Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I have a small glass shop where I blow , cast, bend ,cut and drill glass. Windshield glass has a high COE (coefficient of expansion), probably about 120. This makes it easy to cut but subject to cracking due to the high expansion rate. What you want to avoid is temperature differential. Warm glass is easier to work with than cold glass. warm up the entire piece and use warm water. I like to submerge if possible. Also a couple of suction cups help with vibration. Your expert probably knows this I just thought I would throw it out there.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Thanks, Mick. This could be a big help, depending on my guy's knowledge. I know he's a great installer, but I don't know how strong he is in molecular science! :ack:

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Windshield install!! Why don't you call Safelite glass and have them come to your garage and install the windshield in a couple of hours for a couple hundred dollars. Worked for me on the 57

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Attempted to "outline" letters on tailgate.. didn't like it so I washed it off with lacquer thinner.. to my delight it was slowly removing grey.. so I exposed a little blue

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

i wonder who makes their stuff.. Spartan Rod works in Sparta Wi. supposedly makes and ships 50 kits a week to somewhere is Iowa.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Several of those positive feedbacks are from me. Lots of parts on my truck are from Gearhead. Always great quality, low prices, fast shipping and excellent service. The lowering springs for my MII front end were right on the money.

I'd trust their Ebay seller rating more than forum gossip. I've seen too many unreasonable customers go on crazed vendettas, joining every forum solely for the purpose of single-handedly destroying a seller's reputation - including one paranoiac on this very forum who accused me of being the seller operating incognito and then followed me from forum to forum to harass me. I couldn't post anything anywhere without this guy answering back that I was a cheat and a thief, when in fact I'd never met him ever. I see he's still a registered user here, although moderators have removed most of his posts.

Sorry if you were wronged, but Ebay has a procedure for a money back guarantee if purchases are not as described. You'll get more satisfaction that way than going public with your beef.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Wow, I have them a positive when I got my shipment, after that, no way. I understand everyone can have a different opinion, but the material and information I received was not how I would do business.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

As I said, no one on this forum can fix the problem. File a case with Ebay and/or PayPal.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Finally, Tuesday the Beast goes in to get the Interior done!!!

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I'm making progress on my timing cover. I almost gave up a couple of times and just had someone make me a new one. Now I think I have a shot at pulling this off. I had to put so much heat into the piece replacing bad metal that it shrank considerably. So I welded up the holes and dab by dab made it wider. Then I machined the back and got it surprisingly flat (big win). This now gives me a flat surface to work from. Of the 5 countersunk holes 4 go into the back half of the cover and 1 goes into the engine block. I was careful to center my now oblong hole on the crank when I countersunk my holes. Now I have to rebore the hole (scary).

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Well, mostly because for me life is a challenge, not an invoice to be paid. That's why me and the wife built our own house 18 years ago, and the only sub that showed up here after that was the lawn care guy. I'll let you know when I get the windshield in. :bo2:

(Besides, my guy's glass company can work rings around Safelite.)

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I had a horrid experience with a 56 truck years ago. I had chopped the top on it, THEN brought it to the glass shop to have them cut the glass...big mistake. If you were to chop one, you have the glass cut after the initial cut and weld on the top, then you make the roof fit the glass! No kidding!

Anyway, so I had little money, I was a moron new in business (this was literally one of my very first jobs in my shop I had just opened) and I gave him a fixed price for the whole job, $1600. Yep, $1600 for the chop, truck back to him with all the glass installed even when I did it in 1982 this was cheap, but it was even worse because I ended up after buying another roof because the owner screwed up the one on the truck starting a chop himself, and then paying for two broken windshields the guy tried to cut and fit in the truck I ended up with $300 profit, which means I made about a dollar an hour, no kidding! LOL

Yeah, I got a call from the glass shop that he had just broken the second windshield! I went and got the truck brought it back to the shop and with the advice of a local customizer I made a fiberglass template of the windshield out of the new one I bought, I cut it down to fit the roof, then modified the roof to fit it then gave that template to the glass shop to cut the glass. Wham, it was done, glass installed (this was a different glass shop.)

It blows my ever loving mind that I never got a single photo of that truck, or many other cars I did there, too busy trying to make a living.

Sorry for the long story that didn't help you a bit. LOL

Brian

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

just goes to show we all screw up things. that's how we learn life's lessons.

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Yep!:metal:

Brian

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

hey mick, with your machinist skills why not just build one from billet and be done? no leaks that way.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

That brings to mind one of the three sayings I've made up over the years:

"Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition's a b__ch."

(The by-line in my signature is another one of mine...)


...and thanks, Brian, for the story. I've heard about the chopped glass nightmares, but have never been stupid enough to try that. I neve thought of fitting the roof to the bed!

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

In retrospect might have been easier but I have very little skill And having to locate everything without a reference point would have been hard to say the least. Then you have round bottom fins and other details. My tools are not that great. This will be just fine and I learned a lot.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I often quote your second one, but what's the third?

