Restoring Rusty

[Hankster]

Just found this thread, and read threw it a bit. Now of course I skipped around because its 200 pages! The truck looks good.

[69heavychevy]

Originally Posted by Gregski

well after two years of fast at it looks like the Greg may finally be slowing down, the replacement water temp gauge arrived yesterday and I took a nap instead of installing it right quick, ha ha, that or it's hibernation season

Are those summit racing decals in that box???
They better not be...because as much money as I have spent with them, those sons of biscuit eaters have yet to give me any kind of freebies.
Decals to adorn my toolbox cant be too much to ask...

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by 69heavychevy

Are those summit racing decals in that box???
They better not be...because as much money as I have spent with them, those sons of biscuit eaters have yet to give me any kind of freebies.
Decals to adorn my toolbox cant be too much to ask...

OMG I hate them and toss 'em but they send me more

[mzsigler]

Originally Posted by Gregski

what's not to like, she's sexy

Thanks! Gonna pull the bed off this week and pressure wash everything in anticipation of my 4/6 drop I ordered from Western. Any bed removal protips?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by mzsigler

Thanks! Gonna pull the bed off this week and pressure wash everything in anticipation of my 4/6 drop I ordered from Western. Any bed removal protips?

Get help don't be a hero, ask friends to help you lift it, etc

[mzsigler]

Originally Posted by Gregski

Get help don't be a hero, ask friends to help you lift it, etc

Yeah I think I'm going to use my lift and then enlist 3-4 people to move it. Still using the wideband? Are you using any datalogging software?

[69heavychevy]

Originally Posted by Gregski

OMG I hate them and toss 'em but they send me more

LOL, thats it i'm boycotting them!

[rusty76]

Originally Posted by Gregski

I told you we will have one....

the rubber radiator hold down thingies did not quite fit, so we improvised

Awesome. You did clip the ends correctly didn't you? Lol

[Gregski]

So after a week of driving the truck I had to add half a quart of water, thats better I used to add three times that before. So we will go another week and see what happens.

[Gregski]

well as you recall my aftermarket LMC Truck arm rests gave up the ghost and did not even last a year, so it was time to go grandma car shopping

this lovely '93 Buick had the goods!

[Gregski]

well naturally our doors have a huge gaping hole right where we would want to mount this pull style inside door handles / straps, so time to check the scrap metal pile, and what do we have here if not an extra set of mud flaps - perfecto!

the door panels will still come off half a million times as will the doors themselves so these plates will be beautified eventually, we all know The Greg does not paint in the winter time, (and yes it's still technically Fall, but I'm just sayin')

Elegancia Francia

[Gregski]

while at the MAN MALL (pronounced Junk Yard) I spied me a '76 square body and thought I would pull the dash out to give me something to weld on in the winter time, well, why on God's green earth (or dash pad in this case, ha ha) did GM have to put those three ugly race stripe indentations in that purdy little dash, why?

this seriously put a dent in my Naked Dash Winter Project - aka the NDWP

[Gregski]

I did make a mental note of how the mid mounted shoulder seat belts be mounted, here's how, about an iPhone height above the door striker bolt

this may not be news to some, but my '74 only came with lap belts that were floor mounted, so when I bought my shoulder belts I mounted them to the floor not knowing any better, some feller pointed that out to me on this forum, and it has bugged me since, so maybe some day I will remount them or more likely get a proper set that is floor mounted

[Gregski]

I've been playing Rusian Roulette with my parking break for about a year and finally decided to do something about it, so while at the Man Mall I extracted this parking break assembly after testing the racheting action on it and it seemed much better than mine

[Gregski]

for the record it is held on by three bolts, two forward facing go through the firewall next to the bulk head wire connector block and the third goes into the driver side kick panel (ie to the left)

[Gregski]

so I came home and yanked mine out - now guys told me to shoot some WD-40 on mine which I did but that didn't seem to fix it for long

[Gregski]

and right quick I knew what the problem was, a broken proprietary (funky wonkey twisty turney - can't just git at Ace Hardware type) spring that keeps the ratchet bracket down, mine was just flappin in the wind

hope you can see it broken off on one of these there pictures

[Gregski]

mandatory stare and compare of the old and the new(ish)er

Note: how the factory decided to skimp out on paint and painted the entire assembly back in 1974 but said we can save a couple cents if we just paint the dog leg only in 1976 (can't blame Jimmy Carter for this he didn't start till '77, ha ha)

[Gregski]

this is how that spring is supposed to look like, see how it runs from right to left its about 1 1/2 inches long or longer than what mine was then wraps around that small metal bracket and points up

those of you with Eagle Eyes will notice that my old bracket had the little black spring to pull the hand lever back, where as my new(er) replacement assembly was missing it, no big deal we simply tranferred it over

[Gregski]

and that's all the updates for tonight

[harley87ta]

Originally Posted by Gregski

while at the MAN MALL (pronounced Junk Yard) I spied me a '76 square body and thought I would pull the dash out to give me something to weld on in the winter time, well, why on God's green earth (or dash pad in this case, ha ha) did GM have to put those three ugly race stripe indentations in that purdy little dash, why?

this seriously put a dent in my Naked Dash Winter Project - aka the NDWP

I bet they put those indentations to strengthen that panel. Plus to reduce interior resonance for that Cadillac ride quality. Hahaha. I wonder if my 73 has those!

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by harley87ta

I bet they put those indentations to strengthen that panel. Plus to reduce interior resonance for that Cadillac ride quality. Hahaha. I wonder if my 73 has those!

Since my '74 didn't I would bet that your '73 doesn't either, and I wonder if they are there to allow for proper crushability in the event of an accident, part of their new crush safety initiative imposed by the Federal Government

[Gregski]

you all know that for the most part I enjoy working on my truck Rusty, but this, this was a complete Nightmare to get out

[Gregski]

ladies and gentlemen the least enjoyable task - getting the dreaded rusty crusty door latch/lock mechanism out of the door if you have never gotten it out before

[Gregski]

I know, I know, sure it's easy if you know how, but I didn't ok, lol, I didn't know how those pesky GM clips went on and I hate them

you need to push the clip in with a pointy bit to get it to slide off, again hard to see that when its all rusty and dirty and it's dark in there, or the clip is facing the wrong direction

Top Tip: get a clip off that you can see, that you can get to, just to study it, you may not even need to take that clip off but do it just to learn how it goes on and off, that's what finally worked for me