Grizz's Redneck Express 1966 Chevy Short Fleetside RESTO-GO!

[Grizz1963]

Despite having bought a pair of LED headlights thesecame on my radar today.

May be 6” and I need 7” but I like them.


Now could one find them in the UK or a UK source?





Anyone know?

[Grizz1963]

Bought some bits to go with getting the Flux Capacitor going.

One if the things I remember from all the years friends had beach buggies, kit cars etc, was that earthing could be an issue.

So hopefully these will sort that out.

Also supersized jubilee clips for the MAF connecting hose.





Need to get some fuel line clips and a bunch of other bits.

I was shocked at the price of brake line chassis clips, or P-Clips as they are known, and actually declined them at £45.00 a pack, so need some of them too when @nickwheeler and I go to Car Builder Solutions to pick up a few specialist bits that are still needed.


Have a good day.

[Grizz1963]

After the shock of the price quoted for brake lune clips, I called my local motor spares shop.

10 P-clips with self tapping screws was only £2.00

So to celebrate, I bought a portion of chips with extra salt and vinegar to eat on the way home.



Treasure



Also delivered, side lights and indicators.



And certainly one of my favourite items so far….



Looking forward to getting these fitted.

Also spent two hours in the garage doing some small, time consuming jobs that need doing.


More about that later.

[jmarkha1]

can’t beat a nice portion of chips (aka hot potato salad).
those lights look fancy ����

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by jmarkha1

can’t beat a nice portion of chips (aka hot potato salad).
those lights look fancy ����

LOL.


No, and the smell……..


If they are an easy fit, I will be super pleased.





I had “promised” Sally pan fried pork chops for dinner, but she had a problem with her heating and water system.

So passed on that.

Perfect opportunity to go into the garage for a couple of hours and knock together a couple of odd shaped brackets, or legs if you want, to support and anchor the airbox.

@nickwheeler and I had been discussing these for a while but other jobs kept displacing the job on the priority list.

So first thing was to scavenge some steel.



But only after another small job.

Remember we cut off the resonator on the air feed?



So it left a hole to fix.

Perfect donor, the windscreen washer bottle cap.

Shaped, glued in place with Soudal crystal glue. And some masking tape to secure while curing.



New Jubilee clamps over the MAF and screwed to the engine.

Now I could get on with the job.




Got a 6mm steel offcut, cut to shape, test drilled with 7.5mm bit to allow for M8 tapping.



Turned out it was too loose with a wobbly thread resulting.

So remade, using a 7mm bit.

Perfect, nice fitting thread.

Then made up leg no 1 to bolt into the chassis on the battery bridge footing.

Happy with that.



Followed by welding the threaded plate to the other end.

Looks like it fits too.

After this, leg no 3 was created.



May need a bit of cross bracing, but need to see it all bolted down first.

It may be stable enough.



So two weird brackets and a hole closed, plus a chat with Mickey took up two hours.

Giving me these.



That now look like this.



Very pleased with that.

Another job ticked off the list.


As soon as I drill a hole in the gutter pipe and move the airbox sensor closer to the wiring loom.


Maybe.



Back indoors by 20.00 and warmed up the left over curry from lMonday night at which time John the one lodger got in

So we sat chatting and had a JD Tennessee Honey.

Perfect end to a busy day.

[Paul Y]

Know what you mean about the expense of the odds and ends. Just spend nearly £100 on battery cables and connectors.

Coming along nicely.

P.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Paul Y

Know what you mean about the expense of the odds and ends. Just spend nearly £100 on battery cables and connectors.

Coming along nicely.

P.

Thanks Paul,

Your build is flying along too.

I have made peace with the prices of stuff.






Post Man Pat delivered today……..


And it is already on my toolbox.


Thank you @mr2fc






And from Siberia, Stas suggested `I build my Rezin Rockit over one of these.







Maybe not.



Friday tomorrow.


Can’t wait.

[Grizz1963]

Well,

Speaking of madness.

Another week done, and it was tough, but I delivered in excess of my expectations, so a reward was in order.

Extended lunch break….?

Popped the garage open.

Then opened the air box and removed the air filter.

DIRTY……..



This was the problem to be addressed.



With moving the air-box about 600mm or 24” back in the engine bay the sensor wire ended up too short.

Easy to extend the wires.

Easier to remove the sensor……..



Block to hole with a bit of colourful plastic from a laundry detergent bottle cap.



Then set the step drill to the right size to replicate the hole for the grommet…….

Drill the hole.



Grommet in.

Sensor in.

Refit pipe.



Easy fix then.

Little wins that steal time.

One less job for tomorrow or Sunday.

Friday night.

Drinks?

[Grizz1963]

Right…..

Next job to get done.

