Thanks for all the replies.
On the salt here are two Ideas I'd love to be able to utilize but I'd need a vendor close enough to me to do that.
I don't know of any.
https://www.fluid-film.com/
http://www.salt-awayproducts.com/
But the salt doesn't disappear for quite sometime after a snowstorm and the salt dust is relentlessly deposited in a cloud everywhere you drive. I do go through the car wash with a "chassis wash" once the roads clear up but that can be weeks or even longer around here.
I wish there was a top flight car wash here that incorporated these products into their system. Probably a pipe dream ...
If you have a big lift in your home garage with a drain well great but that's not my situation nor a lot of people's out there.
On the brake kits. I'm just not comfortable with having that odd duck 3 year run caliper from the mid 70's as my rear and parking brake. The rebuild market for them is beyond tight. Yes there are brand new ones out for however long that lasts. If you start looking into adding a second mechanical caliper for the parking brake on the rear discs that's also a really exposed to the salt bath location. On the transfer case might be better but while these aren't horrendous modifications they are beyond my doing them myself in my current situation and the dollars begin to add up.
The later disc/drum Ebrake setup is a lot more appealing if I could find one that would slip on and bolt onto my hubs. Modifying that for an additional bracket for the caliper might be the best solution were it even possible? Maybe from a 2001 Suburban 2500 with that same 14 bolt rear end? I'm way out of my knowledge base on this ...
But for now, I have a much more pressing issue with this truck.
I have a bind in the steering that happens as you return to center and it's preventing the car from self centering.
This appeared after some front end frame welding plus a new set of upper ball joints. I'm pretty confident that it's not the welding that caused this and after three sets of shops looking at I'm going back to the shop that did the welding and installed the upper ball joints thinking that perhaps one or more of them has an issue. They've agreed to disconnect everything to try and find out where the bind is occurring.
We've replaced the steering box though it had no binding but it too much slop.
Pitman arm because we were there.
Tie rod ends because the boots were torn and one side felt tighter with some grit in it.
Hydroboost system got well flushed.
The steering is much more precise yet the bind is still there.
We can't really think of what else it could be BUT a problem with the upper ball joints or how they were installed? All suspension pieces are Moog.
