Technical 1959 Chevy Truck Suspension, Axle and Brake Project

After 8 years of being undecided on a direction I finally settled on the best option for me. Originally I planned to stay completely original and restore back to factory. Original is a way too dangerous here in NYC, people can hardly drive modern cars with all their distraction. Panic stops, being tailgated and cutoff are a normal parts of driving here. Driving an old truck with drums and manual steering is just not practical or safe here. I really enjoy driving my truck as is but as traffic builds fun and games turns dangerous. Traffic cuts my window of driving fun very short.

The complete C4 upgrade is the other end of the spectrum. I would love to be riding on a C4 and picking on new cars but I don’t know how to weld. Finding someone willing to weld a C4 kit locally has proved be very difficult even at chassis shops. The parts bill alone is about 7K for power steering, coil over suspension, and power brakes (sans labor costs). This is a toy, so I cannot justify the cost.

People have been upgrading to discs for years and spring technology has improved. That means for 50% of a C4 kit I can upgrade what I have and still keep this truck mostly original. I doubt I will ever move more than 350HP so I think my plan is sufficient for an ice cream cruiser. Manual discs on all four corners, proper 3” lowered springs and rack and pinion up front. A few added bonuses include future header clearance for my 348, no more sloppy steering or bump steer, rebuilt rear differential, modern hoops on original wheels. I want to powder coat everything I possibly can, do it now save time and effort later.

My biggest fear is that I will take this truck apart and it will DIE waiting for me to finish it. Since I am a perfectionist and waay too particular a little project turns into a monster. When I finally do get finished I am proud of my work but it takes way too long. So the plan is to upgrade in place, quick bursts of part swaps. Since this is not my full time job, I am part swapping not sorry. I started last February with a full front and rear suspension from a guy up north doing a MII and a 9”. My dad was interested in helping so I got his truck and some free storage. In the dead of winter and in between snow storms I was able to pick up my “new” suspension. Life got in the way so after 10 months of waiting it is time!

I am on a tight budget and farming out as little work as need. I decided to pick up a Ball joint press, 6 ton bench top press, press and die set and a set of cold chisels and punches. All in so far I have about $150 in tools to avoid shop trips at $90/hr. Since I don’t want the truck to ever be undividable for more than a weekend, I will temporarily keep manual steering. My garage is too tight to work and the truck needs to be rolled up a 45 degree driveway to get out. Once the suspension is ready I will roll out the old and roll in the new. At that point I can adjust the brakes and pull back down into the drive way that night (I won’t keep it on the street at night). This means everything has to happen on the same day or at least the same weekend)

 

Snow on the ground a frozen nuts, dad helped break the suspension. I should have cut it off but he is retired and needs something to keep himself busy. Surprisingly hubs and steering arms practically fell off with the impact. All looked pretty good and original in there. This dismantle happened just in time because water was getting into the spindles and the grease was soupy. With everything was broken down small enough for me to stick in my small kid hauler.

 

I got straight to work once I had everything home. I stripped all the brake parts from the backing plates including the bracket. I drilled out all four rivets, threw them into a simple green bath for a soak. Since there are no dust shields for this application, I will cut/weld originals for calipers. I am trying to stay as original as possible so I am re-using the hubs. I ground the tops of the rivets off of the hubs to split the hub and drum. I pounded out the lugs and drilled out the rivets and split the hub and grease sheild. Removed heavy grease and simple green bath. After everything was clean they dried in front of the heater and began to flash rust, I ziplock bagged and bathed in GIBBS.

 

Not to start a fuss, but power assist drums will stop way faster in city panic stop than disc manual. In NYC, you might have seen the powder blue 60 Apache short stepside? I put power booster on that one with stock drums, then added P/S box from later C10, about 12 years ago for the owner. Carry on..

 

Once the mess was all cleaned up I made some sad discoveries. The hub lips were damaged and out of round by a few thousandths. New bearing races are 2.081 and these things were reading between 2.054 and 2.081. In retrospect I should have ground the rivet tops then pressed the rivets and lugs out. But we’ were working on truck parts and wanted to swing the 5lb hammer. I have another set of hubs and I may measure and attempt again but for $45 each hub I can get brand new aluminum hubs. The problem with new aluminum is that I am worried about powder coating them.

