Markeb01 Build Thread

[pdxhall]

Hey Mark, I was trolling around ebay and happened upon these. Since you are interested in the "aviation" look I thought of you when I saw these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Gau...r#ht_354wt_705
Apparently there are several sizes and a couple of styles available.
By the way, I like the parking brake idea.

[Blue666(2)]

I wish I had read your thread earlier, could hav saved you $30.
http://store.colemans.com/cart/emerg...dle-p-721.html

they have great prices on 3:08 gear rear axles also.

[markeb01]

Thanks for all the comments guys.

I actually talked to my son about machining a set of those bomber bezels so I could actually install and remove the gauges from the front. He agreed to build them, but I didn’t think they’d look very authentic with chrome rimmed hot rod style gauges so the project was abandoned.

Thanks for the tip Blue666(2). I’d actually seen those and considered buying one but they have a $14.95 minimum order fee. I put 3 of them in the cart, and still had to find something else worth more than 5 cents! Shipping also calculated out to nearly $18 so they became far less interesting.

Another search turned up the one I bought which looked like a far better fit (I’m hoping a near bolt-on), so I think I’ll be okay even without as many left over spare parts.

[markeb01]

While I’m waiting the parking brake mechanism to arrive on Tuesday, I started working on the adapter plate to mount the new assembly to the original column bracket. Here’s a close up of the stock setup in the truck now:



I extracted the mounting plate from a spare hand brake and bolted it up to the column bracket and marked the center line of the column:



Here’s a different angle highlighting the orientation of the plate to the cable clevis, and steering column:



Next came a paper template, adding more material for mounting the new hand brake assembly to the left of the column centerline:



This was transferred to 1/8” aluminum (being all I had available), and sliced up into a working prototype:



After fitting it in place (no photo), I realized it might benefit from having a longer bolting surface available. This resulted in another template, two inches taller on the left side:



This will allow any needed adjustment in fastening the hand brake mechanism to the bracket:



Any unneeded part of the bracket (and mounting rail on the hand brake) can be trimmed off once final fit is established:

[Grizz1963]

You are a busy guy.

Looking very good Mark.

[Ta2Don]

[Mjminino]

I seriously just spent the greater half of 1.5 weeks reading your 74 page build thread before and after work all and before I found yours I read McMurphys (which lead me here). All I can say is WOW! I love your truck through and through. and I wouldn't change a thing. I only to inspire to have my truck becoming a thing of beauty like yours. I damn near ended up book marking every page you did a modification on that would be sweet down the road for my truck. I would love to get a hold of you and pick your brain about some of the stuff you did to your truck.


Here is my build if you're at all interested. Not a forum and no words, just pictures LoL

1964 Chevy C10 Short Box

From Omaha Ne,

Mike

P.S. Now I am going to be bored before work HAHA

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Mjminino

I seriously just spent the greater half of 1.5 weeks reading your 74 page build thread before and after work all and before I found yours I read McMurphys (which lead me here). All I can say is WOW! I love your truck through and through. and I wouldn't change a thing. I only to inspire to have my truck becoming a thing of beauty like yours. I damn near ended up book marking every page you did a modification on that would be sweet down the road for my truck. I would love to get a hold of you and pick your brain about some of the stuff you did to your truck.


Here is my build if you're at all interested. Not a forum and no words, just pictures LoL

1964 Chevy C10 Short Box

From Omaha Ne,

Mike

P.S. Now I am going to be bored before work HAHA

You did hit the mother lode here.

Marks thread and way of thinking has inspired many, including me.

There are a load of amazingly talented, helpful, friendly people on this board, but Mark has a way of sharing that makes every job he does, seem attainable to most of us.

[Mjminino]

See, I think a big part of it is that outside of a few things, his truck is a budget build. Which coincides with your post, being attainable by others.

[markeb01]

Thanks for the comments and compliments guys. And Mike, welcome to the forum and thanks for taking the time to go through my build thread. I wish the internet and this forum had been around when I first started on my truck, it would have made some of it much easier. You should start a build thread on here as well as your picture page. Looks like you’ve accomplished a lot. I assume the elbow/skin photos are POR-15. We’ve all been there at least once! I’m thankful I didn’t have to do any patching as my welding skills wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as nice as yours. Funny how much our trucks looked alike at this stage:





What’s the story on the black truck in the background with the late model bed? I always thought those were a better design to go with our cabs than the 1955 version.

