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

Very nice !!!

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

Lifted the back half of the extended cab donor cab off the cart to set it on my little trailer to move it around to the other side of the place until it heads into the shop.

The cat isn't in the photo but he thought it made great shade hanging there.

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

Thanks for the reminder. I had posted on here and on Stovebolt. I got back to share results on that forum but forgot to do it on here. Now, it's done.

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

the dumbest stuff happens to the dumbest people. been driving my truck as my daily for a week. its running great and very fun to drive. pulled out of work gave it some gas and right when I hit 50mph it shut off. I coasted to a Walmart parking lot. I knew immediately it was spark. checked my fuse block. all good. opened the hood and removed the breather so I could see. everything looked good. I pushed on the plugs on the distributor to make sure they hadn't come loose and the whole distributor cap lifted. one of the 3 clips that hold it had come loose. I guess when I put the cap back on last week I didn't get one of the clips seated and it vibrated off. it was an easy fix. the interesting part is when I was working on the truck people kept coming and asking if they could help. lots of people and when I said no thanks that I had it they didn't leave. a crowd of about 15 people gathered and when the death rattle fired they all cheered. I felt like I was on one of the stupid car shows where they do a reveal. ordered the last pieces of my a/c and hop to be knee/elbow deep in a/c this weekend.

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

How fun!

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

I love that color!

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

Thanks!

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

Received my OEM left rear fender today for $240 delivered and sent spindles off to my engineer in Tennessee to have them altered to except my 12.88" Wilwood 6 piston brakes. The front axle drama has been going on for nearly 2 years. It's the old "they don't make that" thing.

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

That looks like one fine fender. I've spent about 20 hours apiece bringing my rear ones back from the dead. I would have paid the $240 in a heartbeat (if the wife woulda let me...).

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

Today, with the help of my smart son (this is a father-son project anyway) I figured out my horn relay issue which had started with me being a doofus and screwing it up in the first place.

A while back, I purchased a classic horn relay, mounted it on the firewall, ran a 12+ to the B terminal, connected the wire going to the horn to the H terminal, and ran a wire from the S terminal to a switch in the cab (no wire to the steering wheel horn button, so this is a temporary next best option) and ran a wire from chassis ground to the other side of the switch. After much consternation, I had left it wired with the two horn wires (H and S) on the same terminal, as it was the only way it would make the horn sound. I thought, I must have fried something on the relay, so I'll leave it this way for now (big clue here, folks...)

Couple days ago I got a box with some stuff from Advance Auto, one of which was a new BWD horn relay. Swapped out the two relays and... nothing. Still behaves the same way. I was so focused on this relay, until my son came out to have a look (he's 18, just graduated HS). I said, here, look, when I pull the switch I hear the relay click but no horn sound. He has his head in the cab, and he hears the click. So he goes out to the firewall and says to do it again. He says he doesn't hear the relay click outside, just in the cab.

Suddenly, the light bulb goes on! Aha! I had him look/feel around under the dash and we find that the clicking noise is coming from the fuse box. Now, keep in mind this is an entirely new wiring kit I had just recently installed. I didn't realize that tucked between the hazard flasher and the turn signal flasher was - tada! - a horn relay!

I had installed a horn relay in-line between the horn relay and the horn, without even knowing! LOL! No wonder it worked when the S wire and the H wire were on the same post! So now... the horn relay that I had installed has been removed. The 12v+ hot lead has been removed. The original horn wire lead I had cut to wire into the horn relay has been butted back together, and the horn lives.

Sometimes you gotta get a second person looking at it from a fresh perspective...

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

It was on ebay auction for $150 or buy it now for $200. I first bid the $150 and 10 minutes went back and bought it. I would have been mad at myself if I lost it for $50. I have no wife.

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

That's hilarious!

