GRIZZ’s English 2001 S10 Extra Cab 4.3 V6 Truck

[Grizz1963]

Remember the steering rag joint?

I found a small (possibly Ford) UJ in my stash, had tried to give it away before…..

Now I may need it myself.

Advice time I guess.

What we have .





Splines look to be different size, but I think it is an optical illusion.



What I found.



Cut off the rag joint, reshape the shaft to triangular, bolt on the UJ?






Then there is this advice option.

Thanks to mate Edd @boidieanbdoyle for this.

Or a new rubber for 15quid? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Cort...-127635-2958-0

So grind/drill out rivets and bolt in replacement.


Conundrum?

[Grizz1963]

Amazing how clever the internet is.



[quote author="@kevins" source="/post/2694528/thread" timestamp="1629986367"]If you went the route of using the u/j you would have to be careful to get the phasing with the joint on the other end right otherwise it will feel lumpy.[/quote]

Good call on the phasing, another bit of good advice from mate Edd.

Well I'd personally order a rubber, less chance to slip with the grinder. But if you do cut it, read this https://www.drivelinesnw.com/part-tr...lysis/phasing/

[Palf70Step]

Nice donor. Looking forward to seeing you get into it.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Nice donor. Looking forward to seeing you get into it.

Thanks Bill,

I hope it is as easy as some make it look.

Though I do doubt it will be.

[Grizz1963]

Who needs Enema’s

Friends like this, love it.

Originally Posted by sparkplug

Was fully expecting the write up to be here already by the time I got home

I won't spoil the surprise too much - only to say I had a cracking day with a great mix of serious work and some childish messing around.

Smiles all round :thumb2

Grizzmas presents were exchanged and aside from some works which slowed me down by 15 mins on the way down before the Blackwall Tunnel and the miles and miles of stationary traffic before, during and after the Blackwall tunnel coming home there wasn't too much drama.

I 'lost' another 15 mins on the way home as I stopped for a couple of bikes on the hard shoulder. Unfortunately one of them had a puncture and it's the one thing I didn't have in the van. They'd been waiting 3 hours for the AA and still had a 3 hour ride back to Lincolnshire. Nice lads, grateful I'd stopped. Left them with a bag of peanuts and a bottle of water each which put a smile on their faces too.

My only 'spoiler' has to be my revelation as to why Grizz has the back problems that he does.



A broken broom handle just means a shorter broom handle. Still has plenty of life left in it and until he finds a long handle with no brush head on it in a skip this one will do just fine

The rest of the story is Rian's to tell, as it's his thread and he has enough suitable ammunition to poke a bit of fun back at me so....

[Grizz1963]

So mate Fil came down from Cambridge this morning at 10.00 to play and possibly sleep over, though he had a work appointment at 09.00 tomorrow.

Seems yellow is the operative colour at this point.



Of course it was Grizzmas too…….

Gifts.



He also brought some industrial flooring for the S10 which he originally named as the Rumblegrizzkin.

Some money was exchanged for top secret parts with Sally.

These small grids weigh 15kg each…….



And then he unloaded the Sip welder NeilDD had gifted the two of us with.

And with my welder temporarily out of action (we hope) and the Rezin Rockit chassis needing a small patch, and some gussets welded in, it was just perfectly time.



The generosity of this amazing community never ceases to make me feel humble and fortunate, or blessed, whichever way you want to see it.



I will update the work Fil and I did today in the morning, after bootfair.


In the mean time, the Canary is out of its cage.









Excited, YES.

.

[Grizz1963]

Forgot add this

https://youtube.com/shorts/XBkRSdpQXHo?feature=share

What it looked like.

[Grizz1963]

Made some time after work tonight to get going on the front end scraping.

What a horrible job.



Very messy too, and looks like it is badly damaged.



Actually not too bad,



Closed shop at 7.55 as bad light stopped play.

Hopefully get more time tomorrow night, weather permitting.

