Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

I was out at Eagle Creek and noticed this street sign so I had to stop and get some pictures.

[dadsburb]

your burb is looking good, makes me want to take mine out for a ride.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by dadsburb

your burb is looking good, makes me want to take mine out for a ride.

Thanks! The truth is the truck was filthy dirty at the time but I had to take some pictures as the street sign is my last name. It's not a common name and I'd never seen it on a sign before.

['68OrangeSunshine]

In my pipe dreams for White Fang's* resurrection, I've been musing about how cool it would be to have electric windows on Door # 3 and Window #4. Hot day, let the back windows down for the 4-40 upgrade to System 2-40 Air. Yeah, it would be cool.
If it all worked smoothly, all the time, that is.
But dealing with the screwy door and window switch wiring on my recently acquired 2003 Tahoe gives me second thoughts about electric Anything, except headlights.
Keeping the crank-up windows in the front at least.

[*White Fang is a '67 K/10 Suburban that got ''totaled'' on paper by mainstream insurance and stuck with a Salvage Title over 20 years ago. It has the status of a ''someday project''.]

[HO455]

Originally Posted by '68OrangeSunshine

In my pipe dreams for White Fang's* resurrection, I've been musing about how cool it would be to have electric windows on Door # 3 and Window #4. Hot day, let the back windows down for the 4-40 upgrade to System 2-40 Air. Yeah, it would be cool.
If it all worked smoothly, all the time, that is.
But dealing with the screwy door and window switch wiring on my recently acquired 2003 Tahoe gives me second thoughts about electric Anything, except headlights.
Keeping the crank-up windows in the front at least.

[*White Fang is a '67 K/10 Suburban that got ''totaled'' on paper by mainstream insurance and stuck with a Salvage Title over 20 years ago. It has the status of a ''someday project''.]

Fortunately I'm still limber enough to reach around and roll the 4th door window down at a stop light. However the 3rd door window has gotten so stiff when I tried to lower it last week I thought I would break something so I gave up. It's nice to get that 4-40 air conditioning. I guess it's time to take it apart for cleaning and lubrication.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

Fortunately I'm still limber enough to reach around and roll the 4th door window down at a stop light. However the 3rd door window has gotten so stiff when I tried to lower it last week I thought I would break something so I gave up. It's nice to get that 4-40 air conditioning. I guess it's time to take it apart for cleaning and lubrication.

Makes you wonder how things like that can start having problems for no reason at all.....

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

Makes you wonder how things like that can start having problems for no reason at all.....

Being that it's NW Oregon I'm betting it's moss growing in the window channel .

By the way did you get my email?

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

Being that it's NW Oregon I'm betting it's moss growing in the window channel .

By the way did you get my email?

Thanks for the reminder on the eMail. I hadn't checked it for a few days.
.

[3757chevy]

Nice.

[BAD1916]

That turned out great.

[CG]

Not sure how you came up with that, it sure came out great.

[kev2809]

that reverse light idea was genius...nice idea

[LockDoc]

-
Looks good.

Thinking outside of the box and good ol' American ingenuity is how he came up with that.....
.

[Beach-Burban]

I’m amazed at how well you keep refining the WMB…little things like this are usually overlooked! Thanks for documenting this upgrade for others to copy!

Woody

[HO455]

Thank you everybody for all the kind words but I'm not really all that smart. After seeing many broken taillights (Photo) at the wrecking yard it dawned on me that I could do that to the WMB. From there it was a bunch of walking through the wrecking yards looking for a donor set of lights (Which I never found) when the flashlight idea came to mind. Doing it for $2 was the only genius part of the job.

['68OrangeSunshine]

Originally Posted by HO455

Thank you everybody for all the kind words but I'm not really all that smart. After seeing many broken taillights (Photo) at the wrecking yard it dawned on me that I could do that to the WMB. From there it was a bunch of walking through the wrecking yards looking for a donor set of lights (Which I never found) when the flashlight idea came to mind. Doing it for $2 was the only genius part of the job.

That's a great mod. I have an old flashlight reflector on the drivers side courtesy lamp in my '71 Jimmy. With a totally-removable top, there's no dome light.
On the '71 GMC and '68 C/10 Stepside, I did a lower tech, but quite effective, move of cleaning the lenses and buckets and spraying the insides with aluminum spraypaint. Same for taillight buckets. Works with tungsten incandescent bulbs. LEDs have no ''backsplash'.

[Ol Blue K20]

Great idea and a nice job!

[HO455]

More information from the second light. This one took two tries. I used the first one as a template and traced it on the reflector. This however didn't work out as planned, due to the second reflector having a steeper angle to the cone and when I cut it on the lines it was too small in the housing. This caused the cost of this modification to go up by 50%.

The second thing I learned is it is much easier to enlarge the hole for the bulb with a step drill bit over using a Dremel like I did on the first one.

For the rough shape I used a band saw to do the initial cuts. I also learned that spraying the blade with WD40 will help prevent the plastic from sticking to the blade.

The final shaping was done with a sanding drum in a drill and a hand sanding block. I found that sanding was cleaner when I went from the inside to the outside or from the bulb side to the battery side.

I discovered the hard way is it is easy to push the reflector into the housing but, hard to get it out as the housing gets smaller towards the back. The reflector will bend as you push it in but it wants to dig in and grab when you try to remove it. I needed to leave a bit of a gap on one corner to allow a pick tool to pass behind the reflector so I could remove it as I sanded it to size.

Another thing is try not to touch the inside of the reflector as the surface scratches easily.

And thanks again for all the kind words and encouragement I do appreciate them.

[1970cstblazer]

The 1971-72 style B/U lenses are clearer, and fluted differently to give off more light. However, I've always preferred the 1967-70 bullseye B/U lenses aesthetically since they match pattern of the tail lenses.

[HO455]

Cool, I learned something today. Thanks!