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

[Palf70Step]

I am sure hoping my plans work out so I can meet up with you in OurKansas at the great fillin station.

[realvc]

You're getting things lined out for this years road trip.

Taking the truck and trailer in case you find another project would be way over the top for most but not for Grizz.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

I am sure hoping my plans work out so I can meet up with you in OurKansas at the great fillin station.

You will certainly not regret it.

Clem, Kim and The Gang will make you feel right at home.

And you get to overdose on good people and trucks.

Originally Posted by realvc

You're getting things lined out for this years road trip.

Taking the truck and trailer in case you find another project would be way over the top for most but not for Grizz.

Hmmmmmmmmmm??

The thing is........ I know where this car lives

I honestly have these images in my head a few times a week.

Of course my red truck is a long way from done, so I have to hold off on any other monkey business........


BUT..........


This is many sleepless nights worth of 1960's metal.












COMMENT FROM HERB, THE OWNER.

You look fabulous in that old Chevy. I forgot you took so many pictures. Don't know what it is about a 60 Chevy, but they just don't make a lot of parts for them. Like the ignition switch, head light buckets,and others. I had to use 61 and 58 parts, but they work OK.
You think October? not far off. Hope you can make it by again, hope to have the Chevy running by then


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


While doing the brake lines, esp I ally at the rear, I found the lights I had fitted overhead were not always bright enough so impulsively went and bought 5 new six foot lights with daylight tubes this week.

Had a problem getting them to work, reviewed all power lines and then all working.

Happy days.

Before:



Remember I have a few of them fitted to the walls on the one side too, but currently obscured by many truck panels.

After:



The other side, not replaced at this point, but it is very tempting as well.
The white light has a better feel to it.





In other news, I have always wanted to make my trucks dash top a satin black and the rest the same red as the truck after mate Martin turned his yellow peril into a two tone and it looked great.

Got lucky when Fil "Sparkplug" on UKGSER.com offered to do some photoshopping for me.

So just an idea, but happy that it is how I will proceed.





A long way before I get there, but another bit of info stashed away.

[flashed]

I like it ,its gonna look great painted like that .
On a side note Clem's get together is on my birthday ,I wonder if he would mind a couple extra showing up ? May have to see if I can get my wife on board .

[60chevyjim]

wow cool 60 belair .
I have a 60 brookwood 2dr wagon and a 60 impala convertible

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

I like it ,its gonna look great painted like that .
On a side note Clem's get together is on my birthday ,I wonder if he would mind a couple extra showing up ? May have to see if I can get my wife on board .

You,need to speak to Clem and see what the rules are.

I like the idea of the black dash, even though I have minimal support there.

Originally Posted by 60chevyjim

wow cool 60 belair .
I have a 60 brookwood 2dr wagon and a 60 impala convertible

I just love that, especially as it is a bit less common.

[Paul Y]

Rian,

I know where there is a 60 impala sitting in a barn about 100miles from you....

P.

[Palf70Step]

Originally Posted by flashed

I like it ,its gonna look great painted like that .
..........

I agree that is a very decent looking combo!

[clemdaddy]

Originally Posted by flashed

I like it ,its gonna look great painted like that .
On a side note Clem's get together is on my birthday ,I wonder if he would mind a couple extra showing up ? May have to see if I can get my wife on board .

that would be great… and no way would we mind… hope your wife can join you, think road trip… pm me, maybe i can make it easier.

[flashed]

PM sent to Clemdaddy.

[65sub]

The two tone dash looks good Rian. And the better lighting is a good idea. It's always easier to work when you can see the job.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Paul Y

Rian,

I know where there is a 60 impala sitting in a barn about 100miles from you....

P.

Aaaaaaannnnd ??

Is it for sale for a squillion dollars?

Sitting in a barn...... Barn find or waiting it's turn to be restored etc?

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

I agree that is a very decent looking combo!

I loved it on Martin's truck and mine is going to be very red, so a bit of a break should be good.

Thankfully Photoshop is less permanent than paint.

Originally Posted by clemdaddy

that would be great… and no way would we mind… hope your wife can join you, think road trip… pm me, maybe i can make it easier.

Cool.

Originally Posted by 65sub

The two tone dash looks good Rian. And the better lighting is a good idea. It's always easier to work when you can see the job.

Indeed Dale, when we bought the place the whole garage at 30' x 30' had two single tube 4' lights. I left the one at the rear in place as the wall is angled.

My truck is not standards, so these little touches help to turn it into a place I will enjoy being in when it's done.

[Grizz1963]

Another small job done last night.

