A '54 named Busty

[LT7A]

Dude, I'm late to the party. It's great to see more more pictures of this. I'm sorry that the engine is giving you fits. That new steering wheel is cool and I like the whale teeth dash. Even your rehabbed exhaust looks good. Although I'm not sure why you put it together under the truck when you got a semipermeable bed to work thru, haha. This thing will be shaking character out of hidden niches for years to come. I look forward to following along.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Dude, I'm late to the party. It's great to see more more pictures of this. I'm sorry that the engine is giving you fits. That new steering wheel is cool and I like the whale teeth dash. Even your rehabbed exhaust looks good. Although I'm not sure why you put it together under the truck when you got a semipermeable bed to work thru, haha. This thing will be shaking character out of hidden niches for years to come. I look forward to following along.

always a kind word from the car/truck aficionado from the North, thank you so much

[Gregski]

installed some of these mini 1.5" electronic AutoMeter AutoGauge [pronounced: "cheap"] gauges cause there's no way I am running mechanical oil and water temp gauges no more

there isn't that much room in the cab to begin with so these may do, and if not they may serve as my under the hood gauge set just for troubleshooting

with the gauges installed I fired her up and tried my best to get her a running, there was a plenty oil pressure, and she was warming up nicely but wasn't overheating, and finally she landed at 16* initial timing and idles around 850 RPM, I wonder if the previous owner dropped a cam in her since he did smack a TH400 slush box behind her and she wants to idle above 900 fer sure, who knows?

[Gregski]

so with the truck running and my monthly truck funds depleated I decided to take a little break from the mechanical combabulation and do some body work, I wanted to take the grill down to bare metal and just clear coat it for that industrial look, but decided against it when the first part turned out too gun metal gray instead of nice and bright and shinny, plus I didn't think the clear coat on bare metal was going to protect it from rusting as well as it should

so I used some Home Depot phosphoric acid (which in California you could actually drink, it's so weak, though I don't recommend it) to get rid of the rust, mostly on the back side in the hard to reach places, then I hosed the pieces down with water, and bathed them in baking soda water to neutralize the acid, and then wire wheeled the white powder off of them, turned out decent, and then I primered them with some RUSTY METAL PRIMER?

but boy I did not realize how mangled this grill really was till I took it off

[Gregski]

so fandangled a larger battery tray

you guy's ever been in a situation where you buy a vehicle and the seller is like and here's a ton of extra parts that you can use, they're worth a million dollars by themselves, and then you try to use them and nothing works, fits, or is what you wanted?

as much as I appreciate getting a ton of parts with this truck, I can't use a ton of them, for example a brand new battery that came with the truck was just too darn big to fit in this cavity, problem being is that the Camaro subframe still runs under the stock frame rail so it's impossible to slide the bigger battery down while hugging the stock frame, it has to come out about 2 inches towards the running board

between the exhaust and now this box, I am kinda getting tired of having to weld everything on the truck, while upside down on my back under it, type of thing, what ever happened to mocking it up and welding it on your work bench while Amanda from Iron Resurrection gives you a shoulder rub, ha ha

that last pic sure makes it look polywhompus but I assure you it looks more better and square(ish) in real life, hee hee

[Gregski]

progress not perfection, if you think these grill pieces look bad you should have seen them before, ha ha, so if any of youz have a '54 grill in good shape no dents or bruises or parts of one I would be interested in buying it or some pieces of it, especially the center nose piece as mine is beat to hewk

[Gregski]

so took off the gangster steering wheel, and looks like my new (old) stock steering wheel don't fit the mystery column, imagine that

[Gregski]

installed that B&M automatic transmission flour shifter today, the previous owner cut the hole too big so I had to weld in a piece to give the shifter something to lean on and bolt to, once that was in place it was smooth sailing

remember this is just to get it to drive around the block so I can confirm the TH400 works so I can sell it

[MiraclePieCo]

"Fandangled?" "Polywhompus?" This technical jargon is way over my head ;-) Nice work so far!

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by MiraclePieCo

"Fandangled?" "Polywhompus?" This technical jargon is way over my head ;-) Nice work so far!

Thanks, but I credit AVE and his YouTube channel for "Polywhompus" (SP)

[Gregski]

dropped the Camaro(ish) fuel tank today, not a fan of the spare tire cut out in it, and it's OEM Medusa(ish) sending unit tublature

[Gregski]

with the fuel tank out of the way (safety wise) I went to town on filling in all the holes in the bed, show some respect people, show some respect for the old iron, ha ha

Fun Level = 9.5

[Gregski]

the other side was Holier, hee hee

showing you the copper pipe DIY backing plate / spatula I used to fill in them holes

yup this is the type of Shizwa that ends up on the Overhaulin' floor in the editing room - ha ha, but not here on Busted Knuckles Garage, we show you the mundane as well as the insane

[Gregski]

then it was time to patch the driver side bottom front corner of the bed, and after trying to weld rust for a little while, ha ha... I decided to cut out and patch the rest of the hole, but being lazy and dumb I tried cutting the hole to the size of some random shape scrap piece of metal, instead of the other way around, making the hole too big since out of habit I tend to cut slightly outside the sharpie lines than sand to size, well this had the opposite effect, oh well, time to stitch

[8man]

Very good. I have a 48 bed side that looks like that under that old angle.

[Gregski]

the tank hole was next

we start off by whoppin off some precise rectangular chunk of random sheet metal from our scrap pile on our Organic Brake (Break ?)

Compound shape? what compound shape?

[Gregski]

then using an imaginary hole saw we cut out the 3"(ish) round(ish) shape

[Gregski]

and grinder and paint makes me the welder I aint

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by 8man

Very good. I have a 48 bed side that looks like that under that old angle.

thanks, I'm just having fun, and that rusty angle iron strip is still tough as hewk even half a century later! I aint no metalurgist expert but I'm willing to bet they don't make metal like that no mo'

luv them rigs you got in yer signature block!

[jocww]

i need to do my gas cap shave too. How hard was it?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by jocww

i need to do my gas cap shave too. How hard was it?

actually pretty easy, but my motto is progress not perfection! ha ha cause my end goal is a running driving car, not a perpetual build with no end in sight which leads to an abandoned heap of parts 10 years down the line

[Gregski]

and then the new tankulator showed up, made in 'merica, yeah!

'97 Chebby Blazer I think as we like to put Chebby parts on our Chebbys

[Gregski]

mandatory stare and compare

Camaro fuel tank vs Blazer fuel tank

[Gregski]

so we immediately tried it on for size, it will sit a few inches higher then that, once we liberate the DIY 1x1" square tubing old tank braces

[Gregski]

bought these fuel tank mounting straps off of Amazon per their purchasing suggestion and what a joke they are only about 3 feet too short, ha ha

with all the spying Siri does on us how could she not know the exact application I am going to be installing these on, ha ha