Above 1200 Sq/FT The Warthog Hidey Hole

[Grizz1963]

Really good chatting today.

Herb has some ideas on visiting with Andy when we are there.

Our time is limited so maximising it makes a load of sense.


That truck is just run in, in my world.

 

[jbmatth]

I agree Grizz, I haven't owned a truck that ran with less than 150k for quite some time now and B.P. 2.0 is pushing 300k miles. I look forward to your visit and hopefully I can get the day off if it is during the week.

JB

 

[BUGTHUG]

sounds like the making of a long over due party

 

[Grizz1963]

sounds like the making of a long over due party

Reading Andy’s thread too, it sounds like a plan is shaping.

And it may just be headed for his place.

 

[jbmatth]

Woo Hoo PARTY!!! I'll bring the lawn darts.

JB

 

[oldironfarmer]

Are the lawn darts aluminum?

 

[jbmatth]

Nope, I don't think I'd be able to find them when it was time to leave if they were.

JB

 

[Redwolf947]

Hi, jb I've been following along for some time now. I'm impressed with what you can get done. I've enjoyed the journey so far and look forward to reading more. I don't post much but I'll be following along quietly.

 

[jbmatth]

Hi, jb I've been following along for some time now. I'm impressed with what you can get done. I've enjoyed the journey so far and look forward to reading more. I don't post much but I'll be following along quietly.

Well thank you for that, I know at times it feels like I don't get anything done out there and especially this time of year when it is an oven inside the shop once the son comes up. If you want to chime in feel free, there is plenty I have left to learn.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I finished the silver Silverado and posted it for sale Friday morning, it was sold before I went to bed. That was probably the easiest and quickest I've been able to make $1,000 on vehicles. U-joint, oil change, oil filter, air filter, radio, two blinker bulbs (spares from previous vehicles I've scrapped), and fixed a clip so the 3rd door would open. I'll take it, not bad for about 4 hours of work.

Saturday morning I went to a friend's son's friend's house to work on a '53 Chevy that was his grandmothers first car. She isn't doing well and they want to get it running to take her for a ride in it while they still can. New plugs, wires, points, oil, lashed the valves, set the timing, new battery, fuel pump, some hose to a boat fuel tank and away it went. They had already done some of the work I just helped get it running better and much smoother with less valve noise.

I have a video but haven't uploaded it yet. we spent the next few hours beating on the drums to remove them and found out all of the wheel cylinders were seized. It shifts fine and could be driven now if you didn't really want brakes.

I was happy to be able to help them out and I'd also like to thank Andy for giving me a little advice when I couldn't figure something out.

JB

 

[njhoudini]

JB, glad to hear you were rewarded for your 4 hours of work and then in turn helped out with that '53 Chevy. Our world would be so much better if everyone just paid it forward!

 

[jbmatth]

Thank you njhoudini, and I couldn't agree more a kind gesture goes a long way.

JB

 

[Grizz1963]

Yup !!!

Agreed.

Karma will kiss and kick your **** in equal meaure.

Kindness goes a long way.

Well done.

 

[jbmatth]

Thanks Grizz, if that is the case I think I have a lot of good deeds to do just to get back to zero.

JB

 

[1/2 Cup]

JB you have done well.

 

[jbmatth]

Thank you 1/2, it was a pretty successful weekend all around. I do look forward to getting back on some of my vehicles though as I have a lot of work that needs to be done.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I have a few odds and ends to catch everyone up on so here goes. Last weekend I pulled the fenders off of the wife's Jeep they were damaged pretty bad from before we installed the side steps with a lot of rock damage. I want to throw this out there, I hate that Jeep uses so many one time use fasteners to install stuff. When I reinstalled them I used some leftover GM clips that can be removed multiple times and I'm much happier about that decision. I removed them to get bed-liner rolled on and I really like the outcome:

While I was mowing this weekend I noticed this:

I had a broken lug stud on my S10 on one of the rear rims. When I was able to investigate further I actually had 2 broken but one was still holding because of those little spring clips that hold the rotor on. I have to admit something though and I hate to but hopefully this will bring some awareness. Both rear tires had loose lug nuts, they were finger tight on the passenger side but the drivers side only had 1 left that I couldn't turn by hand. I'm not sure what caused this, maybe I didn't tighten them enough, maybe it is because of the wheels I'm using, I don't now yet but I don't like it at all. I'll be keeping a much closer eye on it from here out though and will report back my findings. In the mean time I have to buy two more studs and one more lug nut.

I did get the bunk bed completely painted for the time being and it will be ready to move into the house when it has a few days to dry:

I think Cat likes it and is really excited to get to use it.