One that @nickwheeler was hoping I would get on with. Maybe.

So I removed the battery bridge, which also incorporated part of the air-box support.

Then measured and marked out the holes for the M8 bolts to screw into that would hold the battery strap down, drilled the holes, tapped them.

Perfect.

Than made up the strap and burned the holes and added the eyelets.



Also made a pair of “large” plates to replace washers and also grip the strap on the bridge.



Few more little fine tuning actions, then some paint and final,fitting.

Ohh…. And terminals to be made up of course.

Another little job done.

[Grizz1963]

Bonus Ball for Saturday.





Not what I want, but guess it shows what a big check book and a lot of work can deliver.


Back to reality………

[Grizz1963]

Yesterday afternoon @nickwheeler and I went to Car Builder Solutions to pick up a few parts that were needed for some of the progress.

When I got to his place 10 miles from here, to pick him up, he was “not ready” yet.

Well, all it would take was a pair of shoes tbh. The benefit of having your machine shop under your home.

But, he was busy……..

Fine tuning some bits on the lathe.



Leaving this.



Resulting in this.



To be added to these throttle and clutch parts he had already made up.




This build certainly is becoming more and more “Hotrod” as it goes along with all the custom bits made for it so far. .

Liking it.


Once Nick had his shoes on, we headed over to Staplehurst to get the parts list filled out.

This included a massive box of waterproof electrical fittings, wiring loom tape, battery terminal protectors, cabling,sheaths, stainless braided hose, clips, bulkhead fittings and a 90’ connector for the new clutch line that needs to be made up to clean up part of the engine bay.




I had a 4.00pm day job Teams meeting to attend, so dropped Nick off at 3.55 sharply and headed home with the meeting strapped safely into the passenger seat next to me, and me on mute, camera off.

Traffic meant it took me exactly an hour to ger the 10 miles or 16km trip done.

I do dislike traffic.


Today I was awake by 03.20 and that was my night over.

A very wet George the cat came in by 04.45 for some ham and is now tucked up somewhere as I have not heard the catflap again.

It is raining outside, but hopefully once daylight comes etc, I will be able to to get down to the garage and get some stuff done.

Time marches on regardless of the weather.

Onwards in the words of @pauly




.

[Grizz1963]

Day started with me waking at 03.18

No sleep after that, not ideal.

But once I got started, some housekeeping, and in the 5’C temperature outside, I decided to use my paint stripping heat gun to warm the battery bridge before giving it some satin black



Once that was done I started on some CAD to create the insert for the transmission tunnel to make space for the heater/blower unit.



Once transferred and cut out of a sheet of Dexian cabinet backing I folded it ……….



More to be done, grinding back the hole in the transmission tunnel to almost perfectly square and also a couple of flanges needed cutting to weld onto the sides that can be bolted down.

@nickwheeler came around later as well, and with a coffee kickstart he was off……..

Loads of little jobs, including removing the wiring harness that had been attached to the chassis and then winding up a pair of wires we still have no idea of what they do……

Could be a reverse light.

Any ideas?





Another job Nick had been wanting to do for a few weeks was to relay the loom into the rear of the car, a few more holes are needed to get the fuel system wiring in under rhe rear bed.



Also prepared was the earth cable and live wires to get them connected to the battery.

Nick soldered the lugs together as well, kinda impatient jobs.



The day turned out to be one of those that showed little, but a ton of stuff got done.

Progressing the build quite a lot more.

Stand by for more updates.


.

[Grizz1963]

So actually a really busy day yesterday.

Many time thieves……

We were busy all day till I had to tell Nick to get out and leave at 5.15 as he had a family event.

Sure he would not mind me mentioning, his mum was having her 1 in 4 birthday dinners……

Yup, 29 February is a bit of a rare one.


I welded up the under dash extender tray adding a pair of side flanges for mounting and weather or waterproofing.



And once tidied up it looked pretty decent for the job it needs to be doing.



Heater matrix box and blower unit tidied up and cut back earlier looks tidy now.

Placed in position.

Happy with that.



Once bolted down with some sealant under it, this should be a decent dry space too.

Air blower holes still need to be created and ducted once this unit and all the wiring has been laid and secured.

ECU, Fuse box, controllers still need locating and fixung inder the scuttle once the screen frame is welded and located.




One of @nickwheelers jobs on the master list was to create new earth and power leads, relocate some and also create more decent earthing points on the chassis.

A fair chunk of time that you cannot see has been allocated to these jobs.

Resulting in this sort of tidy improvement and install.

Massive thanks again.




More invisible jobs include removing chunks of the loom, rerouted cables etc in order to gain an inch or two of movement.

On the drivers side it is now possible to mount some modules upright and in an aesthetic and safe way.

The washer bottle will probably get a hole or two in the bulkhead today.

