My Pete rebuild

[Nostalgic]

Friday started out pretty upbeat and exciting. I have a signed lease, a truck number, and the 5th wheel assembly I've been waiting nearly 3 months for finally showed up...



But wait, the sliders and angles are different?



So first I called Peterbilt, while looking at Jost's catalog, the number I needed was JSK 37USL-B8PG18, but they told me oh no, it was superseded by JSK 37USL-U8PG18. So I called Jost, and was told, yes, it was superseded, but I could order anything, but they'll be shutting down for Christmas, etc... Like I want to wait another 10 weeks?

So I reserve myself to making it work and spending most of the weekend cutting and drilling, but nope. Nada. The new angles are 3" shorter than my old one, and i'd have to drill 4 new holes in my frame, while leaving some existing holes unused. Ok, this might not be a big deal to a lot of people, but I'm not a fan of swiss cheesing my frame. So I decided, f-it, I'll just get a new plate and try to clean this rusted pile of crap up...



The pins weren't as bad as I though they'd be, and nearly every bolt broke off the slide stop brackets, but the hardest part was getting the rust fused brackets off the slide rails.



So, it's not new, but on the bright side, the mess saved me close to $800, while adding a couple of days of needle scaling, wire brushing, and painting...