What did you do to your truck today!

[72TealnWhite]

been wanting to do this for a while now.. not too hard.. Going to paint the inner grill tomorrow.

[dukcaln]

I Like your over flow tank

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Removed the rear bed quarter to replace with a nice new straight piece....Pics should be up in the build thread friday sometime....

[flashed]

I went to a local wheel supplier today to buy new beauty bands for my truck ralleys but he only deals in cash and all I had was credit cards and my checkbook so I left empty handed .I didnt have $55 cash on me which is not unusual as I use plastic most everywhere. I will have to go back with cash as thats a great deal.

[magwakeenercew2jh]

Finished up some wiring in the engine bay and cleared away a bunch of trash from the shop. Most of the boxes read, "Early Classic Enterprises".

I found out something I didn't know today. Really stupid I didn't know it before. Fans suck. They Do Not Blow. I wired up both electric fans with
the wrong polarity. I'll have to change that tomorrow.

I thought it was funny I didn't know that. After all the cars and trucks, etc. I guess I've just always just installed a fan on the water pump
and put on a shroud and called it good.

Today, after I came home, I was questioning myself. I lit a little paper in the garage, snuffed it out, started my car and when the electric fan
clicked on, the smoke pulled into the engine compartment from behind the grille.

Duhhhh!

[Ray Rust]

Gave the 69 a good bath along with the 51 , all bright and shiny ready for our Sunday Morning cruise .....

[flashed]

I ordered my new fleetside sport bumper from GMC PAULS .

[wilbilt]

Thermostat housing gasket was leaking. I didn't have a gasket on hand, but it is one of those 15-minute jobs, right?

Wrong. It is one of those potmetal housings, the truck has been sitting for years and electrolysis caused the bolts to sieze to the housing. After an hour trying to carefully remove them, I ended up snapping both bolts off. The short one snapped at the head and the longer one snapped about halfway up.

Another couple of hours spent trying to save the housing and make it let go of the bolts and come off, but it wasn't happening. The BFH finally made it let go, in pieces.

Thankfully, the remnant of the long bolt came out of the manifold easily. The short bolt was not going to be cooperative, so after another hour I started drilling. 1/8", 1/4", 5/16"...then ran a 3/8" tap to clear out the threads. Only about 2 threads remaining at the bottom of the hole, it is going to take a heli-coil to fix the manifold for good.

I found another housing on an old V6 manifold out in the shed and got it back together for now. The 15-minute job ended up taking all day because I was trying to save the parts. That ended up not happening, so I should have just whaled on it with the hammer from the start. Lesson learned, LOL.

[shopking72]

I tore apart my cluster and touched up my needles and added some Cool White LED's and also installed all new gauges. I am getting matching LED's for the tach this week



Before


After


All done! (Tach looks huge but its only 3" 3/8")

[Bennett68C10]

Yesterday I finished the metal work around my rear window, had to replace 80% of the window channel

[solar649]

My wife and I decided that we wanted to try our hand at building a Bed cover .

[67Slider]

Originally Posted by solar649

My wife and I decided that we wanted to try our hand at building a Bed cover .

You have got to do a write up on this! That looks great and is exactly what I want on mine. Any more info?

[Shyguy]

I just read what I wrote, you might want to get a beverage of your choice and get comfortable because I got real long winded as I tend to do sometimes. I am sure some of you can relate to this adventure.

Saturday about noon I got a call from my son, he wanted to know if I was busy. Friday he found a mostly rust free '71 swb fleet truck without an engine and transmission for $600 and needed it brought home on his trailer since his wife was using his truck to go to Wal-Mart.

I drove my '92 K-3500 up to his house and hooked up to his flat-bed trailer, as luck would have it, my truck needed gasoline. I rarely drive it because of the poor mpg and high gasoline prices. So we went to the local quick stop and got some gasoline and a couple of 44 oz Mountain Dews.

He set up his GPS to guide us to the place where the truck was since he had kind of forgot how to get there.

As we got closer to the place the truck was the GPS kept saying we were almost there and then past it. GPSs are not perfect so we drove about a half mile further and found the place. The owner was not there, but his brother was.

As most of our trips go we kicked the dirt and tires while shooting the breeze for a while before deciding to load the truck. As these things normally go one of the tires was flat, actually it had a split on the side and would not hold air. We searched around and found a tire with air in it. The only jack the guy had was low of fluid so it would not raise the truck high enough without the help of a 4 by 4.

Then came the chore of figuring out how to load the non running truck. We were going to winch it, but the guy said, heck I will pull it up on the trailer with my trusty '64 GMC dually flat-bed, as he was backing up the exhaust pipe came loose and caught and raised up his truck enough it got his attention.

So I got the trailer backed into position, but not before setting on the soda cup in my seat that was full of Mountain Dew, whoa that felt cold, lol.

The guy hooks up a real long chain to the '71, gets in his truck and gives it what for so fast my son could not steer the truck onto the trailer real straight, almost off one side so we had to jack up the front of the truck and shove it over straighter.

Once the truck was loaded and lashed down off we go, luckily made the trip home ok.

