Build Day 1

I was really kind of hoping to get the truck back down on tires today, but it just didn't happen. I did make some decent forward progress.

Here's the baking plates that hold the calipers.


I'd taken the hubs off, had the wheel studs pressed out and new ones pressed in (Dodge put left hand studs on the driver side years ago that, today at least, really confuses people). I also cleaned them and all the bearings up. I had to repack the bearings with grease and press in new seals. The AutoZone nearest to me did not have the seals, so I had to go to another AutoZone, and they had the seals, but two different kinds. That's why they look different in the photos, but they should still work.

Of course, the hubs were different too. The one on the right had a smaller cavity for grease and also had a slightly larger diameter due to a lip (that's important later).


Here's the driver side hub on.


The lip on the passenger side hub ended up getting in the way of the rotor when I went to put it on. I had to whip out the angle grinder and make some room.


Here's the rotor on and ready to go.


And now for the caliper and pads.


Finally the new hoses and banjo bolts. But... then we run into the problems.


The original fitting on the hard line running from the distribution block is too big to fit into the new hose.


So I pulled all the hard line for the front brakes and will redo it as soon as I can get hard line and fittings.