With power leads being rerouted inside the firewall.



Actually getting tidier every day.

Also at last the airbox relocation is complete with the supports in place.

One had to be removed, cut and rewelded by Nick because I screwed up when I got the height and angle wrong by 20mm which is a lot when you try to make stuff look great.



After Nick left I finished the blower/heater tray and packed up so Patient, saintly Sally could get a bit of my time.

Today could see a few jobs progress visibly too.

[Grizz1963]

[quote author="@nickwheeler" source="/post/2722532/thread" timestamp="1646530101"][quote source="/post/2722531/thread" author="@foxmcintyre" timestamp="1646527839"]Is your mystery wire a gearbox sensor for the MX5? They have a reverse light switch for well, the reverse lights, and a neutral position switch which works in tandem with the clutch pedal switch to allow the ecu to see if the car is in ‘drive (in gear, clutch released)’ or ‘neutral (or clutch depressed)’. [/quote]The mystery wire is for the reverse lights. But you've just cleared up why there are two other switches on the gearbox instead of just the speed sensor, and what the switch on the clutch pedal does. Which is a big help.

There are two 4-pin plugs near the passenger headlight that we still need to identify[/quote]


Anyone clever on here …..?


@rich this is the set Nick mentioned.

They are on the passenger side loom, toward the,front, but behind the headlight plugs.




And the wires feeding them.



Thank you for any help identifying them.

[Grizz1963]

Right……..

Price me this.

Bought by my lodger and some mates to use the chassis for building a ride to be used in the Red Bull Soap Box challenge.



The wheels were sold to @craigrk, and the motor which is UNTESTED and missing part of the air filter etc is available to me for a bid.

Believed to be a 160cc Chinese copy of a Honda motor.

Wht sort of money is this worth, and also what sort of offer should I make, that is, if you believe it can be gotten to start up,again.

It is planned as part of the bar stool racer I need to build.


If it can be started.

This is it.















So there you go.



Untested motor, was ridden to destruction on a kart by traveller kids, turns over freely, wheels were knackered and indicate a hard life.



I can buy it for a sensibly stupid offer.



So do I buy, try get it to run, or run away.


Thanks.

[Grizz1963]

Sunday

I started earlier than usual with small random jobs that all needed wrapping up and doing at some point, so decided any time is a good time.

A few parts needed painting after welding, grinding, fabrication.

Including the “space maker” recessed tray on the transmission tunnel.

Keep in mind, this was made to create space for the blower unit and heater matrix and box to be fitted in a way that left space for wiring looms, switches, dash cluster, large ECU and various chunky bits of hardware, as well as the pedals and related mechanisms.



More time consumed with measure, cut, drill, fold and shaping of the side supports for the dash panel and also side panels that will see he blower exists get fitted.

Need to still get a decent piece of ply, preferably waterproof, for the dash panel and sides plus kick panels.

Job for another day.




Another job has been to make the gear stick and hole fit correctly.

Yes, it will need an extension……….

Interestingly, the thread on the stick is different to anything I have, so a quick screw on a nut and long bolt solution for mocking up, did not happen.

Still, happy so far.



With the heater box and blower fitted in place, you can see how much space it takes up.



But Nick, and others reckon I will be thankful on a chilly spring or autumn evening.




More in a bit, day job stuff to deal with.

[Grizz1963]

One more small job done.

The gear stick needed to be taller.

Outcome was buying a spare shifter for £5.00 in case it needed to be cut, extended or whatever, and no it would not get cut.

Found an engineering shop who identified/confirmed the thread and agreed to make me an 8” or 200mm threaded extension on 15.8mm rod, with a male and female end to extend the shifter.

Time frame. Less than 24 hrs.

Price. £15.00

I think that is a decent price, free is better of course, but hey, specialised engineering I cannot do.

[Grizz1963]

Struggles with Photobucket that I cannot figure out means some pics are not uploaded from the weekend.


Anyway.

It was cold out.

@nickwheeler sat on his butt most of the day (and that is a bad thing in the cold as moving about generates heat)

He started by deleting a couple of wires from the loom…….



Not long before this was the situation.

Airbag loom removed along with plugs.



And then it just got worse as we decided that cleaning it up would mean tidy space and less wires to bend and force under the dash.

It also released a few inches of wiring to enable placement of certain parts like fusebox just that much better.



Looser fit with the new position of heater motor and the box I welded up for the matrix.



Another job I got on with was removing the headlights and buckets, which were also rotten beyond recovery, so the grinder was called into service, again.

The placement of the radiator means the original buckets really are in the way, so a bit of clever thinking once I get a new set of buckets, will be needed, as well as some trimming.

Different sizes.



Originals.

Beyond salvation really.



