Frankentruck

[LostMy65]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

Yesterday's adventure in Savannah with Frankentruck:

Got to have the mossy trees, of course





The big bridge





River Street with the Georgia Queen





Bonaventure Cemetery




After that, I headed for Milledgeville.

As the sun was dropping behind the trees, I wanted to find a tree with good, fall colors. Found one on a 2 lane between Adrian and Wrightsville.



Not much farther up the road, I spotted a crewcab square up on a small dam. I took the risk and pulled up. Met some nice guys fishing on their farm. We talked trucks for about 30 minutes, I took a few sunset pictures, then made the last hour of the trip back in the dark.








With some rough calculations, I believe Frankentruck is getting around 13 mpg combined. Again, that's rough and the speedo reads 64 when I'm going 70, so I don't know how accurate the odometer reading is

Nice photos

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by LostMy65

Nice photos

Thank you! They aren't too bad for a smart phone that's about 4 years out of date
Current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S8 if anyone was wondering

[roll_the_dice]

Nice pictures Christian...I like the cargo ship in the background under the bridge! Did anyone complain about taking pictures on River St?

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by roll_the_dice

Nice pictures Christian...I like the cargo ship in the background under the bridge! Did anyone complain about taking pictures on River St?

Thanks, Andy! No one directly complained to me. I noticed several other people taking pictures as I was driving through. I ended up driving through twice because there were way too many cars behind me on the first time through

[Getter-Done]

Thanks for sharing the pictures

They bring back memories of My visit to Savannah

We went to Lady and Son's Restaurant.

Stayed down on the river in a room there.

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

Thanks for sharing the pictures

They bring back memories of My visit to Savannah

We went to Lady and Son's Restaurant.

Stayed down on the river in a room there.

I got to stay at the Alida hotel. It's a fairly new one not directly on the river, but right across the street from the old power plant. It was definitely the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. Thankfully, Georgia College is reimbursing me since I did go down for work purposes

[cwcarpenter98]

Made it home yesterday evening, but not with a slight adventure.
Since the gas gauge isn't reading right, I thought I had more fuel in the tank from looking inside the fill hole than what i actually did.
Ran out of gas 2 miles from the restaurant I was planning to meet my parents for dinner at. Got some gas, enjoyed some food, made it home.

Today, I got a chance to put my birthday present from last month together. My many years of Lego sets paid off.

Also diagnosed why my Dakota wouldn't start after I parked it back when I brought Frankentruck to Milly.
I had power to the starter wire, power to the solenoid wire with key turned to start. I flipped all the relays around to make sure, but still nothing.
Finally, I pulled back tbe blue, rubber cover over the wire from the solenoid to the starter motor and found a bunch of corrosion on the wire. Cleaned that, and the bendix started clicking, but wouldn't engage. Wacked it a couple times with a hammer and sure enough, she started right up again. Going to keep that hammer in the truck for a while, just in case

[cwcarpenter98]

Figured out why the fuel gauge stopped working well. The float was full of fuel!

There was a very small crack that I pressed on and there's the hole. Jb weld is most likely not a permanent fix, but hopefully it will work long enough until I can swing by Summit Racing to pick up a new one

[cwcarpenter98]

The annual tradition continues!


Also, update on the float. I don't know if it's reading accurately yet. When I filled up, I'm not sure that I got a full tank. I'm also not sure that I put the float back on the arm in the right spot. If I put it back on the wrong way, I'm wondering if it could be hitting the side of the tank and not going all the way to full when the tank is full.

One other thing: I found out in a different thread that I was using tapered seat spark plugs in non tapered seat heads. Whoops.
I robbed the plugs out of the old engine, then found a second set I had kept. I forgot I had changed the plugs twice on the old engine. Anyways, I also spent a little more time messing with the idle mixture screws and a vacuum gauge while I was back home. Seems to be running good still and doesn't smell like raw fuel as much at idle now. I checked one of the plugs today and it did look better than before, but I'm really considering getting an AFR gauge to better tune the carb in all driving conditions. Sure, it would be nice to have an EFI system, but the carb hasn't treated me wrong yet, so I feel inclined to keep it around for awhile longer

[straight6chevyguy]

I personally like the personality of a carbed car or truck I think it gives them charictor.
But I grew up with my parents driving old carbureted cars and I will always remember them pumping the pedal and cranking until the engine started lol. guess it's just a childhood memory thing.

Those are some good pics of frankentruck btw!

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by straight6chevyguy

I personally like the personality of a carbed car or truck I think it gives them charictor.
But I grew up with my parents driving old carbureted cars and I will always remember them pumping the pedal and cranking until the engine started lol. guess it's just a childhood memory thing.

