinion (PN YG GM8.2-355) is a standard 8.2 3.55 gear ratio that is made of 8620 steel. We decided to go with some stout middle-of-the-road gears, which will be highway friendly as well as giving us just a little more bottom-end grunt.  We also ordered this Yukon...  We also ordered this Yukon Master Overhaul Kit for a '64-72 GM 8.2-inch 10-bolt. Included in this kit are carrier bearings and races, pinion bearings and races, pinion seal, complete shim kit, ring gear bolts, pinion nut, crush sleeve (if applicable), oil baffles, and slingers (if applicable), thread locking compound, marking compound with brush, and a rearend gasket.  Here is the Yukon 8.2-inch...  Here is the Yukon 8.2-inch axle (PN YA G1255802-SH) we choose for the build. The new axles are 301/4-inches, with a 2.780-inch hub, and 28 spline count. On the left is the OE axle we pulled, and on the right is the new Yukon axle. Notice the Yukon axle hub is thicker, which makes them 20 - 25 percent stronger than OE.  Forget having a peg leg wheel,...  Forget having a peg leg wheel, the Eaton Positraction unit (PN EAT19603) uses heavy-duty internals and carbon fiber clutches for a strong, long-lasting unit. As an added bonus the Eaton unit is also rebuildable.  Finally, the last addition...  Finally, the last addition is the Master Power 11-inch drum brakes for 10- and 12-bolt GM rearends, found in '64-77 GM midsize cars and '67-81 Camaro/Firebirds, an alternative to a pricier set of disc brakes.  One thing that comes with...  One thing that comes with the kit is detailed instructions. We realize that men are not supposed to read instructions, but how else would we get the pinion pre-load numbers, and torque specs for the ring gear bolts.  After the pinion gear, bearings,...  After the pinion gear, bearings, and crush sleeve are installed; pinion bearing load is checked with an in-lb wrench. Save the original pinion shims in order to help determine pinion depth. The instructions call for 12 - 15 in-lb of preload. The easiest way to check this is to rotate the pinion nut with the torque wrench. Double check the torque specs after the bearings have set. Harry used red Loctite on the pinion nut.  When installing the carrier...  When installing the carrier and gear, we saved the original shims as a starting point for backlash measurement. Sometimes setting backlash is a trial-and-error process. In our case the original shims were too tight a fit, so Harry used the shims supplied in the kit to get the backlash properly set.  Setting the backlash requires...  Setting the backlash requires that the pinion gear be immobilized, while the ring gear is rotated back and forth. Moving the ring gear towards or away from the pinion gear centerline, helps determine the amount of rotation backlash and meshing of the gears. Harry set the backlash in the rearend to 0.003-inch.  Once Harry believed he had...  Once Harry believed he had the proper backlash set, he used gear marking compound to check the pattern wear on the teeth of the ring gear. There are around 18 different illustrations in the instruction booklet that deal with acceptable wear patterns. As you can see, the gear wear pattern on our ring gear is as close to center as we could get it, which according to the instructions is acceptable.  Lastly, the Master Power drum...  Lastly, the Master Power drum brakes and Yukon C-clip axles are installed. And that rounds out our budget rearend/suspension install. A heck of a setup for under $2,000.
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The Thinker??? - Haul Monitor
Ryan talks about the friendly badgering that goes on around the shop and overcoming obstacles that seemly pop up out of nowhere during a project....
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