We eventually closed shop around 6.00pm as I had offered Nick and Sally dinner.

Leaving the car looking worse for wear, but actually we knew that a load of invisible work had been done over the weekend.



After dinner Nick took the wiring loom with him to go remove the door plugs and most of that part of the loom as well.

A few loose tasks set aside for this week, like getting the gear shifter extension made up.

Day job is a bit busy, and evenings are cold.

Another small job I need to get to is making a dual bracket for these guys to mont over the fender.



Roll on the weekend.


Progress….?

[Grizz1963]

Trying to figure out how to copy the link from the web based app.photobucket sire.

This pic is from the app.

[Grizz1963]

Photobucket continues to frustrate me, but at least I seem to have found a way to support my random rambling with phots, using the web based home, vs a mobile app.

Money seems to continue to haemorrhage from my wallet.

Important stuff, current and earthing.

@nickwheeler said so. 😉



Various nuts n bolts, think sheet metal, firewall, trays etc.

Gloopy silicone, gutter sealant etc for various sealing and joining jobs.



‘The last few weeks have been quite full on with day job work keeping me busy and away from home (Covid home working was good) and knackered at night.

Tuesday evening I was angry about some dumb stuff at work (seems it makes me more productive to go unwind a bit) so an hour in the garage gave me progress.

Shelving offcut.




Bit of measuring, cutting.

John, the short term lodger is a biker, car guy and driving instructor, and enjoys coming to the garage.

I did not realise he had taken some photos while I was busy focussing.

David the other lodger (Electrician contractor manager at Grain power station) who has been here a year also came down to check if I had lost any limbs yet, and promptly proposed to close down my site for all sorts of H&S infringements.

So different these two guys.



Bit of folding,



Some holes drilled, bolted to the fender, and we will have the mounting bracket for fuse box and relay as illustrated before.



This was one of those jobs that the wiring loom unpicking has made easier by adding maybe 50mm of play to it.

Small steps, all take time.

I look at this bracket and kinda wish I had some record of time spent overall like @blackpopracing has on his build.

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread...glia-shinyness

That is the way to do it.

My Teardrop trailer build was about 360 hours all told, years ago.

Crazy how time adds up.

[Grizz1963]

One other job I got done this week was to find out the thread pitch of the MX5.

Then tracked down a Mazda specialist 10 miles from home, who sile me a soare shifter for £5.00 (plan B would be cut and weld)

He then introduced me to an engineering shop aro8nd the corner from where his workshop is.

So we started with this…….




Guy was the guy I spoke to, and he measured the thread and pitch, said they had the correct tap and die to make a male and female extension.

Using 15.9mm steel stock, and set as 200mm or 8 inches he offered to do the job for £15.00 or about $20.00

@nickwheeler and I had agreed that there was no way I could buy materials and produce for that sort of money afterwards when we chatted.

Order placed late afternoon, and collection arranged for the next day.

They are open for small challenging jobs, interestingly, Guy has built a kitcar before, so understands the challenges.



While waiting for him to confirm the job, I saw this………….

Evidence of an engineering shop that has been there a while, despite being clean and very modern.

Made me smile.



Yesterday morning I had a hospital appointment for myself at 09.00 and afterwards before 10.00 I stopped by at the engineering shop to collect my stick.

Lovely finish.







Back home in the evening I had to go test it out.

REMEMBER……. There is a rubber fitting to go around it, bolted into the yellow piece of MX5 tunnel, and then a leather boot, sheath, or whatever you want to call it.

Feels good in the hand when making Brum Brum noises like @pauly

Doing the maths…….

More than 1 inch below the tunnel, and shifter knob takes up 2 inches, leaving the actual stick being about 5 inches or 150mm long.

Neutral.



First gear…….



Second gear, fourth and reverse are all the same.



Small steps, but Progress nonetheless.

Looking forward to the weekend.

Hopefully more stuff getting made, attached, tested.

Bleeding all over.

Perfect.

[Braunschweiger]

Great progress, I'm always amazed when I see TV shows (e.g. Wheeler Dealers) and your great shops that make fantastic things, the best.... you can just go there, there's no such thing in Old Germany anymore, the Maschine Shops only just work for the factories, nothing for private individuals.

[aggie91]

Nice progress Rian!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Braunschweiger

Great progress, I'm always amazed when I see TV shows (e.g. Wheeler Dealers) and your great shops that make fantastic things, the best.... you can just go there, there's no such thing in Old Germany anymore, the Maschine Shops only just work for the factories, nothing for private individuals.

You are right.

This is a big company, and they probably won’t do a lot of small jobs, but at least they are prepared to do it.

And for a sensibly cheap price.

[Grizz1963]

Rained a bit overnight.


Nice day out now………





Should get a few bits done today.


.