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.

Let the sanding begin!

OK a little update. The sanding has begun in earnest.

First I started with sanding disks.... that was ok....

a few hours later I tried wire wheel.... that was less ok

after that I decided distract myself by using a "flapper" sanding disk to grind down the raw angle iron bumper so that the torch cut edges would not inadvertantly remove fingers. That worked realy well. It cuts through steel like butter.

It was only after that I realized that a "dull" flapper might be used for removing paint.



Five hours later with the dull flapper, here are the primered results.


That was reasonably successful, but I think I may have to try something else.

The AREVA - Transmission and Distribution - Automation - Systems - Energy Management Americas - Redmond - Tendering Team - 2008 - Car Show!

The company car show.

Here is a man who can appreciate potential.

That or he is lost.
Here she is just enjoying the shade.
Finally. Some people came to take a look.... I think someone said they could smell smoke.

For authenticity, since that is what I am about, I had a can of staring fluid on the bench seat.... and the wrench I need to take the battery in and out.... and some parts in the bed of the truck... and I added some pine needles. You know, for authenticity.

It was a real challenge to get the truck to the show. I had the exhaust manifold replaced with headers, added a heating block to the now exposed intake manifold, had the front end redone, had the steering box rebuilt, had the throttle linkage to the carburetor adjusted around the new headers and had a new exhaust installed. That's all.

After that little adjustment, I drove it 20 miles from Renton WA to Redmond WA, about a 20 mile drive? She drove fine... in fact that was when I found out it had four, rather than three, forward gears, all unsynchronised. I also found out that she can go 45 mph and feel pretty safe.

After all that adventure, she was pretty tired and would not start the next day. Turns out there is something wrong with the generator, so even after the long drive it was not able to sustain the battery's charge. That just re-enforces my decision to replace the generator and wiring with a modern 12 volt alternator system.


I guess there were a couple other cool cars there, like this one and the blue 39 Ford behind it.

I got a lot of people leaned in and whispere to me, "I kinda like yours. That is pretty cool." I'm not sure why they had to whisper... does not exude a lot of confidence.

Overall the show was a lot of fun. It gave me a good deadline to get some of this work done, and done by a "professional."

Ohhh. and on the drive home there was a new issue. The throttle linkage rubs on the fire wall, so the throttle gets stuck open every time you press on the gas. The only way to get it back is to reach over the pedal with the heel of your shoe and pull the pedal back.... no problem. safe. interesting.

Well, now the truck is at home. Serene was really cool when we got it home and said, "You should park it in the garage. You'll have some space to work on it." I was thinking, wow that is really nice, until I realized that she did not want the neighbors to have to look at it.

Fair nuf.

Found the road trip photos

OK I found the pictures of the truck on the trailer from the May road trip.

This first picture has Ron saying goodbye
The speed limit on the UHAUL fender says 80 mph.... I think. Must be.

This picture is some where in the mountains (yes, even though it looks flat), the VW towed the truck like butter. Could not be more relaxing.

I got a lot of comments where ever I stopped, like, "you cut me off! a-hole."

I think that is classic car code for "nice ride"

Sure looks sweet inside eh?

The rug is on the seat 'cause the seat springs poke through and ripped some Levi's of mine.

The floor board is optional.

Wiring? I've got some extra.
Once we charged the battery and reconnected the fuel line it started up like a champ. Maybe a little Starter Fluid to help.
Kai is ready to drive, but he'll have to wait to get it on the road.
Darren and I drove it around the driveway. What you can not see is that Darren is grabbing the wheel trying to help me turn. The steering is tough!

So the deal with the steering is that the exhaust is rubbing against the drag link, the bearings in the worm gear look like the candy "Nerds". The king pin was the size of a large cigar in 1941, and now is the size of a pencil. That's all.

Piece of cake.

I drove down to SLC to towed it home on a flatbed trailer with my Touareg. Once I got there, getting the truck on the trailer was a bit of a struggle and I have to thank Ron again for organizing a neighborhood mechanic to come over and patch it up enough to drive up the flatbed.

Towing it home was a great experience. The Touareg pulled great, it was steady at 70 mph and got 14 mpg. There was plenty of power to pass in the passes. Also, being alone on the road like that was a pleasant change up from helping Serene raise three kids under four years old. Not saying that I did not miss them.... but you know.

I have pictures of the GMC on the flatbed behind the Touareg. I'll have to find them.

Now, here is the truck up in Seattle.

The first order of business was to get started right away...

So a few months later I actually start to do something. My brother Darren and I start small with fixing the door latches and windows. works like a charm.

Then we tried to start it up.... nothing. Not a click, not a 'rrr', nadda. Turns out it is a good idea to charge the battery.