After we got the truck to my son's we decided take the cover off the rear-end and see what a 4.11 spooler looked like, nope not a 4.11 but was a 3.73 spooler that looked in great shape. Don't ask me what a spooler is though.

Sorry no pictures, will take some the next time I am at my son's. Well here is a picture of my K-3500.

[Shyguy]

Attachment 790293Yep, I am back I had to get a glass of "Sweet Tea".

Sunday I went to my son's to play with my old trucks. First we worked on his '72 Malibu installing a radiator and hooking up the shift linkage.

After that we stripped out the inside of the cab of my '67 getting it ready so we can cut out the rusted areas and put in the patch panels.

I guess it was about 1:00 pm when the heat started to get to us and we stopped for the day.

This is the '67 we are starting to fix up. The bed has been sold and the front clip has been removed.

I should look more like this blue truck by the car show in town next July.

I have a short stepper bed that is ready for paint already,

[UNEASYRIDER]

[Kidd-7]

Well I'm 2 days late... Changed the oil in her, found some zinc added some lead to the gas and removed some coil spring conpressors that were on the rear. PO's attempt to lower??? Set here down and drove her. She still smoked some, but seemed to be less. 40 years old & sat for 10 months, she runs with no issues, amazing...

[iceship]

I went to the pullapart and picked up so seat skins....... and ran in tob a guy that rhino lined his cluster face plate...... did not look to bad .... I may to my door panels like that in white

[cadillacart]

I should have posted this last week. I finally installed short monroe air shocks in the rear. Now I can get my rake back if I am in the mood

[magwakeenercew2jh]

Just a little per day these days. Working alone is no biggie. But the heat creeps up on these old bones (and skin!). Today, I had to pull the radiator because the bolt for the front clip passes thru the core support right below where the rad lives...Drat!!! Put on and plumbed the windshield washer rez. At least from the rez itself thru the firewall and up to the motor. Two chunks to be connected after the front clip goes on. Finally hooked up the tach wire. Got a new air cleaner/carb gasket. bent the windshield washer nozzels to fit properly under the cowl.

Determined I didn't want to spin the Vintage Air compressor....I was going to go 90 degrees to the left. But it was too much of a hassle....pull the valve covers, move the fuel line, etc. VA said "okay" to the move, as it was going to be (the nut in the body of the compressor) a little lower than horizontal. But, I figured, why mess with it now.

A little every day.

[Andy4639]

Got all the new SpeedHut gaugs installed and working correctly.

SpeedHut gauges installed - YouTube

[project 67 sub]

some more work on my modified rear bumper for my burb
just needs some filler work and block sanding then it can be sprayed satin black

[dabruce15]

Finally converted to HEI on my inline six and added a tach. It's a great feeling when parts that have been sitting on the shelf for 6 months finally get installed! Next is the offenhauser 4bbl intake and holley 390.

[prairewolf]

paid 3 months of ins. 52$ and 7 months worth of license plate tags 32$

thats a cheap date......no heater so about a month of ins. will go into suspend.

[red71c10]

Installed new defroster hoses (those flexible plastic ones rock!) and a new glove box insert. Also put a new connector on the wire that attaches to the temp gauge sending unit. Gauge started working again then died. It pegs out when I ground the wire so unless the new connector isn't making good contact, it must be the unit which would suck because it's less than two years old!

[magwakeenercew2jh]

Took a couple of days off from working on the truck to make up some time with The Little Woman.

Of course, our "date" today had truck components. First, a trip to Early Classic Enterprises to mooch a windshield washer nozzle from their stash.
Then, off to three stores for a total of $96 worth of crap.

Dremel bits because two of the dash pad studs are misaligned. I keep thinking the pad looks okay with a couple of bumps at those spots...Nope, gotta ream out the holes and make it right.

I'm running new hose from the washer rez thru a lower hole in the firewall, then up to the windshield washer/motor. New hose. Smaller new hose from the washer/motor up thru the inner cowl
instead of out by the distributor. Needed grommets for the new small hose so my feet don't get wet when it rains. A new carb > air cleaner gasket. A bunch of fuses to start off the under-dash wiring
with all fresh fuses. Hose clamps for the final connection of the fuel line under the cab. A couple extra for the radiator hoses. HEI plug for the tach side. A handful of ferrels (barrels) for the copper
line to the oil pressure fittings, misc. electrical connectors. A spool of 16 gauge green wire.

When I got home to the mail box, I had a nice surprise. The guys from Vintage Air came thru (again). They had shorted my o-rings by only one...and no little tube of o-ring lube oil. I called them a few days ago...
...I told them I didn't have the stuff and I think I'd have 'em all if I had a few of the o-rings still in the unopened package. I got a box with two deals of lube and about ten o-rings.
Then I looked thru the mail and found a bill. Opened it up...."No Charge".

And, BTW, Stan at Early Classics gave me some hose and the nozzle for virtually nothing. Of course, I had my Woman with me. And fresh pastries from the local Farmer's Market....
..But that's the way Stan and Mark are, anyway.

Nice date, huh? I bought lunch.