Build The Clustertruck Rides Again - Refurbishing a 1975 Chevota

[RWBeringer4x4]

Why do I regret the weather stripping? Because it was too thick. None of the bolt holes lined up, which wound up causing me to have to force thing, resulting in cracked paint and a couple good scratched in the tranny cover when wrenches slipped. Glad it was just duplicolor and pseudo temporary. I touched it up and moved on.

Next up - I set out installing my new Scat ProCar 90 seats and adapter brackets.

I’d heard these adapters don’t line up all that great - and it’s true. The key was keeping everything super loose until all the bolts were in.

Even then, the rear passenger-side mount bolt holes took a LOT of convincing to line up:

Brackets installed:

The seats went in fairly smoothly from there:

Lastly, for the first time ever - my truck has SHIFTER BOOTS. more importantly - NO GAPING HOLES IN THE FLOOR.

The transmission hump, even with the less than stellar touch-up work and poor paint match, still looks comically clean compared to the rest of the Clustertruck.

I have a new shift knob and transfer case shifter en route, along with some bolts and hardware to finish mounting up 3-point shoulder harness seat belts in place of the lap belts I had in the truck.

The lap belts will probably get repurposed to the jump seats to replace the old, huge, aviation/racing hook and loop belts installed back there.

Then, the heaters can go back in and I’ll have the closest thing to a fully functioning land cruiser I’ve had in a while!

 

[Vae Victus]

Woo hoo man, congrats! Fun seeing your "final" progress. At least until the next project

ClusterTruck lives! (My best guess at Frankenstein)

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Woo hoo man, congrats! Fun seeing your "final" progress. At least until the next project

ClusterTruck lives! (My best guess at Frankenstein)

The work certainly isn’t over - still some tweaks to the tuning and possible a rejet if the carb. I still need to hook up the heaters (and drain the water from the rad and replace with coolant). Technically I should have followed your lead and rebuilt the trans, but it should serve for now.

I just couldn’t let another summer go by without moving the odometer a bit...

The goal was for this to always be a “budget, rolling rebuild” that wasn’t so pretty that I was afraid to get it dirty. I’m still trying to adhere to that philosophy.

Assuming everything continues to not break, im approaching the next crossroads:

Option A: Pull the hard top and doors and start fixing the rust (which is mostly in the top and doors)

Option B: Tires, Lift, Wheels, or all of the above.

 

[1Fine40]

Rust never sleeps! Best to address it earlier and be rid of the pesky stuff...but project burnout is also a possibility, so maybe the fun stuff and some driving isn't such a bad idea! It took me 4 years to get mine done on the body & paint phase...I was almost at the point of walking away, but gratefully held on! Good work thus far!!

Cheers!

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Rust never sleeps! Best to address it earlier and be rid of the pesky stuff...but project burnout is also a possibility, so maybe the fun stuff and some driving isn't such a bad idea! It took me 4 years to get mine done on the body & paint phase...I was almost at the point of walking away, but gratefully held on! Good work thus far!!

Cheers!

Yeah - the worst of the rot is in the doors and hard top, which works out, because I can just pull them and still drive the truck while I fix them.

The Cooper Discoverer AT’s that came with the truck still have some pretty decent tread left but are starting to dry rot a bit. I’ve been eyeing up Racer65’s 16” OEM style wheels but I haven’t decided if I can stomach the price yet. If I decide to get them, new tires are a must as my current wheels are 15’s.

Still plenty of tweaks and adjustments to do mechanically.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

More progress -

3-point harnesses are in. I’d like to add a center console but I’ve heard I’ll need to cut the inner brackets off the ProCar seat adapters and relocate them to clear the console - so this may all be coming back out shortly for adjustment.

Build some new cowl drain tubes from 3/4” heater hose. 3/4” hose fits nicely on the nipples up under the dash, but is too wide for my new firewall grommets (which are actually Ford PCV grommets).

As a result, I connected a 3/4” adapter and installed using 1” pipe straps from the hardware store.

After testing by dumping a bunch of water in the cowl vent, it became clear that pipe clamps would be necessary at the adapters to prevent leaks.

Next up, I started working on getting the heaters back in. I’m very pleased with the fitment of my homemade hard lines, but I did screw up by making them 5/8.” I didn’t realize the feeds for the rear heaters were actually smaller - closer to 1/2.” I used 5/8” hose, and will just tighten the heck out of it and hope for no leaks.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Tonight I got sidetracked working on some heat shields for the exhaust. I started with some sheet aluminum, and backed it with some adhesive fiberglass insulation from Summit Racing.

The heat insulation should be good to 1200 degrees, but the adhesive seemed a little weak. I folded over the edges to sandwhich the insulation and then a fixed it with copious Rivets:

The holes drilled in the center were matched to some steel support beams (1/8” bar stock) that would second as anchors to hold the pipe clamps in position.

The bolts were cut off flush with the nuts. They serve as spacers to create an air gap between the exhaust and the shield.

The steel got a coat of Seymour’s Cast Blast. This stuff has held up on my exhaust manifolds so far, so it should handle the heat in the shields.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

While the paint dried, I formed the shield using a cylinder slightly wider than my exhaust.

Then reinstalled the stabilizer bars and pipe clamps:

Test fit and formed to a spare piece of exhaust I had:

From the top:

Happy with the results, I built a second one. The finished products:

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Installed under the driver’s side floorboard and transmission tunnel:

My floorboards measured 140 degrees inside the cab by IR thermometer last time I drove around town. I’m not sure this will actually do anything to mitigate it with the engine right in front of me, but it was a fun side project. We will see if there is a benefit next time I take it out. It might serve a secondary benefit of keeping the exhaust heat out of the transmission as well.

