What did you do with your truck today, Part 3

[evilokc]

got my jet kit in the mail. wanted to get them installed today but I had plans with the crew. will work on that tomorrow. going to a drive in car show sat. it will be the first show for the death rattle. I'm kind of giggling about it. the guy that told me about it is the vice president of the 1st gen mustang club here. his cars probably worth 50k. I'm going to drive in with no hood, no passenger fender, and dirt. lots of dirt. should be a good time. I will post up some pics.

[idbeast]

Filled unused firewall holes, ground down the welds and primed.

[MARTINSR]

And holy crap there are a LOT of holes in these firewalls! I looked at mine 50ish) and there were so many, but they looked like stock stamped holes. I went and got some photos on line and looking at them found that there were only 4 wrong holes! And sure enough they looked drilled out, the rest are original. My theme is basically an original truck so I plan on leaving them.
I may change my mind, I am thinking of cleaning it up a bit but I really want it basically stock looking.

Brian

[evilokc]

as per holley instructions I ran my vacuum gauge into the cab and got reading at constant throttle. did it several times and now have a baseline. they want me to increase the jet and repeat the vacuum test. if the vacuum raises I increase the jet again until the vacuum falls or stalls and then I drop back to the previous size or down 2 sizes. my carb is small and has even smaller than stock jets. so I'm going to jump several sizes to start. I enjoyed the test ride though. ran well.

[idbeast]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

And holy crap there are a LOT of holes in these firewalls! I looked at mine 50ish) and there were so many, but they looked like stock stamped holes. I went and got some photos on line and looking at them found that there were only 4 wrong holes! And sure enough they looked drilled out, the rest are original. My theme is basically an original truck so I plan on leaving them.
I may change my mind, I am thinking of cleaning it up a bit but I really want it basically stock looking.

Brian

ROFLMAO yes, there are!!! I accidentally welded up 1 that I needed to open up to 9/16 for the vintage air, then I grabbed the Assembly Manual and looked at both the old 56 cab and the 55 GMC to figure out all of them! With the copper metal flake I'm painting it with, (the car behind the Harley) the holes in the firewall wouldn't look right!

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by idbeast

ROFLMAO yes, there are!!! I accidentally welded up 1 that I needed to open up to 9/16 for the vintage air, then I grabbed the Assembly Manual and looked at both the old 56 cab and the 55 GMC to figure out all of them! With the copper metal flake I'm painting it with, (the car behind the Harley) the holes in the firewall wouldn't look right!

VERY cool color!

Brian

[evilokc]

put in 72 and went on a 25 to 30 mile test ride. the hg stayed where it was so I'm going to drop back to 71s but not tonight. it ran really well. I was cruising between 60 and 75mp on the highway without a hiccup. the surface streets were pleasant driving as well. I admit I was in a hurry to get to the highway but it drove just as well on the surface roads. I haven't done anything to the secondarys. I didn't even open it up to see what jets are back there. its best to adjust one thing at a time and them adjust the rear jets based on the correct size mains. I did find some trash in the metering block when I was changing jets. I'm not sure if I was surprised or not. I cant decide. I'm going to add a second finer filter. the new air cleaner is so tall that its vibrating the wing nut loose. I'm going to add a lock washer. so overall great day. trucks running which makes me happy. I will be driving into the route 66 car show tomorrow. good times.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by evilokc

put in 72 and went on a 25 to 30 mile test ride. the hg stayed where it was so I'm going to drop back to 71s but not tonight. it ran really well. I was cruising between 60 and 75mp on the highway without a hiccup. the surface streets were pleasant driving as well. I admit I was in a hurry to get to the highway but it drove just as well on the surface roads. I haven't done anything to the secondarys. I didn't even open it up to see what jets are back there. its best to adjust one thing at a time and them adjust the rear jets based on the correct size mains. I did find some trash in the metering block when I was changing jets. I'm not sure if I was surprised or not. I cant decide. I'm going to add a second finer filter. the new air cleaner is so tall that its vibrating the wing nut loose. I'm going to add a lock washer. so overall great day. trucks running which makes me happy. I will be driving into the route 66 car show tomorrow. good times.

Nothing like those first drives!

Brian

[MARTINSR]

I got one of the upper inner pieces trimmed to fit. I have to tell you, this is tough, the fact that it's double panel changes everything. I can't weld this piece all together and then put it in that I can figure, it's going to have to be welded into place piece by piece. So I am thinking I am going to do a butt weld with backing and MIG the whole thing.

I will need to get the outside all in shape, prime the inside then weld all these parts together inside, it's a toughie.

The other photo is of a little nibbler that I forgot I had! It was right in my tool box with the other air tools, geez, I could have been using this on a number of steps.

Brian

[evilokc]

went to the route 66 festival today. the caliber of cars were much higher than I thought. lots of cool rides of every style. funny how amongst all the finished high end cars there people still took pictures of the deathrattle. trucks running really well. I'm pleased. got a lot of "nice truck" comments and thumbs ups. today I'm going to do the rear jets and probably get the 10 micron filter installed.

[MARTINSR]

It's so funny how with some things the mark has been raised, and in other things like general street cleanliness or being polite is on a steady decline and is the norm.