My passenger side spring hanger is boogered up and the pass side spindle is feeling a little loose. The tie rod is bent so I think there must have been an accident that cause all this damage. At the end I ruined the hubs. I hope I can salvage the spindle and the axle but worse case I have another front suspension I may be able to pull parts from.

 

I am not a pro just a weekend-er, I appreciate any advice and input. The 2 year plan is to upgrade to a power assist discs and install a TH700R4. The trans mount needs to be cut/replaced anyway so at that point I will knock out both. I do agree the booster will help a lot.

 

Must be a sight to see, a 59 Chevy p/u driving in NYC

 

...good luck with your project, you've got the rite grille guard on it already.

 

Aluminum has some extra prep steps to be done right, but it's my favorite metal to restore and powder coat.

 

Not much of interest as of late. Brake parts and front springs arrived.

Sawde41 - The people do appreciate it take to it really well ...then there are the rest.

Rusty1 -Thank you been a long time coming

CudaChic1968 - Thank you, I may just go the aluminum route.

 

I didn't want to give up on the hubs so after knocking out the bearing races and some light emery the hubs are up to spec. Since it was only the lip I am not too concerned.

The king pin was not coming out. After a lot of trial and error I realized I was pinching the spindle in the press. I even fashioned some 4" tube as a brace. I will need to farm out king pin removal and eventually the re-installation.

The dry fitting of the brake kit showed that the spindle ear holes need to be enlarged for the new hardware. I had plans of modifying the old dust shields to fit. As of now it seems like there is interference with the rotor.

More next time

 

Kingpins out, driver pin was a little rusty. The passenger side practically fell out. Heat and pressure no hammer required.

 

I really didn’t like the way the driver side bore was on the axle. Since I had another full axle I took it apart. I will try to take the best of the two and make one hopefully.

Second passenger side king pin took a little fight but she broke free. Driver side was kinda stuck but a lot of Gibbs helped do the trick. After a week of soaking the driver side broke free.

1st axle was off a 1958 3600 and looked pretty original with A good layer of paint. I am not even sure that the kingpins were ever even changed. Spindle bolt ears are square with a lot of meat on them. Driver side kingpin bore looks a little off center. This axle looks like it was pretty well maintained or low mileage.

2nd axle was off a 1959 3100 it looked like it was maintained. It is completely covered in dirt, surface rust and grease. The king pins look to have been serviced at some point. Space between the inside bottom surface to top surface of the driver side spindle looks like it was milled 1hundredth. The spindle bolt ears have less meat than the 58 and are rounded. I don’t know if this was after market or a new design for 59. The spring mounting holes on this guy are egg shaped.

Here is my question, which axle is better?

Small offset pin bore or boogered spring mount holes?

Alternatively would it harm anything to weld and redrill the boogered holes for the springs?

 

Lots and lots of progress...
I stripped all the spindles removing everything including bushings on both sets. In my opinion the second set was not as good as the first so I chose those for my rebuild. I also went with the first axle since I wasn't welding and re-drilling holes. I cleaned and de-greased everything as much as possible and bagged them for some day in gibbs.


I spent the next couple of months getting original rims re-hooped. The legend on the east coast who is mentioned here for rehooping is an a$$. He named me "the problem" and instead of saying he wasn't interested or incapable of doing the work he just went on insulting me and wasting time. After my second phone call I moved on. I didn't have much more luck from the west coast mainly because shipping costs and reluctance for the company's liability. I got lucky and found a set of original re-hoops on Ebay... I love it! 7" wide for the front and 8" wide for the back and I can run original hubcaps. Spare will be original size.

I started running out of space so I picked up a manual tire changer from Harbor freight. Dismounting 10 tires and throwing away 6 saved some cash. I sold the steel wheels that came with my second axle and mounted the good tires on the truck. My re-hoops arrived after I had already mounted the tires up.