You’re absolutely correct about my truck being a budget build. I discovered years ago building and maintaining a vintage vehicle to show condition is beyond my income and enthusiasm. I’ve invested a lot of time and a bit of accumulated money in it because I’ve had it so long, but almost everything in it came out of the household budget. For most of the first 20 years of ownership justification was pretty easy because it was my primary daily driver so there were no car payments.

The only truly frivolous investment was the 4 speed transmission, and a large portion of that was paid for by a work bonus. Most of the rest came from extensive research followed by a lot of shopping around for least expensive pricing. It also really helps keep costs down if a person can do everything themselves. The only things I’ve ever farmed out were redrilling the rear axles (nice), having the gear set changed (excellent), and installing new rockers (a complete disaster).

The last couple of days I’ve been out in the garage working on the parking brake conversion. The new handbrake mechanism showed up yesterday, and is just about ready to bolt into the truck. It just requires final test fitting & adjustment. The nice part is that if it doesn’t work as projected, I can simply remove the new setup and bolt the chrome handle back in. Nothing on the truck has been altered.

In order to insure adequate strength, I sliced up a chunk of 1/8” steel to add one additional mounting hole, and add reinforcement to the 3/16” piece of aluminum used for the prototype adapter bracket. I lined them up with an 11/32” transfer punch, bolted the two plates together and match ground them for appearance as they are visible when installed:





I need to fabricate a couple more spacers, and pick up a new/longer clevis pin for the cable connection. Once everything is mounted and adjusted, the whole thing will be pulled apart and sprayed with gloss black epoxy for now. Here’s the completed assembly in the at-rest position (nearly the same as the stock handle):



And here it is in the under-tension position:



It appears to be much easier to operate, as I don’t have so far to reach – which my lower back doesn’t tolerate very well. It ends up just to the left and below the steering column. I may or may not have the handle chromed later, depending on whether gloss black or chrome is an improvement near the chrome steering column.

[Mjminino]

It isn't really all THAT interesting of a story on the truck. I've only owned it a few months. You'll need a little back history to get to the part of the black truck.

I previously owned a 1964 Chevelle 4 door. I acquired it from eBay from some jackwagon down in Boca Raton Florida. He lied about everything about the car. Every project was 3/4 done. It had 20" Lexani rims on it and 3 of the 5 studs were bent to fit the wheels, some only had 2 studs. The brakes were non existent. It had a straight 6 that was 'supposedly running'. When we got the car home the radiator was bone dry and there was no keys. It cost me 700$ to ship it up here and ANOTHER 300 dollars to just winch it onto the semi trailer! Being only 18 I didn't know what to do and I honestly didn't care as I had my first very own "hotrod". Costed us another 1500$ to get it running. I sold the rims for 600$. Oh and the headliner was immaculate! I spent the better half of 10 years slowly building it up. I was never going to get rid of the car UNTIL I started working at a body shop and an old timer was interested in looking at it. He took one look at it and said that entire car is bondo! He was 100% right. The entire back piece between the rear window and the trunk was fabricated with bondo, literally it was about 3/4" - 1" filled! The bottom half of the doors were all bondo as well. I lost every single interest I had in the vehicle! Her name was Christine, yes from the movie.

"George LeBay: Her name's Christine.
Arnie Cunningham: I like that.
George LeBay: My asshole brother bought her back in September '57. That's when you got your new model year, in September. Brand-new, she was. She had the smell of a brand-new car. That's just about the finest smell in the world, 'cept maybe for pu**y."

Because just like Arnie, I brought her back to life.

I could NOT get rid of this car for more than 'free' to save my life! No one wanted a 4 door.

Well longer story made short, I was just looking through Facebook when someone had this ugly looking truck available. I threw the trade offer out there and I'll be damned the guy wanted to look at it. I know why he wanted the Chevelle, he was 17 year old and didn't know any better, but he was dead set on having it so we traded straight across.