At least it has progressed.

[Grizz1963]

In other news

Dennis’ birthday today.

Not the best of dates since 9/11

Today is his best mate Roger’s (since age 5 years old) Burnout party.

So the truck which he got back out this week after the last catastrophic self destruction was tested this week and held together.



Love the helmet and cup holders in a race truck.

800 plus horsepower from a Hendricks NASCAR motor.



So last night it was loaded for the 30 mile trip down i70 to Rogers place as it has not yet been inspected and registered or insured.




Looking forward to reports later from Dennis.


His comment after his local test drive to Mittler Brothers.

The truck is a tribute to the late Mike Mittler, a good friend, whose NASCAR trucks Dennis did all the bodywork for over the years.

They all came out and took a bunch of pictures of it. Mike's brother even came out and shook my hand
It's not a very street friendly truck. It does not want to go slow.
It doesn't like low speed and low rpm's as long as you are giving it gas and driving it hard it drives fine. Deb said I guess we can't take it on a Sunday afternoon drive. Well that depends on how fast of a Sunday afternoon drive you want.

So lets see if the truck survived today.

.

[Palf70Step]

Looking forward to your photo shoot of the Miata.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Looking forward to your photo shoot of the Miata.

Delivery moved to Monday, lets hope he manages to get it done tomorrow

Yes, there will be a few photos for the record of course.






So, on with reporting the rest of yesterdays work.

I really went at a reasonably slow pace, deliberately as it is great actually visiting with friends and getting stuff done, rather than the usual flat out pace to just get a job done.

Fil is great company and comes up with some great ideas, like the voices in my head.

After all, he named the S10 as Rumblegrizzkin.

So the first job that needed doing and needed two sets of hands, was to remove the body table we put the Jeep body on two weeks ago.

Lift rear, fit taller box under floor to then free rear of table, lift front, fit a pair of axle stands either side, and a 2x4 on them, put body down, slide table out.

Easy Peasy.

So while I did some other stuff like gathering tools, finding coach screws, Fill cut the four legs off the table.



Then drill pilot holes for the,wheels, zip in the coach screws with Mr Rattle gun.



Once the rolling table was done, we got the body back onto it, tried it out with the two steering trolley wheels in,front, moved it about to test……



Then things got silly just before we went in for some coffee and toast.

Fil fetched Glen’s spare glassless screen frame and we grabbed a broomstick, the RX8 drivers seat…..….. oh, and some wheels and hey presto.



Got in, cautiously



Steering wheel needs to be lower and a touch further away from the driver.



Then Fil got a turn to sit in the drivers seat, and we tilted the screen back a bit, as the plan was to cut it shorter and fit new glass, but this may work, depending on how the ex-56 Chevy roll cage/hoop from @pauly may force my hand on the aesthetics department if I cannot tilt it back to follow the body/B-pillar, screen and seat line.






Next job was to get the canvas ready for the sand blasting of the frame, and then moving the frame onto the axle stands, on there.

Planning.



Once placed, the wheels came out again.



Tally-Ho Mo-Fo’s !!!




And finally ready to start blasting as soon as the air dies in the morning.



Wish me luck with the compressor and enough air volume.

[Grizz1963]

Public holiday today, means we had a long weekend, which means two bootfairs, one yesterday and one today.

Yesterday was massive, and delivered nothing for me, a few ornamental plates for Craigs new house and Sally got a very pretty teapot and milk jug and sugar pot for her own use.

Today she had gone to do overtime.

I was awake at 03.50 and ended up chatting with Dennis as I could not get back to sleep.

Bootfair was much smaller, and again not really anything spectacular as I was really just looking for a Cherry Bomb exhaust, as I have seen at least two over time, usually around the £5.00 to £10.00 mark

However, I did find a super sized wheel spanner/ or wheel brace for £2.00 that had to come home, as I have a new home in mind for it.

