Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The seat bases have their own special challenge. Square bodies have flat floors (cause their square :lol:) Where our "Glamour Trucks" have crowned floors. They drop about 3/4" over 2 feet. (Photo #1). Some some spacers of some sort will be required. To start I ground some wedge washers down to match the angle of the slope (Photo #2) then I put a round spacer on top of the each wedge. (Photo #3 this photo was before I installed the wedge washers)
Once the spacer plan was figured out it was a matter of finding the right spot to bolt the seat down. Lots of boxes to check off. How did the upholstery line up, how well did the seat clear the back when lifting up, how was the gap between the seat base and the back, how did the seat land on the bumper under each end, did the latch work. It took at least 30 minutes of jockeying the seat around before I was satisfied enough to mark the spot and drill the floor.

The other side ended up being even more difficult to get aligned. Much to my frustration, as I was thinking it should be a cake walk. Making the story shorter I discovered the seat is bent. (Photo #4) Possibly it happened when the original hinge was damaged. I attempted to straighten the seat but after taking the base off I realized I would have to build a jig and remove the upholstery to get it fixed. So for the short term I just put a spacer under one of the bumpers and once I had it aligned I attached it. This simple little paragraph took over 2 hours in real time.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

And here they are installed. I am not satisfied with the spacer situation and that will have to be revised. The seat belts have yet to be installed and the carpet is waiting on the spacer fix. If I had access to some expired Chockfast Orange I could make a pair of moulds and pour some epoxy spacers. But nothing that easy is on the horizon.

They are about 1 & 1/2" lower than the original seat but the foam is maybe half as firm as the original seat is so you sink even lower when you sit on it.

And the last photo is the previously mentioned doubler for under the center base support.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Nice install on the seat! Looks eerily familiar.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Until you look under the hood. No big block here.
And thanks for the complement.


And after bunch of Imagineering I failed to come up with a better alternative to mount the air tank than bolting to the bottom of the floor. I did manage to find these large headed carriage bolts with nice flat heads. (Photo #1)

With things pretty much together I went out for a test ride. First thing I noticed was as I walked around the truck with it idling was that it seemed really quiet. I thought maybe since it had been a couple of weeks since I had driven it it was just me, but when I got back the girlfriend commented on how it sounded quieter than it was. Maybe it was all those bolts rattling before.

The next thing was just driving at 15 mph the truck feels much smoother than before. The new shocks and mounts really are noticeable at highway speeds. And it is nice not to be hearing that old track bar rattling.

I had thought that there would be a noticeable reduction in highway speed noise but that doesn't seem to be the case. Although it was nice today and I had the windows down, mostly to keep from being overcome by fumes as some of the sealer is still gassing off. Maybe when the windows are up I may notice some reduction.

Another noticeable change is that the body seems to rock side to side more than before. It may be the shocks but, the new floor may have stiffened the body so it isn't flexing anymore.

The one failure of the project is the new compressor mount. When the tank is near empty the compressor is definitely louder than it was before and about the same when the pressure is at the turn on point of the pressure switch. I also failed to cure my air leak on the tank side of the distribution valves. So more work to do.


I would also like to thank the folks involved with these two threads. They were very helpful with my little project.

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=213960

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ight=fold+flat

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Nice seat install. Mine has square body seats installed by the PO. Makes me wonder how they did it. He said they 'bolted right up'...

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you sir. Mine did "bolt up". After much cursing and fiddling about. :lol:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I guess, depending on how you look at it, everything eventually 'bolts right up'!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

That's right. When someone asks me how I can do projects like this I tell them it's just nuts and bolts with some tape measurements thrown in.
My sister's response is always "You said the J-word" (just). :lol: It seems that she has learned that things don't "Just" go together as expected.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Right?!

It had been quite a while since I did mine but I do remember it taking at least one full weekend. BTW, I had to open up my latches a bit as well. I guess i forgot to mention that detail. D'oh!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

It's all good! I believe you were posting from memory. It certainly is easy for me to forget all the moves necessary to do things like this. Especially the parts that didn't end up being a big hassle.
Do you remember if you used any spacers under the seat bases? If so what kind?

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Yep.

Iirc I used 2" wide flat bar. Maybe 3/8" thick? Ill have to double check that though.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

VC
I finally got those rear panel brackets shipped out today UPS. they should arrive Tuesday

Richard

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you sir! PM me with what I owe you. They are predicting rain here for the next 7 days so I won't be setting up the saw horses and making new side panels any time soon.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you for checking Joe!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Nothing needed. Enjoy them if they work out for ya, if not pass them on to someone who can.

Richard

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you very much. This place is great and you are one of the reasons why.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

After some testing and such I decided the panels that the upper latches are bolted to need stiffeners. The 14 guage sheet metal allows fair amount of flex and that can't be good. So I cut some light angle iron pieces and tacked them down in addition to running the latch bolts through them. See photo. Now if the paint will ever dry I will get them installed back in the WMB.
Now that the rains have returned I noticed that the bottom of the door panels were wet. (Photo #2) So out into the rain I went and pulled them off and I discovered two things.
One is that the PO secured the fabric with duct tape and that blocked the drain holes behind the door panels. So I removed most of the old tape in hopes of getting the water to drain.
And two is the water appears to be coming in the half circle cutout under the wing window. (Photo #3) So I covered those holes from the inside with some weather sealing tape. Hopefully this will stop the fabric from getting wet in the future.
The other thing I discovered was that my window regulator screws were loose and falling out. That's one less rattle to annoy me tomorrow. :mm:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

-
It never ends.....