Next I have some more photos of the '53 I helped to work on last weekend, before:

After:

Their grandmother did get to see videos of it running but sadly didn't actually get to ride in it before passing away mid last week. He and the other pallbearers were able to drive it to the funeral with a functioning fuel system and working brakes.

That is all for now, if you have old projects like that get them running before it is too late.

JB

 

[Grizz1963]

Awesome.

Love that car too.

A lot.

 

[dchance]

Glad you caught the lug nuts. That could cause some bad experiences.

Dwight

 

[rmalkow2]

Love that 1953. Great picture with all the arms out the side windows. Looks just like a picture from the late 50's. A very nice tribute to Grandma.

 

[jbmatth]

Awesome.

Love that car too.

A lot.

Love that 1953. Great picture with all the arms out the side windows. Looks just like a picture from the late 50's. A very nice tribute to Grandma.

Thank you both, I'm sure she is smiling seeing it all unfold now. I agree about the photo, I think the glass bottle of coke really takes it over the top.

Glad you caught the lug nuts. That could cause some bad experiences.

Dwight

You are very right Dwight, I had an experience when I was 15 that made me pay much more attention to tightening lugs. I removed some lowering blocks on my truck, put everything back together but didn't tighten one set of lug nuts. The next day my brother was driving me to school when a terrible shake developed and the wheel fell off all withing a matter of seconds. That one destroyed the wheel and was a very expensive lesson for a 15 year old.

I have it all fixed now and back together, I'll keep an eye on them to make sure it was just my oversight in completely tightening them not some other issue. The wheel hub bore is about .020" larger than the axle hub diameter so I am not running into an issue there. What I suspect is the truck is supposed to be hub-centric and with the extra space the wheels are now lug-centric. Hopefully this doesn't cause a problem, I'm sure I can find spacers to take up the difference but I need to dig into that some more to find out.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I finished another small project this weekend I've wanted to do for a while now and am happy it worked out eventually. I wanted the ability to sit in the house and tune an LS based engine computer with access to the internet and HVAC. I found a few tutorials online and this is what I came up with:

It used the blue connector from many of the generations of engines I work on. It has an OBD II port (purchased new online for $4) for connecting the hardware from HPTuners I use, the aforementioned blue connector (left over from the original S10 harness), some wire from the same harness, a left over switch (to be used like the key in a vehicle to turn power on and off to parts of the computer) that works but has seen better days, and power in connectors. I purchased a 1,000 ma 12v DC power supply that unfortunately didn't work for some reason. So I mad connections to hook it up to the old battery from the S10 as well. All in all I have $4 in this and it works great.

Now if friends or family (my brother doing a 5.3 swap into his '68 Camaro) want some quick work done I can knock it out on the recliner. That is if I buy another power supply that is more fitting for this application.

B.P. 2.0 goes into the shop in the next couple of days to start tearing into it, wish me luck.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Nice work JB, having the ability to tune in comfort will be awesome.

 

[Nlped]

Hey, just a thought, but some GM wheels have a different comical seat angle vs others. Maybe your lugnuts and the wheel lug seat angles are slightly off & the “vibration” is working them loose?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rixtrix1]

Cool car! I don't think I have ever seen a car that dusty! It cleaned up well!
Sad the Grandma didn't get a ride. At least, the project brought the family together. My condolences and prayers to her family.

My uncle had a '50 from new until 1970 when my cousin traded it in on a new Chevelle. Lots of cruising in that old car. Was always garaged and looked amazing when traded in.

 

[rixtrix1]

Gonna open up a side business as a tuner, JB?

 

[jbmatth]

Nice work JB, having the ability to tune in comfort will be awesome.

I agree, I still don't know enough to get even my own tune "right" but to disable VATS and some trouble codes it'll be nice to do when not sweating or freezing.

Hey, just a thought, but some GM wheels have a different comical seat angle vs others. Maybe your lugnuts and the wheel lug seat angles are slightly off & the “vibration” is working them loose?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From what I could find they are both 60° seats, I'll keep an eye on them and report back in a few weeks after I drive it a bit.

Cool car! I don't think I have ever seen a car that dusty! It cleaned up well!
Sad the Grandma didn't get a ride. At least, the project brought the family together. My condolences and prayers to her family.

My uncle had a '50 from new until 1970 when my cousin traded it in on a new Chevelle. Lots of cruising in that old car. Was always garaged and looked amazing when traded in.

Thank you for the thoughts.

I don't think I could argue trading a '50 Chevy for a '70 Chevelle, one of my many dream cars there.

Gonna open up a side business as a tuner, JB?

