• Garage Projects

    The Mighty Merc –Leaf Spring Refresh

    Now that the IFS has been hacked out of the way, it is time to do a little freshening up the leaf springs that I plan to use. While not an exciting post, I did have some issues finding the right bushings for the springs I was planning on using. For the rear, I am using GM 63” leafs from a 2000 GM 1500 2wd truck. Oddly enough, this GM leaf pack wound up being the same build from my…

  • Garage Projects

    Garage Tips – No Longer Sweating To Death

    The garage is actually pretty well insulated, which makes it easy to heat in the winter, and makes it a roaster in the summer. For the longest time I would just ‘sweat it out’ when things got warm and left the main door open as needed. For whatever reason, mosquitos have gotten to be unbearable around our place. So leaving the main door open to the garage was an invitation to getting all of my blood removed via mosquito bites.…

  • Gear Review

    Gear Review – Shining Buddy Head Lamp

    I am constantly fighting with finding a good portable light source while I am out in the garage. Either I don’t have enough light, or the light I have is blinding me. After searching for a ‘flood’ type head lamp for a while, I came across a flash sale on the Shining Buddy at amazon: Amazon Link So far, I’ve been pretty dang impressed with the thing. The light is very evenly dispersed, which was exactly what I was after…

  • Garage Projects

    Garage Tip – Removing a 1 piece Rear Main Seal

    Just a quick tip for today! One of the maintenance things I needed to get done on The Mighty Merc was to replace the severely leaking rear main seal. This can be a bit of a pain as there isn’t a good way to pop the seal out of there. After doing a bit of reading, it turns out the Ford 5.0 guys solved this problem a while ago. Simply take a couple of wood screws, hammer them into the…