Thread: 53 Is back from the Body Shop

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Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

Just a normal pickup doing normal pickup things

Have a safe trip, and have fun exploring the Bad Lands!

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

Just a normal pickup doing normal pickup things

Love seeing an old pickup doing what it was designed to do.

The Black Hills trip won't be for about another month. We're taking it about 2 hours west of here Saturday to the Missouri River where there's a ATV trail park. We figured this would be a good trial run for Rita pulling a trailer, and for the Ranger at the trails.. If something needs attention, I just soon have it happen now.

Have a good trip and make sure to swing over to the old Sioux Falls steel plant while you can.

We made it to Talsma Trail park and back last Saturday, we had a fun time there. We pulled up there about 11 am and two guys came walking up to us pretty fast and said we've never had a pickup like this here before Turns out it was the owner and his friend, and his friends boy is doing a 54 right now. We talked about the pickups for awhile then hit the trails. I didn't get too many pics but I'm sure glad I put a winch on the Ranger as you can in the pic, we had that thing buried in muck The Missouri River looks like its getting pretty low as well. A couple things I found out is there is not enough tongue weight on Rita, it squatted a bit but it needs more, I always thought it felt a little swirly but not terrible. I found out the tongue weight when I hit 70 mph down a hill and the trailer started jumping back and forth. I don't know if any of you have had that but you really don't know how it will end. I quickly slowed down and then hit the gas to pull it out of it and it finally calmed down. I didn't go over 60 after that and nearly had to clean my shorts.I wonder if the wind drag started doing a kite effect on the Ranger roof and started lifting the trailer a bit. Another is the back brakes didn't work as they should. I got that fixed tonight as I found out the Ford master cyl front and rear ports are opposite than GM. I swapped the lines around on the proportioning valve and holy smokes, I got brakes now! If I'm going to the Hills, brakes need to work like their supposed to. I need to address the trailer situation and we should be Black Hills ready.

Fishtailing indicates not enough weight on the drawbar alright.
It's frightening isn't it?

Many times the front suspension is lifted from IMPROPER weight balance and fish tailing is induced from loss of stability in the front steering-----------

Agreed.
But that's when there is too much weight on the tow bar and it's the towing vehicle that starts to fishtail...and that's even more frightening!
What Seth had was the towed vehicle (his trailer,) fishtailing.

I once had two tyres blow on the same side on a fully laden (gvw about 12 tons,) milk tanker.
I looked in my l/h mirror to see my trailer coming around sideways to meet me..."Keep that right foot hard down boy!"
She straightened up thankfully and I was able to stop without totalling anything.

But that was bloody terrifying for what seemed like two minutes; but was more likely less than ten seconds.

Getting the tongue weight right is critical. I needed to trailer my Jeep to a shop about 70 miles away, loaded it behind my old beater '90 F150 and had the tongue too light, almost zero. I turned around after about 5 miles - the thing was squirrely! Moved the Jeep up about 6", which dropped the bumper about 2" and it pulled like it wasn't there!

In my limited experience Johnboy's analysis rings true, and he's driven about a million miles towing heavy loads over those twisty NZ roadways. Too little tongue weight and your trailer wags, too much and the truck gets pushed and you have almost no control because the front is trying to float, like Jerry said. Like many things, the right balance is the key to happiness.

Have you tried backing your Polaris onto the trailer to see if it balances better?

I have not tried that, the motor is located in the center of the Polaris so I don't know if that would change a lot. It's not my trailer, I'm glad I got to borrow it so I know what to look for one that is longer. My brother-in-law has a longer tandem axle trailer that he converted from boat trailer, I will use that one going to the Hills. He is using my pickup to go this weekend and I get to borrow his trailer when I go. Trailers are at a premium right now around me, when things cool off a bit I'll snoop around looking for one.

Here we go, rack #3. Pulled the old rack out and decided that with that out of the way it would be a good time to cut out my cobble jobbed motor mounts out and put in the right ones ( this was something that happened when I first put the 5.3 in. It was measuring error ) then I put the new rack back in. I adjusted the toe in and for some reason thought I should check my sway bar pre-load, turns out it had a lot pressure on it so I also adjusted that back to neutral load ( tell me if thats wrong ). I started it up to back it out and I was blown away how quiet and smooth it was inside the cab with the new mounts in, that was until my A/C kicked in. Turns out the motor dropped just enough for the A/C clutch to rub on the inner fender so I pried that back but still had a terrible A/C noise. Turns out the whole bracket was resting on the inner fender, it sounded like the compressor was in the cab with a mega phone. I've come the the point on this Rita where an easy fix is a good fix. I cut the offending inner fender section out with a cut off wheel and screwed a rubber flap over the hole in it's place. Everything was a lot more screwing around that this paragraph describes but as of right now Rita has never driven this good or been so quiet and smooth in the cab. I kinda laugh at the " show truck " I was going to build 25 yrs ago, looking at the bottom of it now, I shouldn't need the fence ropes and the undercarriage mirrors LOL. Most of the oil leak stuff you see is from the leaking rack and pinions.

Nice job! IMHO, yours is more of a show truck than 90% out there, and in my opinion a driver is more fun than a shower any way.
ENJOY!

Originally Posted by 36 sedan

Nice job! IMHO, yours is more of a show truck than 90% out there, and in my opinion a driver is more fun than a shower any way.
ENJOY!

Thanks!, The odometer just hit 9,200 miles so that's a little over 3,000 mi a year we've been putting on it, that's with a 6-month driving window that we're given here in the Midwest. I do enjoy driving them a lot more than sitting at shows. Hopefully I'm done working on it for a while again.

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

I do enjoy driving them a lot more than sitting at shows. Hopefully I'm done working on it for a while again.

Me too, Seth, but I'm not really driving mine as much as I should! I'm about done with the big weekend shows other than locals.

On your sway bar, I'd say you did it just right, setting it to neutral as a base. If it had tension that means it was lifting one side or the other a bit, or at least pre-loading the suspension on one side compared to the other.