And six new, unused coffee mugs, 50p each or £2.00 for all of them. Guess I paid £2.00 then.

Same guy had the massive dice or is it die and the pretty wooden box.

Box for Sally, and dice may become a gearknob on the Rezin Rockit.





.

And in other News, while rummaging in the big shed (large tools like engine hoist, engine stand, metalfolder, cab trolley etc) to get the canvas out for the media blasting on the Rezin Rockit chassis, a rather heavy part of the cab trolley steel slipped where I had it propped on top of another item and bypassed the patented Grizz Toeteckters. Thankfully a drop of no more than 200mm

Not at all sore or debilitating, guess I got lucky. This time.



And then much more importantly, I am awaiting with much excitement the delivery of a canary.

Think back to the miners who carried a canary into the mines to monitor noxious gasses underground.

In effect, the canary was SACRIFICED to save the miners lives.

Nothing that dramatic here.

But our own KevFromWales on RetroRides is hopefully on his way in a 300 mile delivery trip to bring me a donor for the Rezin Rockit

Story here: https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread...-rockit-yellow

I always wanted a yellow car…….

Today will be a slow/fast day.

.

[Grizz1963]

So yesterday was not wasted.

But it certainly will be filed under Fail.

I used more PPE than I have ever done, including gloves, hoody and shoes.

What’s the world coming to?



Using the blasting pot that @pauly had lent to me, after struggling an hour to find the right hose connector it soon became apparent that a combination of “lack of,air” and a very thick layer of sprayed on under-seal and two layers of red oxide and some strong paint, meant that I was not getting a fast outcome.



Leaving me with this sort of result, a really good clean steel surface,,alternating with underseal that it struggled to knock off.



You can see how thick it is applied.



It Necessitated this old guy, along with safety eyewear and gloves.



To,scrape off as much of the thick layers of paint and sealer. In some places the paint is not,shifting,very easily either.

Hopefully the blaster will help.



This is a slow, laborious job, but I think it will be the right way to do it.



Loads more to,do, but it too will come to an end.


.

[Palf70Step]

Nice little canary Rian

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Nice little canary Rian

Not so sure, but will test all of it to see if the bits I want, work.

The rest will comeback as a refrigerator or AK47

[Grizz1963]

I forgot to mention, the super sized wheel brace I got at the bootfair and a large, magnetic Green Doctors strobe light managed to find their way into KevFromWales 525 diesel.

One for drifting, one for trucking.



When he left, trailer in tow, the wheels seemed to be rotating like a cat on a slippery floor that had just clocked an angry Chihuahua

And a plume of black diesel smoke that darkened the already darkened sun some more.



Both front wheel arches look like this on the Mazda.



And the rear is worse, showing a previous MOT standard repair, rotten through again.



I also washed the car this morning, as dirty is less attractive in a car, than a hot date.

Back to work today, full steam ahead.

More later.

[Grizz1963]

So this morning I went and took a proper look at what I had bought as a donor for this build.

It seems this was a California, limited edition then.

The interior is a mess, with the good, original seats having been swapped for a pair of worn items, not bolted down, just thrown in there.

Perfect for when it comes to stripping looms etc.

Checked the engine fluids etc, all good and the oil seems very clean.



Not yet looked at the owners service book etc, which is actually in the car, it will be nice to add to the build as part of the history.

So, I decided it was time to wash it, before 08.00 using a broom and some Domestos toilet bleach gel.

Rear end is mullered as it was rear ended by Kevs truck, pushing it.





Front end improved from yesterday.





Better for sure.



Late afternoon, after work I went to sit and started the car up, after adding 5 liters of lawnmower fuel into the very empty tank.

So I decided to do a walk around and check lights, indicators, oil pressure, temperature etc.

Click video link:

https://youtu.be/-IA9yyN-ADI


I still need to look at more of the car as I get time.

Still happy this will be good.