Been wanting to get the hubs off the Grizz Pod ever since selling the Radars and buying the Chrome Smoothies for it. Then of course I sold the Chrome Smoothies off the truck and bought the Rallye wheels and powder coated them very red. I guess the ideal would be to find another pair of Rally wheels in a narrow width, so that I can get a pair of 185/15 tyres on them.

So removed the hubs..

Next job is to find someone who can turn the 4 stud hubs into 5 stud units to fit the bolt pattern of the Smoothies and also machine the edge of the nipple on the hubs so the wheel centres fit, as they do not fit right now.
Also to figure which way to fix the wheels to the hubs.

Nothing is ever really easy is it?





After that I went up to the house to see Nicola who had just come back from seeing her kids for a couple of days.

Walking back to pack up and close shop, I took this shot in the dark.

[uber cool]

Rian , love the two tone dash idea. When i get round to doing my 59 Apache interior I'll be doing the same. think it really makes the dash peak stand out

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by ibrown50

It looks like you have 2 sets of inner tie rods.(perhaps whoever boxed up the kit wasn't paying attention) On my truck the inners were much longer, (pictures below) sorry I can't help with part numbers, but think you need a pair of outer tie rod ends.





It they were put into the kit in error, the wrongly threaded ones may not even be for a C10.

Been busy with other stuff, so not got around to this for a while.

Chatting to Ta2Don earlier about ordering the tie rod ends so that I can get the front end tied up before starting on the brake drum rebuilds.

He asked me to measure and check everything I needed.

So I dismantled the old steering parts and and found the reverse or Left hand threaded ends were the outer Tie rod ends.

Interestingly, unlike Ian Browns parts above which are of differing sizes, mine were the same length for inner and outer.




I fitted the old outer to the new sleeves and inner tie rod ends.



My new parts are the same length at the old.



But the interesting thing was that the new parts have tapers that are 16mm Max on the inner and they fit perfectly.

Is there really such a small difference that matters???

The new ones have total taper depth of 1 7/8" or 47 mm

BUT...... The old outers are 1 5/8" or 42mm deep with a max collar of 15mm




So that is my dilemma, but it looks like we have this one figured tonight.

Anyone else had the same experiences?

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by uber cool

Rian , love the two tone dash idea. When i get round to doing my 59 Apache interior I'll be doing the same. think it really makes the dash peak stand out

Funny that Andy.

Had I not seem Martin's, the idea would not have occurred to me.

[Grizz1963]

Spent the last week or two checking out flights on Skyscanner app, and then popped into Thomas Cook last week.

Should have bought my ticket then. Today it was £80.00 or about $120.00 up on the under £700.00 it was last week. How does that happen??

Anyway, Nicola and I bought her Thailand tickets online last night, she is flying business class, thanks to her brothers zillions of KLM air miles. I am positively jealous.

So after buying my tickets, I started to complain about wasting money and that it was best stuffed into the mortgage. To which she replied along these lines...... How often do you go to the local pub and buy three pints? £10.00 gone, buy some cigarettes at £9.55/20 and then smoke them all in a day.....?
Which means that my plane ticket is paid for in cigarettes in less than 12 weeks. Or three evenings at the pub smoking all those cigarettes brings it down to 8 weeks for the flight ticket.

I was suddenly not so upset, and I get to see amazing friends along the way and make awesome memories.

Maybe I should travel more often.

Anyway, we went to celebrate our travel plans with a Subway coffee and a shared cookie that they gave her for her birthday.

Perfect.



After shopping etc we came home and made paninis for lunch and then I went to the garage to switch bits about.

My next job, aside from the steering and brakes will be starting to figure out the engine, I also need to remove the gearbox and repair the one mounting bolt hole that was stripped out, hallo helicoil.

So I got the bike out the way, then got the chassis off the axle stands and pulled it out on the Jack.





Engine out, bike stashed at the back of the garage till spring.



Finally all switched.



I need to clean up the engine and gearbox of all the oil and muck covering it, then start on the gearbox, followed by the engine.

Fun times ahead I guess.

Speaking of which, Dennis is making things more interesting.

Last night he came up with this 2013 Harley Davidson Soft Tail as well, saying that if I wanted to hit the back roads and more of Route 66 it may be better suited to my travel plans, especially if I did not want to buy a car or truck along the way.

The guy clearly likes to "Pinch the puppy" torturing me with all sorts of crazy options.



Of course this is my current favourite......... Has a few ponies stashed under its hood.