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

got the a/c condenser kit in yesterday. I pulled the passenger fender off to give myself some easier access. looking the directions I may have to do a tiny bit of fabrication. my core support is a "custom" fabricated piece of crap. so the hard lines wont route like vintage air says. should be fine though. im also going to cover a couple pf holes in the firewall and tidy up while I have easy access.

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

After much body work and humidity, got some lower humidity (below 70%) this morning and shot round 2 of the 2K urethane primer on the rear fenders, bed sides and bed front. Sand again tomorrow with 180 grit!

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

Only disappointing part is Advance Auto says they don't allow returns on electronic items. So now I have two horn relays that I don't need.

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

That's true for nearly all (if not all) parts stores on electrical stuff. That said, I took a bottle of R134 back 3 months ago and the counter guy said they didn't take THAT back. I went to their website and it was not listed, so I phoned around their corporate offices until I got the regional manager involved. Long story short, they do take those back, and they did take it back.

If I had not been out of town visiting when I bought that R134 - being driven around by my friend - I would not have bought at Advance, but I did. Here's why I avoid them: I had had a couple of dust-ups with them about 3 years ago - always a "gotcha", it seemed, on returns. The last straw was when I bought a handful of radiator hoses, trying to make something work. I forgot my receipt when I went to take the unused ones back, and they had labels with bar codes. The GUY WHO SOLD THEM TO ME - AND REMEMBERED ME - wouldn't take them back without a receipt.

I now go to Autozone, then O'reilly's, then...

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

Always nice to have around. I don't know what size they are but I think they are a good option for a lot of circuits.

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

I had been thinking about that. When I wired my truck I didn't put a relay in for the headlights. Headlights I got are halogen with LED built in. For some reason I thought they were completely LED and thus not pulling that much power. Maybe I should, *could* use these as headlamp relays?

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

I got the missing parts for the radiator cover.. I sanded them and painted them this morning... not the best product or even acceptable. But 100% better ... for now. 7

I also built a "tap tower" for my tailgating cooler..

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

Got one rear fender ready for final primer. Slow progress...

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

today I spent about 3 hours ( probably closer to 4) installing the A/C condenser and dryer. its really not a difficult job but my core support isn't stock. so nothing meant for stock fits. I was able to use the passenger side vintage air bracket. I didn't care about the driver side. I wanted the passenger side because it has a built in bracket for the dryer and all the hard lines are routed assuming the dryer is there. it worked out well. tomorrow i will start hacking away at the renaming items on the list

1)paint compressor mount
2) mount compressor
3) run hoses
4)review and double check evaporator installation
5) 100 other things i cant think of at the moment.

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

I now have front lights, and the English Bulldogs approval!:barn:

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

Good to see you guys getting something done, can't wait to get back to that!

Brian

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

back at the a/c today. a lot of what I got done isn't photo worthy but its important. I got the compressor mocked. I need to make a spacer but other than that the compressor is ready to polish and the bracket ready for paint. I have the evaporator ready to go back in. I got the rest of the hard lines mocked. I had to do a little trimming on the vintage air bracket and I clearanced the core support. started working on the hoses. this is where It gets complicated. i bought the evaporator kit thinking i could use the a/c hoses i had. the two main hoses will work but im going to either have to buy 2 hoses from vintage air or have new ends put on my hoses. will see which is cheaper. i ordered my inner firewall cover. it should be here this week. i need to install that before i mount the evaporator. so this week im going to be sealing up the firewall and trying to source the 2 hoses. fun day.

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

Got the other fender ready for final primer, and started one of the bed sides. It was 91 degrees, I'm sick of sanding, and I quit early. Another hundred hours or so and I'll be completely in paint!

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

Still working on adding the back and side skirts to my Chevelle bucket seats. It pretty much entails removing all the upholstery that I paid to have installed. So far I've spent two days on it. I'm learning more about upholstering than I ever wanted to know. I'll won't bore you with pics yet, but I'll post some when I'm done.

