Builds The Clustertruck Rides Again - Refurbishing a 1975 Chevota (1 Viewer)

[RWBeringer4x4]

I like the seam sealer idea, you could go even further on the overkill and try a panel adhesive......

Given how narrow the gap (and surrounding metal) is, there’s not a lot for anything to adhere to. I’d need something viscous enough to drip or get pushed into the narrow “crack.” Some of the self leveling seam dealers seem like they might be thin enough.

 

[Vae Victus]

Given how narrow the gap (and surrounding metal) is, there’s not a lot for anything to adhere to. I’d need something viscous enough to drip or get pushed into the narrow “crack.” Some of the self leveling seam dealers seem like they might be thin enough.

Makes sense. They can however TIG two razor blades together so it can do really thin stuff. You'd have to drill weep holes....

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

TIG it, that's my vote.


As @Vae Victus stated, create some drain holes to allow water to drain.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Makes sense. They can however TIG two razor blades together so it can do really thin stuff. You'd have to drill weep holes....

TIG it, that's my vote.


As @Vae Victus stated, create some drain holes to allow water to drain.

I’d have to pay someone to TIG it. We will see how flush I’m feeling when the time comes.

As for weep holes - if I just don’t weld up the bottom gap, wouldn’t water find it’s way out just as it would find it’s way in from the top?

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

I’d have to pay someone to TIG it. We will see how flush I’m feeling when the time comes.

As for weep holes - if I just don’t weld up the bottom gap, wouldn’t water find it’s way out just as it would find it’s way in from the top?

Ideally you would want to spray something inside of the tailgate to prevent any rust from starting, seal up the lip on the top and leave a few drain holes in the bottom.


If the inside of those lips are bare metal they will begin to develop surface rust soon.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Haven’t been working on the truck much - I’ve mostly been driving it, which is a nice change. I put about 800 miles on it this summer - which is a lot given that I’d only driven it 1000 miles on the 5 years prior. Aside from the aforementioned bugs, the truck hasn’t really missed a beat. Nonetheless, with the warranty about to expire on the new 350 this winter, I figured I would do a quick compression check and have a look at the plugs.

I was pretty pleasantly surprised:

Compression was around 160 across the board - which is about on par for a 8.5:1 stock V8. The plugs all look clean - good tan color on the insulators and gray on the electrodes. Engine seems to be healthy. It is almost through it’s break-in period so, fingers crossed, it should be smooth sailing from here...

I also topped off the leaking transfercase. It has been leaking for 3-400 miles, and was down about 2 fluid ounces - so it’s definitely not just a slow seepage. That said, the case has about 55oz of capacity so it’s not a fast leak, either. Extrapolating, it would lose about 20oz every 3000 miles - almost 3/4 of a quart.

I’m not sure I can stand for that long term but I’ll live with it for the time being. Frankly I’ve been hit with a case of burnout after scrambling to finish the engine swap before the baby was born. I’ve got my hands full these days so I may wait to pull the transfer case and try again.

Last up - with the heaters back in and not leaking, and with temperatures dropping, I need to get the raw water out of my engine block and replace it with antifreeze before I ice up the engine and crack the block.

All in all, it has been nice having the truck back on the road, taking mountain biking trips and running errands. These things are a blast to drive. I’d almost forgotten over the last 2 years.

There’s still a laundry list of niggling issues -

The laundry list -

1. Re-seal transfer case (again)
2. Fix carb idle mixture issue (can't stall with air bleed screws)
3. Fix carb drain-down issue (bowl still empties after sitting for 2 days)
4. Figure out why I'm still getting a small amount of oil condensing in my air filter
5. Theoretically, I could use a transmission rebuild but I'm going to wait until this becomes a bigger problem.

That said, none of these appear to be major show-stoppers right now, so I think I’ll enjoy the fruits of my labor a while longer.

In the short term - I've got plans to clean out all the old junk parts from the garage and finish building some carts/shelves to get all my tools off the floor - I can't move in there anymore!

