What are you working on?

[Stretch]

Oh, you know, Just Antiquing again!

The '33 Pontiac is back to finish the work I started in the spring. The engine, transmission, and rear diff have all been rebuilt including a new custom ring and pinion set so the old girl can maintain modern highway speeds and are ready for pick up at the machine shop in the Detroit area. The guy who does this for Mark is in his 70's and makes everything in house including valves. That stuff will all be here next weekend so in the mean time I am rewiring it from front to back and reinstalling the refurbished gauges. I will also be removing the springs so my former employer (Michigan Wisconsin Spring and Brake) can build us a new set from scratch.

I even had some help today.

Did I mention Pontiac wired these cars with only one color wire? Yep, every damn one of them is yellow with black! At lest its a super simple system.

 

[TheIronSausage]

Lamborghini wired their Jalpas with only one color of wire.. Black. Our customer bought the entire shop dinner and drinks when we got his headlights to work.

 

[69.5CUDA]

my 47 ford 6ton was wired with only 1 color as well...yellow

went leaps n bounds with the alfa....

tail lights are heavily frenched and cut down honda 1974 xl100 units

 

[Stretch]

A look at the switches, Guess whats what if you dare! And the new harnes. Oh and its all yellow too!

 

[69.5CUDA]

my wife has HEAVILY remodeled the yard and is attacking the house....kitchen is 1/4 of the way..OLD vintage REAL OAK panneling is gone..wallpaper..gone, trim redone in uber dark(oak as well) walls now white white..ceiling too as well as one of the 3 windows..cabinets, door to follow...floors will be the LAST thing done after the livingroom..since the house has what looks like black oak thruout under multiple layers of shit...but the kitchen appears to have just "protective" non glued layer on the oak 3 layers up is lynolium.......

she has before/after pics if anyones intrested..ive put my fair share in but its all her project

meanwhile..i shoved the alfa out due to postponed payment...and a friend nagging me to do his whale...

in rolls a 01 crownvic in reasonable shape...doing a FULL repaint FULL interior(lincoln) ..the color will be stunning black looking with a purple metalflake...no name for it.....took it to bare steel filled its ex police holes pulled dents etc..she sits in primer currently....will be making bumpers out of steel from SCRATCH..since the plastic is shot and ugly...going to go for "marauder trilogy" looking units


i should note that i had to add a 3foot extension to my shop for some space...shove the back door out and built around it...its not neerly as crude as youd think...steel matching the building and just bolted on in place of the rear door..before that..with the bumpers and all bumper supports and the car backed to the wall..i had under 1foot in front of it to squeeeeze thru

 

[69.5CUDA]

and lastly finished up today on

me and my wife have been moto riding alot more often..the ancient S/K toolbox has been outgrown but still in use...this last weekend set us home after a nail took out my tube..patched, road and failed again down the road...so tubes must be carried along with some gear/chain etc






anyway i had 2 choices in double+ the size...both older than me...and old "park" or an old snapon thats been with me since before i could drive..said snapon was my first box..later being transfered to "yard box" as a FULL LOAD..you did NOT want to carry but id toss on my shoulder n go for a walk..later it served my ramcharged and was bolted oposite the spare spot(topless all the time)..so..its been thru hell






after some fitment checks the park came up short as i cant keep oil, chainlube etc all in it WITH the tubes..if it had been 1inch taller i coulda...so the snapon went under the blaster..she was full of holes...most guys would NEVER have saved the box..but its been with me since the late 80s..and on sandblasting i found a 74 so i asume its a year older than me..besides the old script is cool











i couldnt descide on paint rummaging thru all my auto body stuff rattle cans..i neerly went viper red to match my hondas..contemplated b5 blue..even mack truck silver..stumbled across an OLD can of rustolium hammeerite from when i painted my RC frame..neerly a full can....figureing i wouldnt have to waste the primer i thinned and shot it lastnight..kept the shop heated lastnight and most of today..its cured up enuf to touch for short periods atleast

 

[thrashingcows]

Nice love the old vintage tool boxs! Needed a bit of loving...but looks great now and you should get years of use out of it again. Have a pic of it painted?

I would not mind seeing a few pics of the home remodeling!

Very cool work there Stretch....very simple system for sure! Think my 48 Desoto had 5 colours...red, yellow, green, blue and black. A custom made ring and pinion....that's crazy...is this old timers prices reasonable too?

 

[69.5CUDA]

weird i had posted more with the painted pics...course ive seen "enter" lines being deleted from my posts too for unknown reasons

 

[69.5CUDA]

seems the KRA-25 i have is indeed likely 1974..but the design didnt change from 1958-1975
http://www.collectingsnapon.com/index.php?page=Tool Storage/Tool Storage KRA series

 

[thrashingcows]

That looks really good...I likey!!

 

[thrashingcows]

Did some work on the old Case Uni-loader. All this is new to me, and I'm doing a bunch of reading on a couple equipment forums. Found that the chain case fluid should be serviced, since the inspection covers are made of plastic, and they tend to leak...so you end up with a white-ish colored oil from water contamination. This is what I was expecting, but not what I found.

This is what I found on the LH side....



Not what I was expecting. I'm pretty sure it's white lithium grease....why only the person who did knows.

This is the RH side....it had the expected milk shake...



So I pulled out a bunch by hand....that was fun....:shifty:

 

[TheIronSausage]

nice eclair..

 

[69.5CUDA]

hmmmm does the lithium seem like that bad of an idea tho?...i guess eventualy it would harden up tho right?

 

[thrashingcows]

What the heck happened to the two or three other posts I made???

 

[Dr.Jass]

Maybe a dingo ate your baby.

 

[thrashingcows]

So I drained the fluid from the RH and put in about 2 gallons of the used oil. Got probably 3 gallons worth of lithium material out by hand, and there was probably at least another 5 gallons in the case, plus 2-3 gallons of water.....the LH rear cover was leaking like a sieve!

I then did some non scientific experimenting to see what would dissolve the grease the best.

Tried the used oil, parts washer solvent and diesel. Turned out the used oil was the best. Put in about a gallon of used oil and drove up and down my driveway...about 400 ft long up hill from house...3-4 times.



And what do you do when you find a 5/8 allen is needed to pullout the plug to drain the chain cases....you think outside the box and dip into your redneck engineering book.



This loosened it up a lot, so drained that out as best I could, but still a lot stuck on everything.

 

[thrashingcows]

Refilled with another gallon of 50/50 mix of used oil and diesel this time, and again up and down 3-4 times.



Cleaned a lot more off this time and was clean enough for me to say F'it.....filled with 2 gallons of used oil and sealed things up.

This is the RH side running the used oil all those trips up and down.....



Will run it with the used oil for a little while, and will put the used hyd oil in when I do my Hyd system service.....just waiting for my filter to come in. Probably change the chain oil several times over the next year or two until all the white lithium is gone.

 

[thrashingcows]

hmmmm does the lithium seem like that bad of an idea tho?...i guess eventually it would harden up tho right?

I agree that it likely wouldn't hurt anything, but sure Makes servicing the system darn near impossible though.

I could only imagine what would happen if I had tried to run it once all that water had frozen solid....chain and gear breakage I bet at the least.

 

[Stretch]

A custom made ring and pinion....that's crazy...is this old timers prices reasonable too?

I have no idea. I never asked. I'm guessing its not cheep though. As I'm finding out, most of this stuff is custom made and you get what you pay for.

 

[Stretch]

Started running the new wires and assembling the gauge cluster. Check out how they back lit the gauges. Cool stuff really.