Thursday was hot. At least until the storms rolled through in the middle of the afternoon.

My plan was to go home an perhaps do a little bit of sandblasting in the driveway. The rain put an end to that plan. What to do?

The storm had caused the temperature to drop down into the 80's. I had to make good use of this time. I finally decided I tackle disassembly of the rear end. The first task was removing the leaf springs from the axle. And the shocks. I started out using a breaker bar and then switched to the air wrench once they bolts got moving. This little exercise had me worn out. I will be sore for sure.

Next I began taking part of the front end suspension apart. As you may know, it had been removed from the truck, but it was still all bolted together. The goal was to separate the upper A-arm, lower A-arm, spindle, brake caliper, and brake disc. The left side had to be disconnected from the right side. They were connected by the steering bar thingy. Is this called the tie rod? I don't know. I will look it up later. After getting the caliper removed, the assembly was light enough (ha!) to pick up and put on a table. This stuff is always easier to work with on top of a bench. I tried picking it up before removing the caliper. I could pick it up, but not enough to put it on the table. At this point I sprayed all the bolts with penetrating oil and did a little shop cleanup. Time to go inside and prepare dinner.