MudMarine
Member
- 117
- 15
- 18
- Location
- Jacksonville NC
So a year ago my dad and I went in on buying a Deuce together, something we had wanted to do for more than a decade. We shopped around and found a decent AirForce model. We didn't have a very big time window to pick it up. (I'm in the military and he is a corporate pilot) but our schedules matched up for about a 4 day period where we traveled probably close to a 1,000 miles to look at 4 trucks, buy one, and drive it to his hangar in GA. This AF truck was in the best shape but had a brake leak from what we now know is a vent tube. For some reason we got lucky in that if you capped it off completely, the truck built brake pressure fine and stopped strong... Dumb luck on our part because it made the 3 hour trip to it new home where it sat for a year.
Fast forward to now. I'm looking at orders this summer to move again but I was really hoping to drive it daily some at my house and on base, because why not?? My 4yr old loves it and my wife thinks it's pretty cool. Winning all around there.
So I meet up with my dad this week to get all the work done we thought we needed to do to make it road worthy. Log story short, this truck kicked our asses, we learned a lot about it, and we didn't compromise on our safety "go; no-go" criteria. Now that we're out of time to finish all our tasks, I thought I'd lay out some questions for y'alls advice and opinions to see if we're on the right track or not.
Brake fluid:
Pretty sure the previous owners poured some amount of Dot 3 in the system which we know is not good. After purging the system should the fluid be perfectly purple or is a deep red ok? Pictures coming soon!
Wheel bearings:
- On the back in-board bearings, we saw some discoloration on the race, assuming these bearings are trash now?
- Do y'all ONLY run Timken or has anybody had good/bad luck with National BCA?
- After installing new or reusing good old bearings, how freely should the bearing race spin on the spindle? At first I was thinking there should be zero movement period, but as we thought about it, if there was zero movement, then you wouldn't be able to put these on by hand, so how much is ok?
Steering Knuckle:
How the hell do you get the steering arm off the knuckle on the driver's side?? We were going to replace both boots with good solid rubber ones but gave up on the driver's side because we could only get two of the 4 conical spacers out of the steering arm and could not get the arm off to pull the kingpin bushing. Any tips here?
Air tanks:
Anyone have problems with their tanks not sitting back into the cradles correctly? The aft part of my tanks are too far apart and won't sit perfectly in the morning cradle. I can stick a finger in between the bottom of the in-board tank and the bracket but the tank doesn't move at all.... Is this maybe the clocking of my air line fittings?
Fun facts:
- When you repack your wheel bearings and check the wheel cylinder for signs of leakage, stick a pick under the rubber and pull it off the bottom of the wheel cylinder to check for fluid buildup/leaks. It's not like a car one in that if it leaks any amount it will be wet. We saw a tip for this on Tactical Repair's YouTube. If you're on this forum btw, thank you for your videos. But we had a case of exactly what he said, the wheel cylinder was BONE DRY on the outside, pulled that rubber aside and out came a bug glug of fluid.... Sad thing is that we didn't learn this until after to put the front axle back together and off jacks.... Gonna have to redo that work!!
- Once you've checked those and put the hubs (AVM manual hub upgrades) back on, remove the brake drum inspection cover and do a minor brake adjustment check! Again, part of the reason our wheels are coming back off.
- A harbor freight transmission jack works PERFECTLY as a rear hub jack!
I'm sure y'all probably know these things, but I wanted to put it out there just in case. These forums and the TM's were fairly helpful but they're no replacement for experience!!
All said and done we got a lot of work done but left plenty on the table...
- Repacked front bearings
- Repacked passenger rear and intermediate axle wheel bearings
- Greased trunion bearings
-Upgraded the AVM hubs
-Replaced front brake lines
-Replaced passenger side airpack to fix our leak. (AirForce dual system truck)
- Oil and filters
- Fuel filters
- Air filter
- Trans oil
- T-case oil
- all 3 diff oil
- one wheel cylinder (so far)
- Replaced leaking air tank (previous patch still holding though!)
- Installed side pull drain valves
- Replaced lower radiator hose
- Replaced batteries with new military ones
- aaannnd I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some more stuff while I sit here because I'm tired from working all day! I'll post up some pictures ASAP
Fast forward to now. I'm looking at orders this summer to move again but I was really hoping to drive it daily some at my house and on base, because why not?? My 4yr old loves it and my wife thinks it's pretty cool. Winning all around there.
So I meet up with my dad this week to get all the work done we thought we needed to do to make it road worthy. Log story short, this truck kicked our asses, we learned a lot about it, and we didn't compromise on our safety "go; no-go" criteria. Now that we're out of time to finish all our tasks, I thought I'd lay out some questions for y'alls advice and opinions to see if we're on the right track or not.
Brake fluid:
Pretty sure the previous owners poured some amount of Dot 3 in the system which we know is not good. After purging the system should the fluid be perfectly purple or is a deep red ok? Pictures coming soon!
Wheel bearings:
- On the back in-board bearings, we saw some discoloration on the race, assuming these bearings are trash now?
- Do y'all ONLY run Timken or has anybody had good/bad luck with National BCA?
- After installing new or reusing good old bearings, how freely should the bearing race spin on the spindle? At first I was thinking there should be zero movement period, but as we thought about it, if there was zero movement, then you wouldn't be able to put these on by hand, so how much is ok?
Steering Knuckle:
How the hell do you get the steering arm off the knuckle on the driver's side?? We were going to replace both boots with good solid rubber ones but gave up on the driver's side because we could only get two of the 4 conical spacers out of the steering arm and could not get the arm off to pull the kingpin bushing. Any tips here?
Air tanks:
Anyone have problems with their tanks not sitting back into the cradles correctly? The aft part of my tanks are too far apart and won't sit perfectly in the morning cradle. I can stick a finger in between the bottom of the in-board tank and the bracket but the tank doesn't move at all.... Is this maybe the clocking of my air line fittings?
Fun facts:
- When you repack your wheel bearings and check the wheel cylinder for signs of leakage, stick a pick under the rubber and pull it off the bottom of the wheel cylinder to check for fluid buildup/leaks. It's not like a car one in that if it leaks any amount it will be wet. We saw a tip for this on Tactical Repair's YouTube. If you're on this forum btw, thank you for your videos. But we had a case of exactly what he said, the wheel cylinder was BONE DRY on the outside, pulled that rubber aside and out came a bug glug of fluid.... Sad thing is that we didn't learn this until after to put the front axle back together and off jacks.... Gonna have to redo that work!!
- Once you've checked those and put the hubs (AVM manual hub upgrades) back on, remove the brake drum inspection cover and do a minor brake adjustment check! Again, part of the reason our wheels are coming back off.
- A harbor freight transmission jack works PERFECTLY as a rear hub jack!
I'm sure y'all probably know these things, but I wanted to put it out there just in case. These forums and the TM's were fairly helpful but they're no replacement for experience!!
All said and done we got a lot of work done but left plenty on the table...
- Repacked front bearings
- Repacked passenger rear and intermediate axle wheel bearings
- Greased trunion bearings
-Upgraded the AVM hubs
-Replaced front brake lines
-Replaced passenger side airpack to fix our leak. (AirForce dual system truck)
- Oil and filters
- Fuel filters
- Air filter
- Trans oil
- T-case oil
- all 3 diff oil
- one wheel cylinder (so far)
- Replaced leaking air tank (previous patch still holding though!)
- Installed side pull drain valves
- Replaced lower radiator hose
- Replaced batteries with new military ones
- aaannnd I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some more stuff while I sit here because I'm tired from working all day! I'll post up some pictures ASAP
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