He made away with better parts as the Chevelle had new everything (except for body work). New 4.11 posi rear end, driveshaft, rebuilt th350, freshly rebuilt engine, brand spankin' new champion radiator with aluminum shroud. basically the entire drivetrain, master cylinder, new power steering conversion kit, completely rebuilt brakes, and brand new tires.

All in all, I made away with a truck that a lot of people are after and in my mind that was okay because if I ever did want to sell/trade I'll have better chances of getting money or something in return. Now the kid can hopefully add to my legacy on the car and fix her up.

Leroy has an original 327 from a grain truck painted that god awful neon green, it is a long bed turned into a short bed. I don't know the year bed it has on it. It is amazing what a simple crap paint job will do for a vehicle. I never got anyt thumbs up or waves or any looks while i was driving it the way it was before. My friend for my birthday bought plasti dip and we plasti dipped Leroy. Now I get all sorts of looks and thumbs up. The truck was a little better off floor wise then the one I am doing a frame off on.

Here are a few pictures of the Chevelle and as we now call him Grandpa Leroy.

Mike

Sorry for my short little story on your thread. And about the build thread, with how many pictures I have and how long it has been since I started, I wouldn't even know where to begin to make a decent build thread.

[Mjminino]

Oh and about your parking brake. I recently started at the post office and in their mail delivery trucks they have a parking brake that looks very close to this. When I am at work today I will take a few pictures for ya.

[markeb01]

Too bad about the Chevelle. I had a 67 four door and had the same issue. Nobody wanted it, including me! And it was a cherry original California government car. I built it up over five years, and shortly after acquiring an SS hood it was destroyed by a drunk running a red light!

I had the same problem with my build thread. I already owned the truck for years, so I did a short update to that point and then kept going from there. Good luck on your build!

[markeb01]

The parking brake was final fitted and adjusted, the cable mounting bracket was lowered to better align with the new system, and the entire assembly installed which operated perfectly. It was then removed and torn apart for paint.

All the parts were washed with wax and grease remover several times, in between stripping, sanding, and acid primer applied on the bare metal parts. The final step was two coats of Rustoleum Appliance Gloss Black Epoxy. Here are all the parts in paint. The color is off as I took the shot without flash under the heat lamps:



The color is actually a deep rich black. This snap is with flash showing the true color:



And this is a close up of the operating handle. It really came out nice:



I’ve seen a lot of these parking brakes over the years, but never one that was this shiny! I’m leaving everything under the lights all night as the temps are supposed to drop into the 20’s. Hopefully the paint will be cured well enough by tomorrow for reassembly and final installation.

[Mjminino]

What are you spraying everything with? Rattle can, spray gun?

[markeb01]

For this project everything is done by spray can. It's just too much work to clean up all the equipment for something this small. I always use UPol Acid #8 on bare metal followed by the finish coat. If I'm doing something big like a car, I use spray equipment. Although the last time I did my front bumper, I used spray cans on that too. The Rustoleum Industrial paint puts out a tremendous amount of paint in a big fan pattern and works great, but there is a limited color selection.

[Mjminino]

Yeah for spraying I bought TEKNA® ProLite Premium Spray Gun for school and I haven't even used it yet. I need to get my compressor squared away like yours. Outside of the pictures earlier in this thread do you have any more info how you set everything up? As of right now i just have a hose going to my flexzilla reel straight from the compressor. Which I know that is a big no no for spraying

Mike

[Mjminino]

I was browsing Facebook and saw this ad. It reminded me of your machinist son!

[markeb01]

I painted my first car at 17 and the truck is my last one nearly 45 years later, so I’ve learned a few things about what to watch out for when painting. First thing is water/moisture is the absolute enemy of a decent paint job. A small compressor running continuously to keep up with a spray gun generates a tremendous amount of heat, which in turn condenses moisture out of the air in the atmosphere. This usually shows up about the time of the last coat, when the spray gun starts spitting water drops into the fresh/nearly finished paint. Long flexible hoses laying on the cold floor add to the same problem, so keeping the hose as short as possible is a big help.

