Company Car Show Time

Well, this should be the last post for a while. No plans to stop working on it or to sell it, but the next set of tasks will be less impressive in photos or text for that matter.

Here are photos from the latest "AREVA Transmission and Distribution Automation Systems Energy Management America Incorporated Car and Motorcycle Show," in Redmond.
I threw on the visor at the last minute and a few cans of primer. Tail lights were thumb screwed on, but not wired. Runs like a champ, a little hard to shift into 4th, but otherwise a pleasure to drive.


Next tasks will be...

1. tail lights
2. brake lights
3. headlights
4. high beams
5. interior lights
6. wire gauges
7. recover seat
8. install windshield wipers
9. hook up speedometer
10. fix windshield crank
11. rebuild steering box
12. new tires
13. paint rims
14. mount spare tire

A Little Primer Goes A Long Way

Threw down a couple cans of primer down on the truck for the company car show. I think it looks pretty mean. I like it. This will only be temporary until I get back to stripping off the original paint under the newly primered panels.

Although I think this will be nice enough for a while and should allow my ADD tendencies to focus on finishing the electrical system.

Brake lights, headlights and windshield wipers seem like a good idea. Maybe I'll splurge and get seat belts.... maybe.

THE TRUCK HAS LANDED

I just picked up the truck from the shop today and drove it home. That's right; drove it home!

The folks at Kirkland Classic Cars did a ton of work on it and everything they touched seems to work great. A little early to know for sure but the engine lit up like a prius. Well not really like a prius, but pretty damn good anyway.

I had the shop do all the wet work, but they were not able to find one gasket, the lifter gasket, the one that leaks all over the place. Until I get the last of the leaks fixed or until after I epoxy the garage floor, the truck is going to have to stay outside.

Also, the company car show is on the 17th. Seeing as I expect to be out of town until the 16th, it does not look good as for having the electrical set up for the show. Or most importantly having brake lights, turn signals, or head lamps...

That just might be the price to I have to pay to get the truck to the show.

One last thing... I think the new grill looks GREAT. Maybe a little too shiny :)

Plan B

Well... I was trying very hard to get the truck ready to drive to our new house. The following things had been done:
1. New wiring harness
2. Replace 6v generator with 12v alternator
3. 12 volt HIE distributor
4. 12 volt coil
5. New 12 volt battery
6. New oil filter
7. Adjusted timing
There was only one thing that did not get done in time. Brakes. Damn it. Turns out while the truck was parked for a year while I played with the paint and electrical system the master cylinder seized. No brakes, no go.

So instead, I got the truck towed to Kirkland Classic Cars. They have been great. http://www.kirklandclassiccars.com/ I decided that while it was in the shop I would have them do all the things I was not excited to do... that list turns out to be longer than I first expected. These things include the following:
1. Rear Diff leak
2. Oil pan gasket
3. Rebuild carburetor
4. Refurb radiator
5. Rear main seal
6. Rebuild master cylinder
7. Turn rear drums

Kind of a bummer that I was not able to get it back on the road myself, which was a personal goal of mine. But then again, I have connected with a good shop and will be able to avoid some of the wet work that I was not really interested in doing myself.

There maybe another company car show this year. If that happens it will be in a few weeks and the shop will be done with their end of the work ant the end of this week. That should give me a week to wire up the head, tail and brake lights.

Who knows, maybe I'll even get windshield wipers on there :)

Fixing a gas leak like a dutch boy

One of the things I had to fix before getting back on the street was a slow gas leak from where the fuel line connects to the gas tank under the truck. I knew there was gas in the tank as I remember putting some in before driving it from Renton to Redmond.

So to get prepped, i bought a 5 gallon gas can and found a funnel and hose to direct the fuel from the short flexible fuel line to the gas can. No problem right? I disconnected the fuel line and holy $#!t!!! The gas came flying out. Mostly on me, but at least I was wearing cotton gloves... So after getting soaked in gasoline from my hands to my chest, I got the funnel jimmied in place so I did not have to hold it any more.

I looked around and saw waves of gas fumes rolling off the kitchen table sized puddle under the truck... and myself. Awesome. I realized also that I had an extension cord running under the truck plugged into my shop light so I could see under the truck. After a moment of indecision on whether I wanted to burn like a Buddhist monk, I ran like a 5 year old after a soccer ball to cut the power to the extension cord.

It this point I noticed that I was getting dizzy. Awesome. Time to move some air in this beaotch. I grabbed my electric leaf blower and set it on the ground so it would blow under the truck. OK everything is good.