 

I picked up a handy little helper the garage journal was key in helping me find.

 

This operation was a real pain in the butt. The tie rod end was a bear to get off, I used a pipe wrench for that. Then the end of the tie rod end was seized so I had to cut the ball off to get to the steering arm. Then I couldn't get it to sit properly on the drill press so I did it with a normal drill.
I stepped out one bit at a time and did my best to stay center. Every now and then I gave it a whack to try and get the end out. Finally they did come free.

Lucky I had a second axle to get parts from because these things are impossible to find.

 

After the effort I put into the original hubs I decided to go with new aluminum ones. I went that way because they would be true, the races would fit for sure and they would save some weight. Not to mention the would probably look better anyway. They required some holes to be enlarged. I think this should have been done at the factory since they are part of a kit and modifying these in any way voids returns. I picked up some HF metal cutting drill bits on sale. They did OK with the aluminum but by the time I was done drilling out 6 holes stepping up one at a time, the coating had worn out even after using oil.

 

Parts were ready for basting and coating so I set out to test fit everything. I built both spindles out and made sure everything fit as designed.

A little before and after of my parts:

It was like Christmas and the wait felt like an eternity, but I did skip ahead here.

 

While I was waiting for my parts I started taking the second differential apart. That one had not sit outside, it was removed by the previous owner I picked it up and put in my garage. It was crusty and greasy but it came apart pretty easily. I tore down the drums and then I opened the case. Everything looked ok inside but the spider was a little loose. I spent the next day scraping crud off the outside. At some point in this axles life someone had painted the *pumpin red*. Upon further investigation it had all the original bolts from GM including 9 "M" bolts and 1 "L" bolt on the ring gear. I ran the numbers on the ring gear and almost fell off of my chair.... POSI from a 1959 Chevy Pickup for $75. I didn't believe it so I spun the pinion and sure enough both wheels were going the same direction.
I spent the next week trawling for part numbers and then for a spider. In my zeal I forgot I was going to make this thing a disc setup. That means I would be cutting up a rare GM Chevy Truck Posi. So I decided to pause this operation for now. Since I was straying from original anyway I decided to find a more modern "upgrade".

 

I found a 67 C10 rear to cut up for discs. It is the same width, uses the same disc brake kit, will accept a modern carrier, uses 30 spline axles, I can make it posi and I could find every part for it if need be.

I found this one and almost walked away from it. The drivers side axle was not moving, the tube is pitted, the brake line clips were rusted off and the T-Block was mangled. Somehow it followed me home. I beat the drivers side drum to the point it cracked and then I used a crow bar to separate it from the brakes. The result was 1/2 inch pile of rust when it finally came apart. Luckily the driver side axle was just stuck because of the seized brake parts it did start moving freely. The passenger side had noting in it and just fell right off. So much for it was working when I pulled it...

When I loosened the cover a bunch of water started draining out and I was not expecting to see much good considering what the driver side was like. Luckily there was a lot of oil in there and aside from a few rust spots this thing looks pretty good.

I sprayed down the backing plate bolts because they need to come off and they are stuck. I put the cover back on and this went to the back burner.

 

My parts were done so I started putting together the tie rod and ends. I put them up against the old ones and kinda eyed them, greased then tightened. Hopefully what I did was good enough to keep me straight on the road. It worked for the old one so it should work for the new one. I notice that the new tie rod ends are tapered and the original steering arms are straight bore. I called the usual suspects and they told me no one ever asked that for tapered bearings. I bought a hand reamer and some bronze shims from Mc Masters. If that doesn't work out the 4x4 guys have something that might fit. I put old and new side by side and boy what a difference.


Since I was already there I started fitting the spindles to the axle. Surprisingly the driver side only needed .025 shim and the passenger side needed .015. When I sent the parts to powder coat I was using an original rear axle. As a result I sent the rear axle saddle in and you can see it on the bench. It fit perfectly on the 67 axle so I got really lucky.

