Quarantine time
We find ourselves in strange times with this viral outbreak. My merger with Phoenix Hotrod Company is ongoing, but we are on a limited work schedule. So what am I to do with a four day weekend for the next few weeks. Normally we work a 4-10 with a nice three day weekend, but we are trying to limit exposure. By one day? Okay, that’s what the legal team wants.
Everyone is doing it, so I may as well join the fray. I’m getting back to doing my videos on YouTube. I have two of my long-term projects stored at a secret location where I can work on them over the weekend like normal folk. So naturally, I need to document it and put it on YouTube, right? The first project I am going to work on is my 1954 Ford F100. I started this years ago. 
This was a farmer’s Special. Worked hard and abused to death. Was originally a standard truck with a 272 Ford Y-block and overdrive trans and heater being the only upgrades. When I got it, the frame rail on the driver side had two major breaks and some really sketchy repairs. The right side rail wasn’t much better. I pulled the frame all the way down to the rails. Designed and built a whole new fabricated center X-member, installed one of my Dakota IFS kits with 1990 Dakota parts. All powder coated and rebuild. The rear is a 1969 Dana 60.3 from a Camper Special truck. Rebuilt, all new bearings and custom axles to use the later Ford 8.8 style axle bearings, Wilwood brakes all around, Ride Tech coil overs on the rear with helper sleeve airbags and Cargo Coil springs and Bilstein Shocks on the front. The intent is to build a towpig. Like a heavy half ton truck that can comfortably tow a 24′ enclosed trailer.
Power is coming from a Cummins ISF 3.8 four cylinder turbodiesel and backed by an Allison 1000 6-speed auto.
The goal is is to make this look like it was a stock truck, but as a crew cab. Even going with the factory colors.
Follow along with the build. https://www.youtube.com/user/ELpollacko
I have run across a few people trying to conflate the 97 up (3rd Gen) Dakota ball joint issues with the earlier First and Second generation trucks. In the 3rd Generation Dodge made quite a few changes to the Dakota’s front suspension. Almost a complete redesign. About the only thing similar is the lower control arm spacing and bushing size (yes, they will fit our kits) and the upper control arm rear mounting bolt is in the same location. But that’s it. The rack mounting and angles are very different and the upper control arm became symmetrical for cost cutting reasons. The other major changes are in the spindle and ball joints. They bare no resemblance to the 1st and 2nd gen trucks. The ball joints became significantly smaller and the orientation of the lower ball joint changed from tension (pointing up) to compression (pointing down) making dropped spindles pretty much impossible.
Have a look at the line up of ball joints here. From Left to right, the 1997 and up Dakota/Durango ball joint, The K772 Ball joint used in most Mustang II type set ups, The K778 joint used in the 87-96 Dakotas (and many other full size cars and trucks) and then on the Right is the K7025 used on the Dakotas and several other full size cars and trucks. Visual confirmation would show you, this is robust stuff. History can confirm that these larger ball joints were not failure prone. Sure, everything wears out, this is why we recommend using premium quality repair parts when building your car or truck. Not only will you see a longer service life, you will get a better ride quality with parts like the MOOG joints and bushings we suggest.