With the quality, without a doubt! A top notch show car from 50 years ago wouldn't even get a participation award today. I am so impressed with the super high quality of so many cars at just normal old local park kinda shows. And what is really cool is often they are home builts! With access to what we do over the net most anyone can build some pretty damn cool stuff.

Brian

[Black_Sheep]

3rd time is the charm. I had this piece done before, until it got knocked off the paint stand. I stripped it to bare metal and started over. It was too cool when I painted it the 2nd time and the base coat lifted in a couple places. I repaired the spots and sprayed some more color on it. No runs, no lifting and it layed down smooth. Then I hit it with some matte clear. I know it's a small victory, but I'll take 'em where I can find 'em...

[Black_Sheep]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

It's so funny how with some things the mark has been raised, and in other things like general street cleanliness or being polite is on a steady decline and is the norm.

With the quality, without a doubt! A top notch show car from 50 years ago wouldn't even get a participation award today. I am so impressed with the super high quality of so many cars at just normal old local park kinda shows. And what is really cool is often they are home builts! With access to what we do over the net most anyone can build some pretty damn cool stuff.

Brian

I live in Minnesota, with 5 or 6 months of Winter there is a lot of time to work on them. There is an amazing number of owner built cars that easily rival the no expense spared, open checkbook pro builds. The time, dedication and level of craftsmanship is impressive, even more so when you consider that many of the builders work non-automotive related jobs.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by Black_Sheep

I live in Minnesota, with 5 or 6 months of Winter there is a lot of time to work on them. There is an amazing number of owner built cars that easily rival the no expense spared, open checkbook pro builds. The time, dedication and level of craftsmanship is impressive, even more so when you consider that many of the builders work non-automotive related jobs.

Exactly, I love meeting those guys and chatting with them about the car.

Brian

[evilokc]

I got the front jets finalized per holley instructions. dropped them down to a 71. I pulled the rear float bowl for the first time to install the new jets per holley instructions. the guy I bought the carb from said it only had a couple of hours on it. he said he bough it to start and tune his racing motor in the garage. he had dropped the stock main jets down to 64s and the rears to 62s! I have been researching jetting for a couple of weeks to make sure I get it right and have never found an application where the rear jets should be smaller than the primary. I have the correct size jets in there now. I'm going to put a hundred miles on it as it is and then move on to the two other areas I believe I can improve my carb. 1) when my secondary's open- may not need this. 2) tweaking my timing curve- probably need this. trucks running/driving great.

[gbooth]

Put the right front fender on filled the radiator with the proper mix of anti freeze ran the engine up to temp checked to see if the ornigal heater core had any leakes and if the water controol vlave worked properly.

[Black_Sheep]

Had family over today so nothing got done other than cleaning up the garage. But, my brother in law brought over the custom bed rail end plugs he made for me. Now polished and ready for installation.

[Black_Sheep]

duplicate post

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by Black_Sheep

Had family over today so nothing got done other than cleaning up the garage. But, my brother in law brought over the custom bed rail end plugs he made for me. Now polished and ready for installation.

Right on!

Brian

[MARTINSR]

Yep, it's all torch, I am digging this so much! I was a little leery about gas welding this roof. It has gone unwelded while I have done all this other patch panels and what not, leaving this for last. Between just wanting to get some gas welding time in to get up to speed and out and out fear of doing it. I don't do this stuff anymore, I am WAY out of tune. Plus the fact that the original cab I chopped in 1974 this roof weld was a DISASTER.

But I can't tell you how easy this was for me this time, OMG this was FUN!

Here is the first weld in the first photo.

The one thing I did was modify my welding helmet to go down a bit further on my face so I could see properly with my bifocals. WOW what difference that made! That and my daughter gave me a strap to hold my glasses on my head, those two things changed everything. The last photo is my dad's Deer Antlers with the striker and welding rod (.030 MIG wire) hanging on it. Plus I was standing on a step that my dad made too.

Brian

[MARTINSR]

Welded the whole seam on the roof, all the welding on the chop is complete, outside of the inner piece. But this stuff is all done, I can't believe how smooth it went. I planished each weld with the roof going back into shape. I will do a little more to get it even better but right now it is very nice ready for a thin coat of filler, done deal.

While the roof was cooling in between welds I cut one of the last rust spots out and made a little patch for the inner piece.

Brian

[MARTINSR]

Forgot the deer antler photo.

Brian

[evilokc]

I wanted to make sure my secondarys were opening so I did the paperclip test. I ended up taking a long (50 miles) drive. when I got back I noticed the paperclip hadn't moved indicating that my secondarys hadn't opened. that's not good. I did a little more reading and the limited information I found said for the paperclip test to work you basically have to drag race. I went to the "track" and did the test again. I haven't had the truck running well enough to really push the motor. I did a small powerbrake and took off. man that was fun. the paperclip test worked and my secondarys are opening. in the name of science I did the test again. I powerbraked a little harder and burned my tires got a little sideways and ran that thing! I did that 3 or 4 times. it was awesome.

[lowdownstar]

sounds like a good day to me!

[MARTINSR]

I wish we had a "like" button. That sounds awesome Evilokc.

I am walking up BEAT after planishing all those welds yesterday. Holy crap, my arms aren't use to that kind of work. I have a pnumatic planishing hammer but I am not real comfortable with it on a panel like this, maybe I need to get so.


Brian