Though the 1600’s 109bhp compared to the 138bhp of the,1800cc engine makes me wonder if I,will,be happy with that, or need to fit a Turbo……

Loads to do before that though.

[Grizz1963]

Scrape

Scrape

Scrape

SCRAPE


VIDEO:

https://youtu.be/rlGTtdPWPBI


It would seem I am spending 2-3 hours scraping that bloody chassis every night as the blasting was not shifting the hardened combination of red oxide, some very tough grey paint and the hardened underseal all over it.

I am sure a commercial blasting unit, with large, heavy duty blasting system would clear it in a couple of hours, but that would involve a trailer, towing and delivering it and the front and rear running gear and a small hand full of cash. So not happening.

Of course, typically, there are so many nooks and crannies and the texture keeps changing.





Also removed the brake and fuel lines in order to make progress a bit smoother, another angle grinder job as half the screws holding the saddles in place were rusted solid, or closed the heads up with rust, some responded to hammer on the screwdriver, which I managed to destroy.



Inbetween I have also been looking at other things and started to remove bits for others.

Roof did not seem to want to open more than this, what a ball ache to remove the wind deflector from behind the two loose seats, without forcing or damaging the roof with it’s heated rear glass.



Out.



Madness though……

By 7.00pm last night, I had only managed to strip back about 1/3 of the chassis on three sides, once the top is completed, it needs to be turned over and the underside done.

Followed by blasting and paint with the primer Kevin gave me.



And then the fun part……..

Clean this lot before rebuilding.



Friday, day job, then two days of weekend, where I hope to get on with this job.

[Palf70Step]

Rian, you aught to make ole red a sister/brother truck to Dennis'. Couple ole NASCAR trucks ripping up the neighborhood.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Rian, you aught to make ole red a sister/brother truck to Dennis'. Couple ole NASCAR trucks ripping up the neighborhood.

Imagine that.

Problem here is both my extremely limited knowledge and zero support.

But it would be awesome.





Today I really did not want to go to the bootfair, as I only got about 4 hrs sleep in broken episodes, and was tired from the time on the chassis yesterday.

But a 4.30 am alarm had me awake, and up just after 5.00

So I went anyway.

First blood to @Craigrk wife, and second blood too.

Plates for their new home in Shropshire which is known as The Stables. £3.50 for the plates.



She asked me to keep an eye out for a less common item……..got lucky.



The rest of the bootfairs bounty was collected within the first half of the field.

Picture frame, unused £2.00
Socks 50p
Small yankee candle 20p
Seeing eye 50p
Pile up sanding discs (I still have the attachments) £1.00
35 foot or 10 meter rubber reinforced airline £2.00
Large wooden Buddha for Sallys garden £4.00
Ornate cat for the garden £2.00
Plastic coat hangers £1.00
Stick of rock £- Free



So ultimately not too bad.

Airline alone made it worthwhile for me.


And unfortunately I do not know how to download video from FB.

But a few pics of Dennis’ truck doing what it was built to do at Rogers garden party.

Some of you may remember that Roger built a concrete strip for burnouts and short drag launches a few years ago.

Any of his friends are allowed to pop in and burn some money (rubber)






Being 9/11 and Dennis’ birthday, the flag had to come out too of course.

Driving over Rogers pond/lake wall after the burnout.



Full Hendricks NASCAR race motor and all 2015 season truck under the skin.

Amazing build and detail.








If I can figure how to get a video saved from FB I will and load to YouTube.

Back to the Rezin Rockit today.

Hopefully get chassis painted both sides.

Later guys.

[Grizz1963]

So a load of these died yesterday,

4 in fact.

Finishing the top and drivers half of the chassis, followed by the whole of the underside.

Happy to say, two coats of primer/paint and red oxide plus that bloody underseal is all gone, leaving surprisingly unblemished steel under it all.



Then I had to carefully flip the chassis, its not light, and it’s awkward.

So did it in a weird, but successful way.