A hard line system will greatly minimize if not eliminate most (if not all) of this problem. 10-12 years ago copper wasn’t all that expensive so I did everything in ½” copper for a little over $100 including all the ball valves. Some recommend ¾” pipe, but I don’t produce enough volume to justify the extra expense. I followed a simple diagram similar to this one:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/compressed-air/

A search of Google Images will turn up dozens of other layouts, many that are far more complex.

Here are a few shots of my hard line air layout:







Every outlet has a riser at the top to trap moisture, an outlet half way down the down pipe, and a ball valve at the bottom to drain any liquid that makes it that far. I installed seven drops around the garage, and two more in the basement for my wife to do air brushing. I included extra inline ball valves at various locations to shut off major sections of the system if they aren’t needed or should require repair.

All horizontal lines are angled downhill back towards the compressor, so any moisture in the lines ends up in the tank which also has a ball valve attached for easy draining. (The ball valve under the compressor can be seen next to the right tire. This is much simpler to access than the radiator style drain that usually is found on compressors). Before painting, I open all drain valves (one at a time) until there is no moisture left in the system. Some diagrams suggest angling the lines away from the compressor instead. I figure either direction will work just as well.

I have a regulator and air filter with a quick connect that plugs into any of the outlets, allowing me to move it around the garage if needed to reach any spot in the garage while keeping the hose to the spray gun short. No picture of that at the moment as my son has it. I also use one of the disposable filters at the inlet to the spray gun to capture any remaining water.

When my 220v stationary compressor toasted itself after 10 years, I went with a smaller unit as I no longer paint cars. But for painting, a bigger compressor is always preferred over a small one.

Any other questions I can help with, let me know.

Thanks for the post on the shirt! I may have to get him one. The shirt says it all!!

[markeb01]

Wrapped up the parking brake project today. Man is it nice. It’s much easier to use for someone like me with a worn out spine. No more pulling – just a swing and push to the side. And no effort at all to release:

Here it is in the “off” position:



And here it is in the “parked” position:




I still need to get a correct length clevis pin. I had my choice between too long and too short. So I picked the one that would work for now.

[Mjminino]

Looks good. I forgot to take some pictures of my work one. I saw on someone else's thread that they used a lifted one like what would be in a car and put it between the seats. I believe it was a guy named lakeroadster

[markeb01]

John (Lakeroadster) is a good friend of mine, but he no longer participates on this forum.

I thought about doing mine the same way he did, but his is the later open frame and I have the 1960 convertible style X frame and couldn't figure an easy way to transition the cables from the trailing arms to the floor of the cab. The method I opted for allows me to switch back and forth from the stock arm to the style I prefer with no modifications, should I ever choose to.

[likaroc13]

Nice job on the parking brake lever Mark! Hope you guys had a Merry Christmas.

[markeb01]

Thanks Phillip. We had a nice time with our oldest daughter coming up from California and spending a week with us. Hope you guys enjoyed Christmas as well. Now to get motivated and find something else to "improve"!

[markeb01]

Being too cold to work outside or in the garage for the last few days, seemed like the perfect time to revisit the bumper bullets?! So I dragged them in the house to my work station to see if I could sort out if they could be saved.

In the original installation they were too high and didn’t look right to me:



Just before giving up and removing them, I lowered both to this position:





It just seemed no matter what I did, I could not get the driver’s side to match the passenger side. The left bullet pointed downhill although everything seemed to measure out perfectly. Obviously “everything” didn’t measure out perfectly or they would have matched, but I was too close to the problem and couldn’t see it.

After only a few minutes with fresh eyes the issue became obvious. I didn’t measure the height of the back, from the top of the bullet to the bottom of the bumper guard, and it was off by ¼” compared to the passenger side. Drilling a new mounting hole to realign the bullet provided the solution. Now all the dimensions match – bottom to top of the back, bottom of the bullet the both the break in the lower guard, and all the way to the bottom of the face. When viewed dead level from either side the tips of both bullets line up.









Now I only have hours of finishing work ahead doing some JB Weld filling, followed by Rage body filler, and sanding all the new nicks and dings added since they were removed and banged around the garage - before applying new paint.

I’m thankful I didn’t toss them out at the max frustration level!