1970 K20 Z62 Full Restoration

[IronCanine]

Thanks for the tip!

Also...why is it that some pics load so large in a thread? My screen won't even show a quarter of that grommet pic. I have to scroll around to see it all.

[pjmoreland]

Originally Posted by IronCanine

Thanks for the tip!

Also...why is it that some pics load so large in a thread? My screen won't even show a quarter of that grommet pic. I have to scroll around to see it all.

Sorry about that. I posted that photo as a link to the photo on classicheartbeat.com.

[IronCanine]

No apology necessary...I was legitimately asking. It always limits me to five pics per post of a certain size (obviously de-res(ed)). But I've seen posts with larger formats and a higher pic count. Just never explored how to make that work. Sometimes I want to post more/bigger.

[IronCanine]

Happy Super Bowl Sunday everybody. Let's talk about 4x4 upper radiator hoses. GM farmed out hoses to several vendors, among them Goodyear and Gates. One of the easy ways to tell one from another is the GM logo that the manufacturer put on there. Goodyear (as I understand it), did the big "GM" logo and Gates' was pretty vanilla. Member WETOWM did a run of upper hoses for board members a few years back more in the Goodyear style. And I bought a few sets. Still have one. The first pic is an original upper (and I believe Goodyear) hose on a '71 Flint built K5. The second pic is an original upper (I believe Gates) on a '71 Fremont K20. I got my hands on an original upper Gates hose and used it to reproduce that version. The original also clearly had gradations on it for cutting it to length. Obviously this was just a long run of straight hose with a repeating pattern that was cut to length for the upper hose at the radiator and at the thermostat housing. One thing to note is the part numbers were the same for Goodyear and Gates...just the font style and size changed.

Also, I know the section on the engine side was shorter from the factory, but I've been bitten by leaks here before and anticipate some jockeying.

[IronCanine]

Lower hose was easy because I got lucky and found and NOS version. Clearly well marked to assist in the install.

[IronCanine]

After a fair bit of scuffling I finally ended up with a set of five acceptable original Guide 5963133 cab lenses. I had two very nice NOS, two NOS that had some mild shelf wear and needed some attention, and one almost perfect take off. That waffle pattern is super cool to me.

[IronCanine]

Two problems that we were working on last week were the A/C lines from the compressor and the underhood black phosphate pieces.

The solution for the A/C lines ended up being a compromise. Only Original Air makes this line set that I know of. And you can't order fittings from them or anywhere else that I can find. I ordered two different sets to see if my fit issue was a one off. It wasn't. We couldn't get them mounted in a factory way without a slight kink of the upper hose. After considering many ideas, I found a radiator and A/C shop that was able to deconstruct what I had and re-clock the fittings. The compromise is the shoulder on the lines at the crimp. But it's a reasonable concession I think. The crimps on all of these lines aren't factory appearing anyway. And don't worry, I'm going to clean up that port cap on the muffler.

I've discussed my dissatisfaction with all my plating. The underhood phosphate stuff is so in your face it needs to be nice. What we got was pretty "crystallized". I got the bright idea to hit it with Eastwood's metal blackening kit, which basically made it look painted. So I found another place that wasn't too far, Eric re-stripped everything and I sent it off for another go at black phosphate. Fingers crossed.