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Still no progress on the truck, but I’ve been looking around for a drill press for a while. I’m getting tired of drilling all this custom bracketry, fan shrouds, etc. by hand. Plus I have about a dozen non-truck related projects where this would come in handy. I also have JUST enough space left in the garage to squeeze one in...

Then this gem popped up on Craigslist and I couldn’t resist:

Delta DP-220 14” drill press - manufactured in 1937. My land cruiser is no longer the oldest iron in the garage!

It needs a chuck and is probably about 50 years overdue for new spindle bearings, so there’s a bit of run-out, but shockingly the old motor fires right up and runs great.

I wasn’t exactly looking for a new project and this is definitely a project but it was too cool to pass up.

 

[velillen]

Nice new press!

 

[CreeperSleeper]

Nice find! I would love one of those

 

[1Fine40]

Sweeet! That stuff is tougher than tungsten

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Nice new press!

Nice find! I would love one of those

Sweeet! That stuff is tougher than tungsten

Thanks! I love the aesthetics of these old tools. It's almost an art piece as much as it is functional. This one is far from perfect, but I feel like I got a decent deal for $60. The guy was asking $200 until I pointed out there was a broken bolt hole in the casting for one of the bolts that holds the belt tension. As tested, the motor bounced like crazy with the missing bolt. Needless to say the guy "had no idea" it was broken, but This, plus a completely worn out Jacob's 6A Chuck, and a cracked motor pulley (though it still seems to work OK) and I was ready to walk. Just in case, I offered to take it off his hands and try to jerry rig it for $60 and he took it. I got home, found a bolt, and discovered there were still enough threads left in the cracked casting to hold a bolt and maintain tension. Lucky me! We will see if it, and the broken pulley, stands up long term.

I'm looking forward to getting it into service. I actually found someone online that builds the (Delta Proprietary and now discontinued) bearings for these drills - who will rebuild the quill/spindle assembly and true up the spindle for $135.00. Sounds like a deal to me (ebay used bearings for these drills are about $50/ea).

It will need spindle bearings, and a new chuck, at minimum - but everything else seems to function as it should. So for probably less than $300 I should have a nice little press that will probably outlive me.

Now, I may also see if I can hunt down the low-speed pulley setup for this drill (which might as well be made of gold at this point). This would get me drill speeds below 400 RPM which would be much better for drilling big holes in metal. With the current pulleys, it runs at about 680RPM minimum. Not ideal - but I cut some 3/8 holes in 1/4 bar stock without much trouble.

 

[Vae Victus]

Lovely piece of old iron.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Lovely piece of old iron.

Thanks!

I’ve been putting it to use drilling some holes in a welding cart/table thing I’m building.

Not a lot of progress so far - free time is hard to come by these days!

The press works great, but I definitely need to address the run-out and get a larger pulley setup to bring the RPMs down. 3/8” holes and bigger get a bit dicey.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Still haven’t been working on the 40 at all - but I have been driving it occasionally. It has been an inclemently warm winter, so they haven’t really salted the roads yet.

The only weird issue I keep encountering is that when it gets really cold at night, virtually all of my coolant hoses weep antifreeze. I keep coming out into the garage in the morning to puddles under the truck - from the engine bay, the heater core, etc.

I keep tightening up the clamps and that seems to solve the issue for now. I’ll chalk this up to heat/cold expansion and contraction and “new engine” jitters. I’m really surprised at how much retorquing is involved.

I have a few small projects I may tackle this winter on the truck, but for now I’m focusing my efforts on the drill press -

I found a low speed pulley and pulley cover assembly from a 1941ish era version of the press. The will get the RPM’s down to around 500 - much more reasonable for metal work.

I’ve also cleaned all the brown gunk off, replaced the worn out chuck, and installed all new bearings. I’ve got it running at about .003 run out now. Plenty good enough for what I do!

The cart is also slowly materializing:

After this stuff is done, and I clean out the garage a little, hopefully I’ll have room and motivation to dive into the bodywork on the 40.