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Got the parts today! It looks as if I have a bit of a puzzle ahead of me figuring how all those pieces fit.

Thanks again Richard!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

0Oh boy, you're speaking the gospel there Doc. It looks as my passenger side door panel water drainage project failed so it will have to come off again. Since the driver side stayed dry I must be batting .500.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I probably have some pictures and will post them later

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Excellent!! Thanks again sir.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I think you jinxed me Doc! Now my brake pedal is feeling weird and one channel of the A/F guage has gone to error mode. And it's raining again! :lol:

But that will let me know if my new fix of the door panel will work. I looked closer at the door side of things under the panel and noticed the factory seal had come unglued and dropped down a bit. (Photo #1 like the red line shown) I cleaned things up a bit and reglued the the seal. It appears that those crafty GM engineers planned for the seal bead to catch and guide the water to the drain slots where the water would then go back inside the door and drain out the bottom slots. None of which will happen if the seal isn't glued down in the correct place.
The second and third photos show the before and after pictures of the inside of the door panels and the duct tape mess that the PO used to hold the fabric and to trap water. I only cleaned up the bottom edge as I plan on replacing the current fabric once I get this wetness issue solved for good.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

here are the pics as promised.


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Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

2 more


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Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Sorry about that....:(... I never thought about the foam seal helping with moisture travel. I usually don't replace them. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my thinking on that. PO must have had stock in the tape company. I have never had much luck with the spray adhesives myself. Maybe he didn't either.


LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks Richard. They will make installation much easier.


I got to the bottom of the brake pedal issue. I popped the lid off the master cylinder and the front reservoir was very low. I immediately went to the worst case scenario and spent 45 minutes inspecting the brake lines and calipers. It ended up being the pads which were the last thing I looked at. The pads were worn down to about an 1/8" . I installed a new set of Bosch Quietcast pads and everything was back to normal.

The rotors looked nice and miced out between 126.2 and 126.7. The minimum is 127.5. I noticed the rotors are the original factory one with the groove in the center of the pad area. Which is important since I believe they only came that way on 71 & 72's. I still don't know for sure what 5 lug spindles are installed. But if the rotor's are grooved that would rule out 73 and later spindles. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

I guess I had better take a look at the rear shoes as it has been about 14k miles since I looked at them and although they showed little wear on last inspection I have no idea what quality of shoes were installed.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Yep

2 pieces of 3/16".

Here are some recent pictures with (15) sheets of OSB in the back.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks Joe. Nice hard working Burban you have there.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Got some time to work on the WMB today. I have been driving it without a choke since I put the Qjet on. Which hasn't been too bad, even when we've had some mornings below freezing. As the idle mixture is still rich I've been able roll out to work without much fuss. I ordered an electric choke conversion from Mikes Carburetor parts. I have used this style of choke before with good results.
Picture number one is what you get in the kit. The directions are good and it only took about 30 minutes to install. That being said I had no old choke to remove and the mounting surface and threads were previously cleaned. Also I had previously installed wiring for the electric choke on the old Edelbrock carburetor.
Most of my installation time was getting spent getting the existing wires and hoses situated. The set up consists of a choke stove with 12+ and 12- connections. The 12+ is for power from a switched source. The stove bolts down the same as the factory one would. (Photos 2 & 3). The actuator arm has to be inserted in to the choke linkage before the stove is bolted down. Then the tricky part is getting the push nut installed on the end of the actuator arm.
The 12- terminal is where the temperature sensor hooks up. The sensor has a copper lug that bolts to the intake manifold. The connection to the manifold is a ground so it has to be clean and shiny. After removing one of the intake bolts and filing the intake to get a good electrical connection I coated the surfaces with Coppersieze to keep it working in the long run. Then the sensor is simply bolted down and the wire run to the choke stove. (Photo 4)
The connections on the choke stove are male and female so if you don't change the connector on the sensor lead it would be hard to get it wired incorrectly.
Now the fun starts. In the morning I will have to set the high idle speed as well as how much the choke plate is pulled closed when things are cold. Although currently its only been down about 40 degrees in the mornings lately. I may have to go up on Mt. Hood to get some colder temperatures.
Loosening the screw above the plastic part of the choke allows you to turn the plastic center which in turn opens or closes the choke plate like the original did.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

A quick follow up on the choke. I had set the temperature range as directed to the second mark and with our mild winter weather as of late the choke works great. I didn't even have to adjust the high idle speed. The cold idle speed is about 150 RPM higher than hot idle. So knock on wood it is all good.
Today's big project was changing the front floor mats. :lol:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Good deal on the choke.

Those mats look pretty heavy duty. I need to get new ones for the Panel Truck.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I love the fold flat back seats you did. I had always wondered when they folded flat with the seat bottoms folded up could you still put 4x8 sheets in there and close it up.

You definitely answered that question =)

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Here is more information on the mats. At this point the only thing I would change on them is they should be larger. Oh and cheaper! :lol:

https://www.jegs.com/p/Husky-Liners/...71000/10002/-1

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks. I need the other parts of my life to settle down so I can get time to finish them up.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thanks, I think they are wider than the ones I have now. The heavy duty ones are not cheap no matter where you get them.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I will give credit to AverageJoe for definitively answering that question with his photo. :metal:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

If you need me to put a tape measure next to them, let me know.

HO455

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

OK, thanks.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

;)Any new milage data? Still playing with the tune on the qjet?