Throttle Linkage, and blasphemy!
Another part that I had been meaning to fix (and really needed to) was the throttle linkage. After my last session tuning the carbs; I realised the throttle linkage had a split on the ball joint holding it on one end. Some gaffa tape had temporarily fixed it, but I knew I needed to do something a little more permanent.
I figured, since I was pulling that back out, and would likely need to rebalance the carbs again, I might as well replace something else that was bugging me – the half rusted air filer case taking up half the rear of the engine bay. I had replaced the air filters – but the whole thing was starting to fall apart, and was rather, well, inelegant. Yes, I know, there is a reason it was originally made like that – but I plan on getting some dust/water covers for them when I go off road.
Because the original air box also provided some support for the intake pipes, I have temporarily hose clamped them on (just to keep the filters up from sitting on the engine – but have a slightly nicer plan to make up a couple of brackets to hold them up.
Don’t ask me if its going to help or hurt fuel consumption. It’s an old V8. It sucks like… well – an old V8.
Reducing the bumps – shocks and dampers
I have already replaced the Springs, replacing the standard ones with parabolic ones – which really meant I should replace the shocks with ones designed for the lift the springs had given the truck. Realistically, the units in the rear were never the right ones for there – managing to hold about half a litre of water permanently in them. Most of which I wore when we finally got them off – because you guessed it, the bolts were seized on there. The steering damper needed to be replaced – it was essentially sitting there doing nothing – so I either needed to cut it off completely or replaced – and given the nature of the truck – I viewed a steering dampener as a good thing.
So, another round of fixes – up next – the saga of the brake lines!