Eventually 7 hours later………

I was truly knackered at this point.

The NVH gets to you.



Cleaned up and ready for primer




I then fetched the Mx5 Canary back in and got it onto the ramps, want to take a look today at what part of the exhaust is missing, knowing the catalytic converter was removed.

David the lodger sneaks around the garden smoking, and took a nippet of a clip as I got it to the top.

https://youtu.be/3tT-bvVW1n0

I want a sports exhaust on it anyway, and saw a piece of one for £30.-00 on FB Marketplace yesterday.

May be worth having.





Remember this….?



Bodgers should have thumbs removed.

Welded up bush.

Repairing it would be more expensive in time and effort, plus swearing than replacing in this case.




Thankfully @westbay found me a replacement pair on Ebay, seller was happy to do a Buy it Now for £32.00 delivered.



After a cleanup and rebushing, we should be good to go.


Today it is chassis primer one side, then flip it over and do the other side.

[Grizz1963]

Meet George.

Presumed to be a wild, feral stray…….

He has hung around my place for a few weeks.

Turns out he is a former indoors cat belonging to the new tenants two houses down from me.

He allowed Sally to touch him last week Wednesday.

Then I tried on Friday to get close to him and made contact.

He is a pot head…… loves catnip.

So this morning when I was checking out the underside of the MX5 on the ramps, there he was.

Crusty underside, missing the catalytic converter, do I replace it with a random piece of pipe or a small resonator box?





More crustiness.



So I fetched him some catnip and he went mad for it on the rear of the car.



After bootfair, breakfast, forum write ups and check ins, I went to check the underside of the car, followed by getting the tin of primer mixed up.



Painted every nook and cranny of the underside.

Pretty pleased with that.



Then went and had a coffee and checked the internet.

Followed by fetching Mickey to help me flip it over and painting the top of the chassis.

Once done, I stood back and just grinned.

George was not too bothered, but at least he checked up on me.

It has taken a lot of time and effort to get this thing this far.



Loads more to do, but happy with it all so far.

Once again, thank you to all those who contribute in any way they choose, be it text, phone call, PM, comments or gifted parts to fit, or specialist tools like the Void Bush tool sent to me in the mail by a random stranger.

Life is good.

[Grizz1963]

A couple more found in someone’s posting.

Going……


Going…………….





GONE……..





I do love this truck a lot.

[Grizz1963]

[quote author="@bricol" source="/post/2698304/thread" timestamp="1632151626"][quote source="/post/2697881/thread" author="@grizz" timestamp="1631884038"]I do not understand the technical terms highlighted in orange.


"Bump" - suspension travel upwards from normal ride height - think of it as when you go over a "bump".

"Droop" - suspension travel downwards form normal ride height - if you jack a car up on the chassis, it takes a bit to get the wheel off the ground as the suspension "droops".   

Rule of thumb seems to be 2/3 of travel (minimum of 2" ish ) is in bump, with a 1/3 of travel in droop for a road going car.

My trials special will have considerably more of each
[/quote][/quote]

Cannot remember who asked about the bump stops now.


So I went and fitted the adapter, spacer and a wheel tonight after dinner

Shows the bump stop, and I think it is missed, or is it.



Looks OK from here.



I am hoping that when it is all loaded up with engine and gearbox fitted in there, that the geometry stays good.

Not a lot planned this week.

I am, hoping to get @paulf over, with his hydraulic press to make life easier.

Here’s to hoping.

[Grizz1963]

Popped over to @nickwheeler this afternoon, 10 miles from here, he lives a couple of houses from where Joy used to live.

A quick pickup turned into a two hour chat.

Amazing how many skilled, knowledgeable people are out there when you allow yourself to meet them. Nick seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of things automotive and more….

Perfect way to spend a few hours.

Book he offered me should be a perfect guide in this build.



I also worked on the seats and roll bar for a bit before dark.

Hope to get the roll bar welded tomorrow.