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

"The last 10 years are highly overrated."

(...so go ahead and eat that donut, or power shift to second, or go skydiving, or do whatever else "they" say is bad for you.)

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

the one I like is" live fast, die young, be a good looking corpse. in my case 1 out of 3 an't bad" guess where I fit...

The other one is" keep smiling - it makes the world wonder what the heck you're up to"

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

Hey Brian, I did some modifications to the toy truck you gave me. Tried to PM but I can't post photos there.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

drive to work. its chilly. gld my heats working. really need to seal up my cab though. talk about a draft.

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very NICE

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playing around with my non functioning headlight, gauge lights, parking lights,tail lights. I still have brake lights. the headlight fuse checked out fine. im testing the switch itself and im not sure about the results. im getting no resistance on all but one terminal and on that one im getting about 3ohms. that's not a lot but compared to the .01 im getting for all the other terminals its pretty big.

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Check the voltage with respect to ground on both of those "3 ohm" contacts. The two measurements should be the same.

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I found a ground wire on the back of the fuse panel hanging loose. its clear from the condition of the bare wire that its been inside something. it looks brand new. I haven't found the place it came out of yet but at least I have something to go on.

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My custom spindles came today. I have been trying to get this done for a couple of years. I had to take legal action against one company that had them for 6 months to get them back. These are 12.88 disk brakes with nickle plated calipers. They only did nickle plating for a short time. The problem was they only fit a Heidts spindle profile. Nobody makes a straight axle spindle with that profile. I am not willing to give up these brakes, After talking to several people about doing it they all said at least $1k and did not know when they could do it. In the end a friend of mine that has an industrial fab shop in TN did them for me for free. I'm running a 4" drop axle custom made by super bell through Pete and Jakes. These were ford spindles to start with because I'm using ford steering setup mostly for looks. I still need to make caliper brackets. This is a major step for me. I will now send them back to Pete and Jakes to be chromed and they can finish their work.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I had to rebore my hole for the big block oil seal that shrank due to all the welding I had to do so I set the diameter on a piece of scrap. After mounting the cover I countersunk the hole on the ear into the block for repeatable mounting and recentered the hole. After drilling and before I put the seal in I checked the center on the hole and I am .006" to the upper left as pictured. That's closer than when I started so I'm calling it a win. It took a long time and I almost gave up a couple of times but I pulled it off myself and I learned a lot.

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When I had trans etc installed I told him dont worry about where shifter comes up I will take care of it. He flipped trans cover front to rear... good enough...
I today built another "trans tunnel while watching Packer game.

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Mick53, your spindles and cover plate turned out nice. I home hobby with a mill and lathe so I know how much time it takes . Keep the pictures coming.
I am just getting started installing trac lock in the 9" and changing out my th350 for a 2004r. First time getting into a rear end so I have been watching and reading a lot.
Mac

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

When I was about 25 in SoCal I had just put an open driveline in my 53. It was late so I washed my hands and changed my shirt and test drove to the bar. I smelled bad with 90 weight gear oil. A hot blonde sitting next to me said I smelled good and ask me what I was wearing. Without thinking I said rear end grease. I got a drink in the face. I don't think she quite understood what I meant.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I still haven't fixed my headlights. ive still been driving the truck often but im careful to get home before its dark. that's getting difficult with the sun going down earlier everyday. got to fix this stupid thing

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I watched an episode of Roadkill where they taped flashlights on the front of a car for headlights.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

wont be long until im that desperate.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

its been very cold. 20 degrees is bad enough but you add our famous wind and its awful. my fast idle was a little high. I adjusted it...the wrong way and then it was REALLY high. I think it was about 2400rpm. I forgot that every time you fart near a holley carb it messes with float level up. I was driving home from work and the truck wasn't idling normal. wasn't stalling but the idle felt labored. i sat at the long traffic lights listening and it dawned on me that the carb was flooding. it drove home with no issue but the idle at lights. removed the air cleaner and sure enough. the main float was high but not all the way up. the secondary was ALL the way up and dripping. i adjusted the fast idle the correct direction and the floats to the correct level. im expecting it to be smooth as silk tomorrow.

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Hey fellows, for those of you that haven't voted. Please go to the Truck of the Year thread and vote for Black Sheep. He is in 2nd place right now, would love to see him take this win with his beautiful truck. Dan and Mircale pie, are to far back to mount a charge. The 47 to 59 forum needs this win...Jim

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I have the '56 in the upholstery place, should have it back in 3 to 4 weeks due to the holidays!
After a short wait to get the material for the interior in, someone bought the whole roll that the supplier had for over a year!

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Thanks for the reminder!

Aargh, they used a photo of my truck covered in dust the first time I rolled it out of the shop! :waah:

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

I started polishing again for the last couple of days. I finally got my blower belt cover done. It took forever. It started out with a heavy brushed finish, It is much more aerodynamic now.

Re: What did you do with your truck today, Part 3
 

WOW! That is some beautiful work!

Brian