But I Did Get Around To Tinkering With The Truck

British Car Show

I went to a British car show at nearby Joe Wheeler state park on Saturday. The show consisted mostly of MGs but there were a few others: Triumphs, Minis, Austin Healeys, Jaguars (including an E type), and even a Lotus Esprit.

The battery on my camera died after a just a few pictures, so I made due with my phone's camera. The above shot is a boattail end of a 1930 MG. I have more photos of this car but they are still on the phone.

My favorite cars were either the MGAs or the Austins.

GMC Update

Back at home on Sunday, I finally got around to cleaning up and priming the trans-axle and transmission yoke on the truck.

The kids went back to school today.  I don't think either was really ready for Summer (or their vacation) to be over.

Universal Joints

I wasn't ready either.  Fortunately I had already planned to be off today.  I spent spent a little time working on the truck.  Not much was achieved.  The plan was to blast and paint the drive shaft.  Unfortunately it got hot before I was ready to start the blasting.  Too hot.

First I had to remove the old u-joints.  This turned out to be not as difficult as it first seemed.  After viewing a couple of videos online and calling in reinforcements (Capt. Dan), I finally realized that my u-joints had their clips on the inner edge, not the exterior.

So I learned a little something about my truck today also.  It turns out not only is the engine out of a later model ('82), the transmission and drive shaft are as well.  Because the drive shaft is from a latter model truck, it has also been modified to connect to the differential on the '72.  This made obtaining the correct u-joints a considerable challenge.  Fortunately my reinforcement had in a previous life worked in a auto parts house and managed to manipulate the folks at the local parts store into handing him the parts catalogs so he could find the correct part numbers.  The parts numbers from the computer were all wrong.  We eventually prevailed.

I never did get around to the blasting or painting, but there is always next weekend.

I really enjoyed my day off.  Back to work tomorrow.  The 'Small Engine Repair' class starts tonight.

Whew!

Where did 2009 go? I have been remiss in blogging for a few months. Let me catch you up. I will start with December.

Had I been writing recently I would have mentioned helping my neighbor Tom remove the V8 from his 1966 Mustang convertible. (Yep, there are two old convertibles on my street.) Why is it always cold outside when an engine is being pulled?

I would have also mentioned a couple of hiking trips - a few around Rainbow Mountain and a trip to Sipsey. The Sipsey expedition explored a few trails I had seen in quite a while. We visited Happy Rock and Ship Rock as well as locating a couple of great camp sites for possible use in the near future. We also successfully located an alternate route for returning home after leaving the trail. Some would say we got lost. I would disagree. Those were some of the nicest dirt roads I have ever driven and the GPS was quite aware of their existence. I will stick to the route I know next time though.

Progress on the '72 GMC truck has been pretty much non-existent since August. Hopefully I will get the dust and cobwebs cleared off in the not so distant future.

The Tuesday evening woodworking sessions did see us all (David, Danny, and myself) complete some nice little boxes this fall. As usual, I have not taken any pictures. Worse, I don't even know where the camera is right now. It has been MIA for better than a week. I am also in the process of finishing up another bookcase for Bri. And I started some benchwork for a model railroad that J and I will be building.

Time to make some biscuits.

'72 GMC Update

My goal for three consecutive summers has been to get a rolling chassis. This year I finally reached the goal. Sure, there is still a lot of work to be done but no hurry here. After all, I am on a five ten year schedule.

I finally got the transmission all cleaned up and painted. The paint is from Eastwood and is called aluminum blast or something like that.



After painted the transmission, I cleaned up the torque converted and painted it. I used some of the leftover paint from the engine block on the transmission. Again the paint was from Eastwood.



Here is the engine reconnected to the transmission.



And here is the entire drive train mounted in the frame.



I still need to clean up and paint the water pump, alternator, fan, etc. Expect me to still be talking about these items three months from now.

Buggin' In July 2009

This weekend was the annual air cooled volkswagen show. This is usually my favorite car show of the year. The entire show consists of fewer than 100 cars but usually draws from a larger radius than most car shows. And the cars are all air cooled VWs. Surprisingly every single car is unique.



No surprise that the same weekend of the show, I found a very nice '65 Beetle nearby. The car was still mostly original and unmodified. My intention was to bring the car home and take it to a few shows while I continued to work on the '72 GMC. Unfortunately someone else bought it while I was still trying to make a decision. I will think faster next time I find an original car in that good of shape.




Happy Birthday Danny!

I finished cleaning up the GMC's transmission this morning and finally got around to priming it. The first coat was Eastwood's self-etching primer. Tomorrow I will apply the paint

How Do You Clean a Transmission Case?

I don't know either. I have tried the pressure washer, engine de-greaser, carb cleaner, WD-40, brake cleaner, wire brushes, steel wool, emery paper, and a 50 gallon barrel of elbow grease.

So far the internet has been no help. I guess I will check it again in case any new information has been added since yesterday.