Those are some good pics of frankentruck btw!

Thank you! Sounds like a good childhood memory.
Switching to an electric choke made a world of difference in the drivability year round. The Quadrajet I'm running will start every time with one pump of the gas unless it's been sitting for longer than a week

[cwcarpenter98]

Went up to Winder for a car show this morning.

A good amount of nice Chevy trucks were there, but only three 60-66 trucks

[cwcarpenter98]

I bought these a while ago, but finally had a chance to start the caster mod. My dad and I don't have a working drill press, but my adopted church family in Milly has one. Thankfully, he had a 5/8" drill bit. We had it set to 620 rpms and with plenty of cutting fluid, new holes were drilled fairly quickly. The drill press is definitely the way to go

[LostMy65]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

I bought these a while ago, but finally had a chance to start the caster mod. My dad and I don't have a working drill press, but my adopted church family in Milly has one. Thankfully, he had a 5/8" drill bit. We had it set to 620 rpms and with plenty of cutting fluid, new holes were drilled fairly quickly. The drill press is definitely the way to go

Yeah, I had a drill press mount for a typical drill. I don't know what happened to it. It was easy to mount up the drill and once you clamp the piece down, a lot safer.

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

Fantastic mod. I fully approve.

I usually move 3/4", but I usually also have to bash the lip of the crossmember to clear the (larger squarebody) bushings.

I moved 3/4" from center of the hole, it just doesn't look like it from the picture. I purchased ACDelco uppers and lowers, and read on the caster mod thread that the original ones on trucks had 3" from center of factory hole to very end of shaft. I measured out 3 and 3/4" then drilled.

Originally Posted by LostMy65

Yeah, I had a drill press mount for a typical drill. I don't know what happened to it. It was easy to mount up the drill and once you clamp the piece down, a lot safer.

That's not a bad idea. I'll have to look into it. The other option is to try to fix the drill press my dad and I have. It spins, but the chuck is frozen up on it. Might try to fix it over Christmas

[Getter-Done]

When you get that Drill press going.

I suggest 2 things

Center Finder





Center Drills

[SkinnyG]

Fantastic mod. I fully approve.

I usually move 3/4", but I usually also have to bash the lip of the crossmember to clear the (larger squarebody) bushings.

[cwcarpenter98]

Getter-Done,
Thanks for the suggestions. I like that center finder

[cwcarpenter98]

Got back from Milledgeville on Thursday. Yesterday was another C10 Club Georgia meet, so drove up for that. Was then able to help return the lights used for lighting up the location. This morning was a show at Auto Metal Direct's warehouse. The rain, and cost, was a deterrent I think, but there were still some nice trucks. I didn't take a bunch of pictures though

[cwcarpenter98]

Here's my favorite from the show. A home built 64

[cwcarpenter98]

Lutinent Dan, you ain't got no legs

[roll_the_dice]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

lutinent dan, you ain't got no legs

haha!

[cwcarpenter98]

Started studying this morning for my first part of the CPA exam. That's going to be most of my life for the rest of this break

As a study break, I took some time to fiddle with the truck. Had to buy a socket for the lower control arm shafts. Took the old off and started to install the new, but stopped so I could fix the frame first. I pulled the steering gear so that I can fix the cracks while everything is out. That'll probably be tomorrow's study break

[cwcarpenter98]

Today's task: welding up the frame and making the reinforcement plate.

I've been running .025 wire with gas on my mig. That was too thin for the 3/16" frame. I needed .030 wire to use with the gas, but I currently don't have any. The welder would be on the highest setting for that wire size. Instead, I opened up the .035 flux core wire that came with the welder and set up the welder for no gas. That worked pretty well, and I think I should be ok.

After that, i removed the sway bar and steering linkage to get it out of the way. I wanted 3/16" plate to use for the reinforcement plate, but didn't want to go to the store to get something that was way bigger than what I needed. I remembered that I had a section of frame rail in the back yard. Perfect piece to cut from! I fit it into the frame, got the holes drilled, then ran out of daylight. Tomorrow will be cleaning up the inside of the frame so that I can bolt the plate up, stitch weld around the edges, and throw in a couple plug welds where needed.

The holes in the plate are the 3 steering gear holes, the bumper bracket hole, and the smaller one is for the sway bar frame bracket. I'm hoping that will be enough to tie the frame together. If not, I might take some of the scraps and weld a stand on to the bracket that will bolt to the radiator cross member. Suggestions welcome!

[The Rocknrod]

Cool that shoul do it. Nice work.