[chad64chevy]

Rian, thank you thank you! the parcel came in an the kids love the stuff, an the beanies will be worn in the garage for sure!! thank you, pm me you address: the kids opened the parcel an I can't read your address on it anymore!!

[[JP]]

Love your workshop mate!!!

[Bomp]

Always a joy catching up on your progress.

Plans for the firewall?

[Ta2Don]

Originally Posted by chad64chevy

Rian, thank you thank you! the parcel came in an the kids love the stuff, an the beanies will be worn in the garage for sure!! thank you, pm me you address: the kids opened the parcel an I can't read your address on it anymore!!

Chad,

When you decide to mail a package to Rian, remember to write out "United Kingdom," apparently, some of the staff at the international mail depot in Florida are unaware that the initials U.K. stand for the United Kingdom...

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by chad64chevy

Rian, thank you thank you! the parcel came in an the kids love the stuff, an the beanies will be worn in the garage for sure!! thank you, pm me you address: the kids opened the parcel an I can't read your address on it anymore!!

Glad the parcel got there Chad.

It really was more of a welcome to your little Star.
If you and the kids n Dixiecan use the rest of the stuff, then it's perfect.

Originally Posted by [JP]

Love your workshop mate!!!

Thank you JP, the house belonged to Nicola's best friend for 25 years and we got lucky being able to buy it directly from them.

The garage was the biggest bonus though.

Always thankful for her finding the house. Weirdly it cost as much as a decent terraced house in town at the time.

Originally Posted by Bomp

Always a joy catching up on your progress.

Plans for the firewall?

Greg, at this point, the firewall will be tidy, clean and painted red. Nothing more, I hope.

Originally Posted by Ta2Don

Chad,

When you decide to mail a package to Rian, remember to write out "United Kingdom," apparently, some of the staff at the international mail depot in Florida are unaware that the initials U.K. stand for the United Kingdom...

This is not the first time it has happened and interestingly, from here you have to state USA as well, not America for some silly reason.

[Grizz1963]

Another day of small but necessary jobs.

Today was time to pull the engine out the garage again, remember the last time it ended up on its nose, off the pallet.

So everything done carefully.

Remember this......l



Spent time masking up and sealing every possible hole. Also things like the carburettor.

Then started cleaning off years worth of oily residue and crud with a brush and some Gunk again.



This took quite a while to do, as it was layer upon layer.

Followed by the pressure cleaner.



Resulting is a clean engine and gearbox that I can now work on.



Lastly, I got a text from Ta2Don earlier on today to say that he had managed to take delivery of my new reverse threaded tie rod ends.

They should be in the post soon, then I can get on and finish up the front end.

[flashed]

Looks all nice and clean now .

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

Looks all nice and clean now .

I do love it clean and tidy.

And it needs to be as I will have Paul Y over to help, supervise, laugh at or maybe cry with me. So it needs to be clean.

I hope it turns out half decent in the end.

I have put a lot of work in and a lot of times the truck has fought me, being 50 years old, nothing is straight forward.

With the looming engine tear down, and knowing one of the gearbox mounting bolt holes was stripped, I needed to get some fixings, longer bolts for the engine stand and also a Helicoil kit for the various jobs ahead.

Gearbox mount (new) and its chassis mounting bolts...... Different bolts, this is the story of this truck.

Nothing predictable, bodge upon bodge.



And my problem. When I dismantled it, this one gearbox mount fitting almost fell out, stripped then. So I needed to fix that.



So I drove the 30 minutes to MBE Fasteners in Bearstead near Maispdstone to get the various bits. What a great bunch of guys, helpful, informed and informative and with a sense of humour.
All the bolts were only £4.00 or $6.00
The Helicoil repair kit comes in Imperial, and will be around £28.00 with free home delivery. Waiting for a price right now.
So hopefully that will be an easy fix.




In other news, a friend came around to pick up the strip lights I had removed from the garage and saw the teardrop trailer hubs and a wheel in the garage. After a short discussion, he offered to machine the hub neck so the centre of the wheel can fit and then drill and tap the hubs to take the 5x5.5 Chevy bolt pattern wheels in exchange for the free lights and a BBQ in summer. Good deal in my book, and I get to have company.







Remember the "Chopper Style" bicycle I bought a few weeks ago as a future project?
It needs a new front end and a lot of cleaning up.



Well, Rob, the guy I bought the truck from in June 2013 has bought a Harley to go with the other bikes he has in his garage and we were chatting about bicycles and I mentioned to him what I had bought and plans I had for it when he offered me the handlebars off his bike and he is going for a satin black and slightly different design.



I will need another lifetime to do all of this project stuff.