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

Got one seat done. My seats are '67 but I used '66 back covers to eliminate the push button back locks. The back cover mounting systems weren't compatible so I substituted upholstered screw caps to hold them on. Definitely not show quality but good enough for the level of build level that I'm going for in this truck.

Next task, door panels.

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

those are great looking seats man

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

so how does it feel to sit in new seats? hows the position relative to the steering wheel, brakes, shifter etc?

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

a/c continued. i got the missing hose made today. took me about 3 hours. i had to go to two different hose makers before to get it made and then realized i was missing a piece of information that might cause issue. had to drive 20 miles home look at truck drive 20 miles back. got it home and it was a tiny bit long but works. once i had that i mocked the entire system. its gonna work well. took the interior parts and hoses back out and started working on the giant hole in my firewall. to review. my firewall isn't stock it was hacked up and "smoothed" by a professional shop. so the vintage air system didn't fit. i had to hack the firewall up to get it in. the hole was large and im making the patch in two pieces. the main piece is done. i will tac it in tomorrow and then make the second smaller patch. i also have 10 other small holes to fill. i only have a tig set up which isn't optimal for body work but its what i have so i will make it work.

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

Thanks. Chevelle bucket seats command ridiculous prices on Ebay. I saw a recovered set last week that got bid up to $2500 and still didn't make reserve.

I set the position specifically for myself, so it's great for me but I can't speak for anyone else. I prefer these old-style seats with no headrests, no bolsters, nothing fancy, just good old black tuck-and-roll.

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

Nice choice on the seats, especially in the sedan delivery. They look great!

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

well today was welding day. it didn't go well. I was using a practice piece and I kept burning through. I just couldn't get the tig dialed into it. I was laying decent tacs but as far as welds it wasn't good. I spoke to a buddy and hes going to loan me his mig. that will be a lot easier.

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

Thanks, that's a real compliment coming from a guy with a truck as nice as yours.

Today I got the passenger seat installed. Although it's really hard to photograph black interior in a dark garage, I am blown away with how nice these turned out.

Now I turn my attention to making matching door cards.

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

I had the same seats in my truck back in the seventies! One was white, bought them both out of cars at the wrecking yard. I couldn't find two black ones in good shape. Painted the white one black with SEM rattle can and forgot I ever did it! No kidding, ran them for a few years and not a speck of that SEM came off!

Brian

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

Interesting, I'm looking at your pictures and I see a detail that relates to what I'm doing. I see the driver's door relay in your last picture is mounted 'up' so the triangle shaped mount lines up with all three mount holes. When I take my panels off and look at my door release relays they are mounted upside down to yours and the long bar is flat. My wife had complained the other day that she couldn't get the passenger door open (nevermind that the door alignment is completely fubar) so I ordered a new door relay. I put it in only to realize half (more than half?) the problem is that the interior door handles are completely stripped of gearing. So, now I have ordered new handles too.

Kinda goes along with the other thing I was working on, replacement wipers. Since new wipers won't mount on the original arms, I bought new wiper arms as well. This old truck is keeping me busy for sure! (And, in debt.)

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

I can't count the number of interiors in the 1970s that I dyed black using Mar-Hyde, but it would always wear off in about a year. Wish I'd known about your SEM technique back then.

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

MPC the seats look great and I bet they are pretty comfortable too.

I had to fix the power cord on my garage fan before I could even start working on the truck. Cleaned up, fluids checked and full of fuel. Headed to the Summer Nationals tomorrow morning...

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

got another small patch done. they are tacked in but that's as far as I got. I need to make one more patch to close off the 4 holes above it and then I can finish weld and clean up the patches. I also have several small bolt holes to fill. I know its ugly now but I will get it smooth as a gorillas butt

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

MPC the seats look great and I bet they are pretty comfortable too.

I had to fix the power cord on my garage fan before I could even start working on the truck. Cleaned up, fluids checked and full of fuel. Headed to the Summer Nationals tomorrow morning...