This morning I packed up the Scout and drove over to Brian H’s house to help him drop the transmission out of his Wagonmaster along with a bunch of other IH friends. Mr. Scout brought his new Rough Country springs to install on Chewbacca, so he pulled it into the driveway next to the other truck and we commenced to getting dirty.
By the time I’d gotten there, a lot of the hard work on the Wagonmaster had been done, so I focused mainly on helping with the springs and staying out of the way. Getting the old springs off was relatively easy minus one finicky shackle bolt, and I concentrated on replacing his shocks with new ones from the kit. Getting the new springs on went well, but the centering pin for the U-bolt bracket seemed to be too big and wouldn’t seat properly. Air tools were produced, the pin was shaved down, and things seemed to go into place pretty quickly after that.
Over on the Wagonmaster, I helped brace the transmission and ease it down between exhaust pipes to the ground. After laying a steel bar over the bay, we circled it with a ratchet strap and secured it in place. Then we jacked the front of the truck up from the pumpkin and slid the transmission out on a piece of cardboard.
Alan brought along an entire emergency brake assembly to replace mine, which has been useless since I broke the handle off last year. It was a pretty simple procedure to unbolt the bad unit, disconnect the wire, and bolt the good one back in. It looks like the handle on the this unit is cracked, so I’ll have to source a new one, but at least it works without a pair of pliers. Knowing how easy it was to pull off, I’m going to add it to the list of parts that will get removed, wire-wheeled, painted, and replaced.
Brian’s truck looks much better now that it’s riding at a reasonable height.