Frankly, cutting and patching is just intimidating and I’m really just nervous/procrastinating starting this part of the process. I go back and forth between “it’s only original once, and it’s not that bad” and the desire to make it pretty and Preventing the rust from spreading further.

I promise though - more FJ40 relevant posts will be coming soon.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

neat - sounds like you're doing about the same kind of stuff I've been doing. Big projects got pushed back to do the death-by-a-thousand-papercut stuff.

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

Don’t be afraid of that cutting and patching, it’s only metal.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

neat - sounds like you're doing about the same kind of stuff I've been doing. Big projects got pushed back to do the death-by-a-thousand-papercut stuff.

Yep - the bottom line is I’m simply out of space. I do everything in a 21x21 garage. Half way through the engine swap I got tired of tripping over engine blocks and welders. Now that the truck is reassembled and running again it seemed like a good time to take a break and try to get myself organized. A scrap run would solve a lot of problems but I don’t have the heart to scrap an old 283, even though I know it’s pretty much beyond a feasible rebuild.

Don’t be afraid of that cutting and patching, it’s only metal.

Yeah - I’m confident I could get the new metal attached to old metal - what I’m not confident in is making it look good. I’m not trying to build a concourse restoration but I’m also not trying to use 6 buckets of filler to cover my amateur metal work. What makes me nervous is really twofold

1. That it will look like crap when I’m done.

2. That once I finish the top and doors, the next logical step is the tub, which means taking it off the frame...which means many, many years of not driving it.

Basically I worry that once I’ve opened this can of worms there’s really no going back. I’m taking an “original” truck and making it a “restored” truck. I’ve seen too many people head down this road and wind up with a chopped up, unfinished shell in their garage for 20 years.

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Yep - the bottom line is I’m simply out of space. I do everything in a 21x21 garage. Half way through the engine swap I got tired of tripping over engine blocks and welders. Now that the truck is reassembled and running again it seemed like a good time to take a break and try to get myself organized. A scrap run would solve a lot of problems but I don’t have the heart to scrap an old 283, even though I know it’s pretty much beyond a feasible rebuild.

.

I know this story. The storage theory is that you fill the space you have - no matter how large. The two of us (wife and I) have a 4500 square foot house and I have a 30x36 shop (not including the garage where we park our dailys). Many projects were to simply reclaim space for projects I'm doing - like rails on our decks, a CNC plasma table, and on and on. I still need to form up a rack and sliders for my daily - and reclaim a bit of space for that as well. That said, I'm adding covered parking below to double as a paint booth - so even getting space back isn't enough .... ah well, I'm blessed and I know it.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

I know, I know. Go back 20 pages in this thread while I was gemming and hawing over engines insead of just doing the damn thing. I get this way before any big can of worms is opened.

I know this story. The storage theory is that you fill the space you have - no matter how large. The two of us (wife and I) have a 4500 square foot house and I have a 30x36 shop (not including the garage where we park our dailys). Many projects were to simply reclaim space for projects I'm doing - like rails on our decks, a CNC plasma table, and on and on. I still need to form up a rack and sliders for my daily - and reclaim a bit of space for that as well. That said, I'm adding covered parking below to double as a paint booth - so even getting space back isn't enough .... ah well, I'm blessed and I know it.

I’ve likely got a 12x20 shed going in this summer (it was supposed to go in last summer) that should free up a bay in the garage, but I’m 100% out of wall space for tooling.

Ultimately if money were no object, the plan would be to add a 24x30 or so shop/second garage across the driveway and transfer FJ40 operations there, but that’s a long way out. My wife and I bought about the smallest house we could tolerate (intentionally, our mortgage is phenomenally low) But with the baby here now 2100 square feet is starting to show its limitations. Long story short - I need to finish the shed, to get crap out of the basement, so I can finish the basement so we have somewhere to put the kid when she’s older and needs a playroom.

Alternatively, we may just move - the school systems suck here anyway...which is one of the reasons we have held off on throwing any major money at huge renovations. Unfortunately, second detached garages don’t carry their own weight in terms of resale value.