UPDATE: Easy Off oven cleaner is the best solution I have found. The one drawback is that it dis-colors the aluminum. This may not be a problem if your planning to paint the case.

Did I mention I had sand in my ear. Again.

It was time to rebuild the brake calipers for the truck. Step 1: Disassemble. 2: Blast. 3: Paint. 4: Replace o-ring and dust boot. 5: Install caliper on spindle

I have completed step 2.

I Have Sand In My Ears

Again! Monday morning I started the day with a walk. By 7:30 am I was in the driveway setting up the sandblaster to strip down a couple of brake drums and backing plates. Sandblasting is messy. Especially on a really hot day when the sand sticks to your sweaty skin. Too much information?

The drums and plates cleaned up nicely and looked awesome after the rust had all been removed. After putting away all the blasting gear, I got out the paint gun and sprayed the parts a nice semi-gloss black. Who in the world paints a brake drum?

The parts are now ready to be re-attached to the rear axle assembly. I had forgotten the backing plates needed to be installed before the axle went back into the differential. I guess I will be pulling the axle out again soon.

The next step will be to install the new brake lines. After that is done I can finally put the engine back on the chassis. OK, that is not entirely true. First I will need to do something with the transmission. It doesn't need to be rebuilt but at a minimum it does need to be cleaned up. I am considering painting it. I don't want to use the same ORANGE paint I used on the engine. I would like some contrast between the block and the transmission. I also don't want to use black. In the event of a leak, black paint makes locating the source difficult. I am considering either silver or gray. I will probably go with gray.

After washing my hair 5 times I think I have gotten all the sand out of it. I am still finding sand in my ears though. Sandblasting is messy.

What is wrong with this picture?

I put the second coat of paint on the block today. As you should recall, this is the engine from my 1972 GMC pickup. They call this a Chevy Small Block (SBC). And I painted it Chevrolet orange.

Got it? GMC truck. Chevy Small Block. Chevrolet Orange. Yes the GMC's came with Chevrolet Small Block engines painted Chevrolet Orange. Does this strike you as odd as well?

After cleaning the block again today with TSP, I finally got around to painting it. Only one major catastrophe occurred. While painting the bottom of the oil pan, I had the gun tipped over too far and the lid fell off. Orange paint went everywhere including the garage floor, my shoe, and my leg. Later I discovered some on my elbow as well.

The block looks good so far. It appears dry but I have resisted touching it. Tomorrow I will check it out and decide whether to apply another coat.

I used Eastwood engine paint, the high temperature ceramic stuff, in the factory orange color. It's looking pretty good so far.

Patience

Today I prepped the GMC's engine for painting. I had already removed the water pump, fuel pump, alternator, dizzy, etc. I spent a few hours cleaning up the block and taping off the holes. I was about ready to paint when I decided to call it a day. Let's call this practicing a little patience rather than simply procrastinating.

I was ready to paint but knew I should probably clean/degrease the block one more time before painting. By putting off painting one day, I didn't rush the final block cleaning. I expect the final result will be much better because I didn't rush to get the engine painted.

Learning patience is so difficult, especially when you want it now!

I am working towards repainting the GMC's engine block. Currently it is black. It will be Chevrolet Hugger Orange when I am done. Before stripping down the engine for the paint job, I decided to turn it over. It hasn't been cranked in quite a while. How many years has it been? After charging the battery, I sprayed a little starter fluid in the carb, hooked the ignition wire to the battery and tapped the starter wire on the (+) battery post. The engine turned over and a few cylinders fired off. Sweet! Oh yeah, and flames came shooting out of the exhaust manifold.

The shop has become a complete mess. There are so many partially finished projects and so little time. (Hopefully I will find time to move all the projects forward during the S.O.R.) I spent some time out there the last couple of days trying to do a little bit of organization and clean up. After many hours of effort, there are no visible signs of progress. Woo hoo!

Perhaps I should just focus on the truck. Surely putting a pickup back together will create some free space, unless an assembled truck somehow takes up more space than a disassembled truck. Not likely.

MLK

School was out today so I had no place to be. Gotta love the extra holidays. I spent some time preparing for the school week but mostly I spent the day hooking up a new dual tuner Tivo and doing more cleanup work in the garage.

Our old Tivo was purchased in February of 2003 I believe. Yesterday it started making a horrible screeching sound. I believe one of the hard drives was ready to go. I unplugged it last night (to silence it) and today when I plugged it back in, it just didn't work. Unfortunately I had just recorded about 35 hours of Barrett-Jackson. I guess I missed it this year.

In the garage, I plugged a few holes in the ceiling with insulation and got the heater back online. The drip pan in the HVAC unit was full of water. There is a float switch in the pan which disables the unit when water is present. I vacuumed the water out of the pan and then turned the thermostat up to 50 and set the fan to on. Hopefully the constant flow of air will help dry the walls and stairs. Someone needs to change the air filter!