How much gas was in the tank....? not sure but the can was starting to get full... In come Serene (my wife) and she says, "I'm freaking out because we are supposed to leave the house in 30 min and the kids are still in the bath, you are in the garage, and the babysitter is not here or answering her cell phone. This is not ok."

You have got to be freaking kidding me. I looked at her very calmly and said, "My upper body is soaked in gasoline. I have a stream of gas coming out of the truck and my gas can is almost full. I am trying to not burn down our house with you and the kids inside, so I will help you after I get this under control."

Serene, to her credit responds, "Oh $#!t, ok" and walked back into the house.

So back to the problem at hand, 10 pounds of $#!t and a 5 pound bag. Think, think, think. I could put the fuel line back together, that would work, but it also would be like putting a garden hose sprayer on a garden hose, while the water is running. I'm pretty sure I have enough gas on me for the year. Vise grips! I'll pinch off the hose. ...where are my vise grips...

Anyway, after bathing in gasoline and almost burning myself and my house and family, I drained 15 gallons of gas. Thankfully Serene's van was only half full so I was able to fill her tank with the excess. Whew, I'd glad that is over.

Paint

Asking for a little participation from all two of you who read this blog. What do you think of the color scheme? The current plan is to paint the lower pieces (fenders, running boards, rims) black with the bed, body and hood in rust color as shown here.

meh?

btw, I think I have it set now that you will not have to log-in or anything to post a comment.


I think the paint removal is going pretty well. I have resorted to manually scrapping the old paint off with a spackle knife. Sanding was a mess and I realized that this is probably leaded paint, and that I have exceeded my lifetime lead exposure when I removed the leaded paint in my last house... without gloves, eye protection, respirator or brains.... or did I lose the brains during.... not sure, not sure it matters anymore.

The aircraft paint remover was kinda effective, but SUPER stinky and generally a mess. In the end I stopped using that stuff cause it is yucky... ewy yucky.

After scraping off the paint and sanding out the rust spots, I think it is looking pretty good.

A little catchup

Scraped and primed the rear and passenger side of the truck bed.
The bucket contains the old part of the truck that may have eBay value. Clockwise from the left are the beehive oil filter, horn, and 6 volt generator.

This is a $29 hose fitting.... seriously, no joke. I needed this to connect the new oil filter to the engine block. The 90 degree angle was necessary because there is not a lot of space between the block fitting and the primary belt.

Hiatus is over - on to electrical

So it has been a long time Since I have posted. For a while I was not working on the truck, but I am back in full force now. 

Last time I posted I was sanding off the old paint and rust. Now I have decided that if the truck does not run, it does not exactly matter what it looks like.

This photo here is the new wiring harness. I was tinkering around with the truck one day and !POOF! there was a massive cloud of smoke and the strong smell of burning plastic. What had happened was the wiring harness, (or at least some of the misc wires) had rubbed through the insulation and were shorting on the fire wall between the engine compartment and the cab.

It was about this time that I coincidentally decided that I would be served well by upgrading some of the wiring.
In the end this truck will have a 12 Volt alternator system. So the first thing to do was to remove the 6 volt generator and replace it with an 12 volt alternator.

Thanks to Mr. Anderson, who donated a modern GM alternator I was able to install the first piece.

This picture is of the new alternator where the generator used to be. It is much smaller and cleaner than the generator and is wired up to the new wiring harness... sort of.

In order to get things to work there are adapter brackets to the alternator and a new belt pulley. Considering that I have no idea what I'm doing, things went very smoothly.
This is a picture of inside of the cab. These loose ends are the wires that go to the dash board and gauges. An interesting piece of work is finding out which wire goes where. The wiring harness came with a list of numbers and equipment, but no diagrams. The existing wires are not color coded and there is no clear way of determining which wire goes where.

Arne had a great idea of using a generic multi connector to connect these wires to the gauges so that in the future, if I want to remove the dash there will be only one connector to deal with... genius.

(That is the oily transmission in the back ground and the drive shaft coming off the right side)

This is a hard to decipher photo of the battery tray. What I wanted to show here is incredibly hard to see, but is that the right side of the battery tray is held together with wire.

Behind the black ground wire (for the battery), on the right side is a length of wire wrapped around a long bolt and under the battery tray to the other side and around another bolt. awesome.

I have a beautiful new battery tray from Jim Carter's Chevy Trucks. All stainless steel and has sweet welds and in general will be the nicest, and substantial piece of steel in the whole truck.