The driver side bearing went in with thumb pressure, the passenger side just slid right in. I staked both in with Lockite 660 hopefully doing it this way will keep the spindle and sacrifice the bearing. I indexed the grease fittings to the back. 1/8 was really tight and I damaged 5 trying to get them to seat properly. 10 mm was too loose so I forged ahead with the 1/8.
I assembled, added grease, and got ready to put the covers on. The passenger side bushing had moved. I tried to wedge the cover on so maybe the cover would hold it. I guess time will tell, but this thing did last 60 years.
Boy does that thing look pretty!

 

Time for trimmimgs...
I added zerk covers, maybe overkill. I know these may be obsoleted by my upgrade but I figure they can keep some crud out of my hubs. The drum side of these would be too large and require a lot of trimming so I am skipping those for now.

Not pictured but I actually painted the grease guards black. I also ran a thread chase on the steering stop bolts, nuts and the steering arm holes where they go. I may hit them with some paint just so everything is uniform.

 

Time for the brackets and the hubs. This was a pain in the butt. First I mounted the caliper brackets and since there are no torque specs with my kit I went but 35FP top bolts and 55FP bottom bottom bolts. CPP has that listed for 60-66 kit it should work with this one. I am really glad I tested everything before powder coating.
Grease guard and bearing race installed ready for the hub

The passenger side hub was where the problems started. I had to drill the aluminum hub to accept the mounting screws. The holes were good for the bolts but not for the spacer. In all I went up about 5 drill bits to 7/16. I felt like the holes were getting too big. I grabbed a counter bore and adjusted one of the shoulders of the spacer holes. After that everything went together. I know we should be concerned about grease around brake but I used 2500 degree never-seeze between the hub and the disc. This shouldn't melt and it should stay put.
Now for the lug bolts. I pounded those in and immediately regretted my decision. I should have used the press.Then I mounted and ran out of time.

 

I guess luck favors the prepared. I spent the better part of a day working on the passenger side hub. For the drivers side I decided to correct all my mistakes. First there was a little milling tab left on the spacer (I missed that on the other one). I ground that down and that immediately corrected my offset issue. Next I just went up one at a time to 7/16 bit but I saved a lot of time on testing after every step. Once that was done I sprayed everything with brake cleaner and wiped them down. There was so much milling dust on the disc I went back and wiped the other one down as well. I mounted the hub and spacer to the disc. Lastly I used my press to press in the lugs. I was working for about an hour total this time. Once that was done I greased the whole thing, installed the bearings and the grease seal. This was a lot more fun than last time and probably a lot cleanser too.


In retrospect I wish I would have powder coated the hubs, spacers, grease guards and caliper brackets. Also I would have liked to paint the mating surface of the hub with some Rustoleum but hopefully the never-seeze will keep it pristine.

 

I decided to change the title since I blew my winter deadline. It also might be more helpful for someone else who wants to tackle such a project with as little expertise as myself.

 

Small updates while the summer winds down and vacation season is almost done. My truck has been buried behind other projects since the spring. I started digging it out so the swap can happen.

Axle is completely assembled dressed with calipers, tie rod, greased, torqued and ready for brake hoses.


I have not been able to bust the bead on this sucker for a long time, even after drilling holes in it. She finally broke free for me and I made some more room and eliminated something else on the to do list.

I was able to mount a 235x70x15 tire on my newly hooped rims. I was a little concerned about fitment and tire rub. These things fill out a lot better than the old 5" rims and trailer tires. I had the same tires mounted on the old rims and had about as much clearance as now with exception of the fender side. They do look sexy and will look even better after they match the paint color and have original white hubcaps installed on them. Possibly some white walls if I can find a set that fits 8" wide rims.

 

Jumping back to the 67 axle, got to love child labor. After all summer of spraying down the axle with penetrating oil they busted the bolts free and got the backing plates off. Only one of 8 needed to be ground. I took all the measurements from the original axle perches on my existing as they started removing the perches from the 67 axle. Not perfect, still require a little clean up but not bad.


**before I start getting hate mail or reported there was no power to the grinder when I took this picture.