I also spent some time drying the grade-8 bolts that managed to get completely submerged in water this weekend. After drying them with a heat gun I packaged them in sandwich bags and labeled the bags. They are ready to go when I get another chance to work on the GMC. Drying washers/nuts/bolts with a heat gun is a zen-like experience.

And speaking of weather (someone did mention weather didn't they?), shortly after lunch some white stuff started falling from the sky. At first it looked like snow, then ice, and finally snow again. I made the little people come outside for a few minutes so they could look at a crystal-like shape of a few snowflakes. They were not impressed.

It is almost tax time. Yippee.

It's Raining in the Garage

As the garage door opened on Sunday morning, I noticed something was wrong. It was raining in the garage.

After twisting the water cut-off value, I went into the garage to investigate. The entire place was a mess. A large part of the ceiling had collapsed over my '72 GMC and the workbench next to it. Everything on the bench was soaked. Across the room, water was rolling down the face of the cabinets that I had recently built onto another workbench below them. Many tools were lying in the torrent of water. Water was close to an 1" deep on the floor at the lowest spot in the garage.

The last few days have been really cold. I had heard this was the coldest winter we have had in 6 years. I spent several hours in the shop on Saturday just generally cleaning up. (And I finally got around to putting door handles on the cabinets as well as touching up the paint) The clean up effort was in vain, the place was a mess.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon dragging stuff out of the garage, and sweeping and vacuuming up water. After removing most of the water, I setup a box fan to assist in drying out the garage. (I took several photos before the cleanup effort began for the insurance company. )

It appears that a copper pipe in the unfinished upstairs area had frozen. The pipe has about a one inch split that runs lengthwise. After splitting, water sprayed upward. Some water went down the stairwell but it appears most ran across the floor and down into an A/C vent. The duct-work filled with water and the ceiling collapsed under the weight. When the ceiling collapsed, the duct was ripped in half above the ceiling. At this point water was running across the top side of the ceiling and downs the walls.

Upstairs, most of my hardwood supply got wet. I store the wood standing upright to save space. The bottom end of every board has soaked up water. About six to nine inches of each board is swollen. The boards will not dry back evenly. Hard wood is fairly expensive and my stash is all wet. This discovery made me sad.

Back down stairs, I noticed that my planer and chop saw had been subjected to the flow of water as well. I also had a soggy box of truck parts. On the truck, the new bolts had already started rusting. This was frustrating. For about three years now I have been working on the truck - taking it apart, sandblasting the parts to remove all rust, painting them, and putting it back together. It was discouraging to see some rust forming on the truck I had worked so hard to remove it from. I realize the truck would have eventually gotten wet, but my plan was to finish it first.

While cleaning out the garage, I was glad I had sold the 1925 Chevrolet. The ceiling caved in right above where the truck was normally parked. I am not sure that truck would have ever recovered from that much water.

1972 GMC Frame Pictures

Here are a few picture of the 1972 GMC pickup frame. This has been a very slow process. A few years back I bought a truck to restore. First I completely disassembled it. The frame has been sandblasted and painted along with all the suspension and steering components. These pictures were taken before the front wheels were back in place.

This first picture is where the trailing arms connect to a cross member. The differential is mounted to the other end of the trailing arms.



This is picture of the entire assembly. Finally I can see my progress.



Here we see the trailing arms again, this time showing their attachment to the differential.




Looking down the length of the frame from just above the second cross member. The cross member you can see is blocking the view of the trailing arms and the differential. My '06 Dodge Charger is trying to hide behind the rear tire.



The front end of the frame. The first cross member will be below the radiator. The second is below the engine and was quite heavy.



The rear view of the differential. The truck originally had leaf spring suspension. I am in the process of completing the conversion to trailing arm suspension.



This is the front suspension, passenger side. Shown here are the upper and lower A-arms along with the coil spring and the spindle. I mounted the brake rotors on the spindles today and put the tires on the front end.

GMC Progress

This afternoon I put the front wheels on the '72. There was actually more to it than that, but visually that is what you would notice. Also included was the installation of the brake rotors, inner and outer bearings, and other miscellaneous foo foo.

Wood Working SkillZ

Saturday's adventure was hardly as glorious. I re-sawed and planed a few pieces of scrape pine that were originally destined for the refuse bin.

The wood was actually 8 pieces of 2x4, each about 14 inches long. Really too short to be useful. (Unless one decided to make some small boxes to practice making dovetail joints.) I have certainly got a fair amount of use out of these boards. Their last use was as part of a large dolly I built to move the truck frame around on before it had its wheels back on. I recall at that point I was recycling the wood from another project though I don't recall exactly what it was at this point. Not that it matters, but I certainly felt good about using the pieces of that 2x4 three different times on three different projects.

After many past attempts, I did finally manage to get the band saw tuned up sufficiently to re-saw the wood without any wander of the blade. The solution was so simple, I can't believe I hadn't spotted it before. (One of the blade guides was misaligned.)

GMC Update

I bolted the rear coil springs on the GMC this evening. It is starting to look like a real truck again!