Cooking With The Crockpot

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Here's the spot all filled and sanded. Ready for prime and paint.

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This is my shop assistant, Nathan. He loves working on this old thing with me. He's learning alot and he's handy to have around.

Man, that's awesome including your son on this project...a lifetime of memories are being made in this young man! Great work on tidying things up...you're working your way to the rear quickly...kudos! Oh, and thanks for the pics, this is all stuff I'm having to tackle on mine, too!

Skip
 
Nathan is 8. He's a total gear-head and a hopeless 'Cruiser geek. He's a big part of why I got involved in LC's in the first place. He says he wants a 45 when he turns 16. Who am I to say no to that? My only response so far has been, "Those are pretty hard to find." I guess I'd better start looking........

Skip, I'm glad my posts have been helpful. If you want specific pics as I go, let me know. I'm more than happy to oblige.
 
Thanks Dave! I am currently attacking the seem at the cowl/windshield...how did you get that stuff out of there? I have wire wheeled some of it and tried chipping away at it with a screw driver...that stuff is a beast to get out! Did you use/put 'seem sealer' back in to it? I'm rattle canning mine as I go along, much like you are.

A '45 huh? Yeah, better start looking soon, the next 8 years will fly by soooo quickly! The little girl standing next to my '40 in my profile pic is my baby, she was about 4 or 5 in that picture...she is now almost 18!!

She and I both have had a blast 4 wheeling through the years, lots of great memories...enjoy that young gear-head while you can...I can just imagine him at an older age telling his children what a great time he had working on cruisers with his Dad!

Skip
 
Skip, I attacked the seam with a wire wheel on a die grinder first. I dug around a bit with a thin screwdriver but that wasn't getting it all. I chucked a thin cutoff wheel in the die grinder and ran it down in the seam to grind out all of the buried rust and old crusty seam sealer. You've got to be careful doing this though. The cutoff wheel will cut into the metal if you let it. Once it was clean and all blown out with air, I cleaned it with acetone and brushed in POR15 to stop whatever rust may be lurking below that I couldn't find. POR15 doesn't like to be painted over, so I used another POR product called Tie Coat which is a primer that will adhere to the POR15. Once that was dry, I filled the divots left by the rust with 3M body filler and sanded smooth and primed with spray primer. Applying the seam sealer was the last step before paint. The sealer comes in a tube like caulk. I just ran it across the seam, making sure it got forced down into the void. Wait 30 minutes and spray away. It was a time consuming process to say the least.

I am fortunate to have two great children to make memories with. Nathan's sister, Ava is 7 y/o. She loves the old cruisers as well but her affection is more along the lines of being "normal." She likes to ride in them and she thinks they look cool. Nathan, on the other hand, is completely obsessed. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess.....
 
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I got a bit more done on the Crockpot yesterday. Driver's side is done, minus the door. I'll get all four doors and the top done as time allows. I did not feel like taking off the spare tire and carrier so I stopped the paint short of the spare tire mount using good old blue tape. The passenger side will be much the same. No real problem areas to contend with. I'm still wrapping my head around what to do with the rear sill. I'm trying to decide whether or not to drop the tank again (auxiliary tank) before I start on the sill. I don't want to, but I'm afraid of sparks flying around the top of the tank. Anybody have any suggestions? Is it something to be worried about or am I just being overly cautious?

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I can not articulate how happy these pictures make me.

Johnny, I know you've got blood sweat and tears in this rig. It makes me proud to know you approve of the way it's going. I really wish I could afford to do a full resto on it (it's a great truck and it is worthy of one) but it's just not in the cards right now. Someday... Hopefully my half-assed work will get it by for a while until I can spend some real $$ on it. Either way, it's a keeper. We're in it for the long haul.
 
The Crockpot has a funky roll cage that is made out of square tubing. It is a shame because somebody really spent some time and effort to build it...and it is well done except for the fact that it is made of steel of unknown strength and thickness...and it's just plain ugly. It looks like somebody cut up five nautilus machines and welded them up into a cage...powder coating and all. I've drilled into the uprights for seat belts so I know the cage steel is pretty thick...a whole lot thicker than the flimsy factory setup so I don't feel too bad about running it for a while until finances allow for installing a metaltech family cage. Adam covered the cage in foam and electrical tape in an effort to cover some of the ugliness. I think that helped some to "round out" the square tubes but the tape thing looks bad too. The ends are unravelling in spots and overall it just looks half-ass. I decided to half-ass it again by covering Adam's work with a product called Roll Bar RAPZ. It's basically neoprene with a velcro strip sewn to it. It comes two 50" rolls to the box and each box was about $25 from Summit. It took four boxes. I think this look is something that I can live with for a while until I can install a proper cage. In a few weeks I'll hopefully have the hard top finished and installed so the nautilus cage won't be quite as visible.

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I got rid of the well-used 6X9 speaker boxes bungeed to the rear fenders and replaced them with a set of Yamaha outdoor speakers mounted high up on the rear roll bar. This freed up alot of space for the rear passengers as well as allowed me to mount my jack rods in their proper location. While I was at it, I mounted my factory jack. The jack and rods were pieces that I had stashed away in the garage attic.

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I treated the Crockpot to a fresh oil change with Rotella and greased up all the rod ends, u joints and spring pins. I had noticed that the truck seemed a little squirrely when I was on and off the gas. I checked the motor and trans mounts to find that I could move the nuts by hand. Once I tightend those up the issue is much improved. The power steering pump has always stayed wet. I took a few minutes to observe the pump and found that it had a violent vibration at certain engine rpms. The belt was pretty loose so I tightened it up...that made the vibration worse. I decided to cut off the belt (which looked really old) and found that it was trashed. I'll pick up a new belt. I'm betting that a new belt will resolve this issue.

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I'm fighting a shimmy at speeds above 60 mph. When Adam had the truck he had the tires balanced with beads and I wasn't sure if they were done properly or just a pile of BB's thrown in so I took the truck to the local 4Wheelparts to have the tires balanced with lead. $80 wasted. That didn't fix the issue. I had a new steering stabilizer laying around from one of my Heep builds so I slapped it on the Crockpot to see if it would help. It looks alot better but it didn't help. I've tightened up all the U bolts and snugged the shackles just a hair. No love. The rod ends look okay and I can't feel much play in them. I guess I'll take the truck in and get an alignment.
 
Sarge, the front end of this rig was rebuilt only a short while ago (not under my ownership) so I'm going under the assumption that everything is to spec. I will check it though. Thanks for the input!


...via IH8MUD app
 
Meatball got an alignment after we installed the springs that are on there right now and the toe looked to be in spec, but the caster was off. We figured how much it was off and got those caster correction plates that are in there now.

An alignment would be a good place to start.
 

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