 

[Vae Victus]

Good idea. You need to make and sell those.

 

[scrapdaddy]

I really like those shields, they'll help for sure.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Good idea. You need to make and sell those.

Let’s make sure they actually do anything first .

These definitely would be classified as “prototypes.” Lots of tweaks, adjustments, and defects I’d want to work out before I took someone’s money for them. Sheet aluminum dents/scratches/rips if you look at it wrong.

I really like those shields, they'll help for sure.

Thanks! Fingers crossed that they do!

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

I took the truck out for a drive this morning. Granted, the heat wave finally broke, it was in the 70’s for this ride (instead of the 90’s) but I imagine my exhaust temperature didn’t change all that much!

The floors are significantly cooler. On the previous run, my floorboards were measuring 120-145 degrees (worse at traffic lights when there was no airflow).

With the heat shields, I’m showing closer to 100 degrees by the exhaust and 112 degrees up by the engine.

So, it’s still hot, but I think I dropped the temperature a minimum of 20-30 degrees or so with the shields. The difference from a comfort perspective is significant!

I also (for the first time ever) clay-barred and lightly polished the old, oxidized paint off the truck. I didn’t put a ton of effort into it, but the results were surprising - I got a pretty decent shine out of the old single stage paint.

Granted, there are still TONS of light scratches - like someone tried to was it with a Brillo pad at some point, but it’s still a marginal improvement.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Put another longer trip on the truck again this weekend. This time I brought it up to my parents' place in Hockessin, DE, (where this whole saga begain!) and around town. Took my mom, sisters-in-law, and a beagle out for a ride. Full house! It's the first time I've had someone in the jump seats in a while. It's crazy how much a couple hundred pounds over the rear wheels smooths out the ride. It's funny, my dad/brothers don't "get" old cars and really have no interest, but all their ladies thinks it's adorable, or at least humor me...

As for tech:

The truck did REALLY well on the ride up. No major complaints or issues - but definitely struggled a bit more on the ride home. Some observations from the trip (54.7 miles according to google, 58.2 according to my odometer).

1. The truck returned a not-spectacular 10.8mpg (or 11.5 mpg if you believe the odometer, which I don't (31in tires)). This was mostly around-town driving and <45mph roads with a few open stretches of highway toward home in MD. Not spectacular. It returned about 13mpg on a circuit of nearly pure highway a couple of weeks ago so this doesn't seem to indicate a problem, but I think with some improved jetting in the quadrajet I might be able to squeeze a few more MPG out of it. I don't mind running a little rich right now, while the engine is still breaking in.

2. On the drive home (at night, headlights on) I had the bizarre belt squeal return, along with some burning clutch or rubber smells. I'm not sure if the two are related. This squeal is odd though - it ONLY occurs when there is a load on the alternator (ie: headlights) and ONLY with significant changes in RPM (ie: downshift, accelerating from a stop, or revving the engine). Because of this I was convinced it was my throw out bearing screaming until I got home and realized it would scream while revving it in the driveway. If I shut the lights off, the squeal disappears within a minute. The squeal apparently has to do with electrical load - and I'm not sure if it's the belt itself, or the alternator. I've also heard you can get bizarre noises from a bad harmonic balancer, but mine is brand new (albeit cheap) so I'm hoping this isn't the case.

3. I am VERY strongly considering ditching the Aussie locker in the rear. This was an experiment, but this truck sees (so far) 100% road and gravel driving. I'm not gaining anything from the locker and honestly, except a lot of banging and shuddering. I feel like I'm going to wipe out my clutch trying to baby it around in parking lots and sharp turns. With a wheel base this short, managing the torque is annoying. I still have the spider gears and thrust washers laying around and, as I recall, it's not a massive undertaking to swap them back in.

4. I now have a leak from the top of my power steering gearbox unfortunately it looks like that is not just a cover, but actually attaches to the shaft/pitman arm - so to replace that seal I'll need to basically tear the box down. I might try a stop leak first.

 

[bikersmurf]

I’d not waste time... just pull the cover and be done with it.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

I’d not waste time... just pull the cover and be done with it.

No love for the locker? It really is pointless in this truck, though I love the looks I get as I ratchet and slam into parking spaces in my hooptie.

If I had a spare diff cover gasket laying around, I probably would have done it already. It would probably take all of a couple hours to switch back.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

In the meantime, I quickly installed another missing piece to the puzzle today:

For once, I mounted the bottle, plugged it into the original harness plug, and things just worked. Ocasionally I luck out...

The ET head sprayer, for the cost of replacement, is way, comically smaller than I though it would be.

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

The ET head sprayer, for the cost of replacement, is way, comically smaller than I though it would be.

Is that an OEM sprayer, or something aftermarket? Where did you get it from?


I need to do the same.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Is that an OEM sprayer, or something aftermarket? Where did you get it from?


I need to do the same.

Yep, OEM sprayer - got it from Cruiser Corps. They advertise it as being for 1972-1977 so it covers most years:

FJ40, FJ45, BJ Windshield Sprayer Nozzle - OEM

There are a lot that look VERY similar and very well might work for way less (like $5) but I needed a few other parts (shift boots, washer bottle, etc) so I figured I'd just pony up. It's not a part I expect I'll need to buy often... Ironically the sprayer cost more than the washer bottle, hose, motor, etc. combined.

 

[brian]

Alternator belt isnt tight enough.
Ditch the locker