Not for now, I would love to get to that point eventually but for now it'll just be to help out close friends and family to get their stuff derivable when needed. I plan to get a wide band O2 sensor and be able to do a better job tuning all around. I'm all for making side money though.

JB

 

[Lwel9226]

Are you using a torque wrench on the lugnuts????
Will give you consistent tightening and make it simple to keep track of later....

LynnW

 

[Vieux]

Great car. I like it

 

[jbmatth]

Are you using a torque wrench on the lugnuts????
Will give you consistent tightening and make it simple to keep track of later....

LynnW

Lynn,
I don't as often as I should, I did torque them all to 100 ft.-lbs. this time around and will be diligent about it in the future. I hate to admit it but I had gotten lazy lately, I started all of the lugs by hand, then used the impact to slowly tighten down as I moved the wheel around to make sure it was centered, then gave each of them a few raps with the impact.

That is NOT the way to do it and I know better, please others reading this learn from my mistake and torque everything down that requires a torque spec.

Great car. I like it

Thank you Vieux, I really enjoyed it as well.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I have a couple of things to show ya'll I've done with my wife's Jeep, some were here idea so don't hold them against me please.

Here are the old hood latches, they are rubber in the middle and do a great job of securing the hood when it is parked:

However, when driving at highway speeds the hood shudders a good bit and when a semi passes going the other direction I felt like the hood was coming into the windshield. I didn't like the feeling so I picked these up for her for her birthday:

No more movement now, score some brownie points. I also made her a door and T-top holder for it as well, I've got some more to add and then put it on casters to roll it out of the way easier:

Next up she bought these roll bar covers to put on, I wasn't exstatic about the fit and finish as well as having some of the velcro with two hook or two loop sections that were supposed to connect to each other, grr:

The last thing was this sun shade that can stay on when the hard top is installed:

From what they said it all worked out well this morning so I'll take that as a win and even more brownie points. Which might help because I'm bringing home a Jeep Cherokee this weekend to part out or sell that was her fathers. I haven't seen it yet but his description on what I'd have to do to drive it makes me want to trailer it instead. The straw that broke the camels back was the conduit that needed to be held in place so the steering wheel didn't lock up at highway speeds.

He has the title so I'm not too worried about it...I think,

JB

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice. I'm running the same hood latches on my JKUR. No more hood flutter and is quiet as can be. Wasn't too awfully bad until a semi truck passed or a bit of a cross wind then the hood would try to lift. Could also be because I hate the nose-dive stance of Jeeps and have my front end slightly higher than the rear.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Cool car! I don't think I have ever seen a car that dusty! It cleaned up well!
Sad the Grandma didn't get a ride. At least, the project brought the family together. My condolences and prayers to her family.

My uncle had a '50 from new until 1970 when my cousin traded it in on a new Chevelle. Lots of cruising in that old car. Was always garaged and looked amazing when traded in.

Sadly the '50 was worth about $100 in 1970. They discounted the Chevelle and showed it as additional trade in value. I bought the neighbor's '54 in 1972 for $100 and drove it off and on until I lost it in my fire in 1989. I had parked it a couple of times but when I would need a car it was always ready to go.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Hmmm, I've still never had a torque wrench on a lug nut.

 

[Lwel9226]

Hmmm, I've still never had a torque wrench on a lug nut.

I was the same way until I put the wheels on a friends trailer with an impact and lost one....
The wild wheel center punched a Mercedes in the grill at speed...
Did several hundred dollars damage....
Kinda put the cure on me....


Lynn W

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hmmm, I've still never had a torque wrench on a lug nut.

It is some thing that I do religiously

 

[Redwolf947]

I torque all lug nuts now. I've heard too many stories like Lwel's. I also retorque once after 30 to 50 miles after a tire change. I've been suprised that some of the lugs must have seated as I get a bit more out of some of them.

 

[oldironfarmer]

It is some thing that I do religiously

Frankly, I'm not surprised.

 

[Bob Heine]

Back in the good old days lug nuts were more interesting. Chrysler put left-hand threads on the driver side wheel studs and right hand threads on the passenger side. Broke a stud on my Plymouth trying to get the front wheel off on the driver side.

I didn't use a torque wrench on lug nuts when I couldn't afford one (before Harbor Freight). When I got a car with "alloy" wheels it became more important. The different expansion rate and wheel thickness at the studs made it more important/critical to get them torqued tight. Torque spec for aluminum wheels on the PT Cruiser and '87 Corvette is 100 ft. lbs. (the Cadillac is 140 ft. lbs.). Torque spec on the '72 Corvette stock steel wheel is 85 ft. lbs. Most of my local tire stores try not to snap off the studs. Not their fault if a wheel falls off -- they only do tires.

 

[Lwel9226]

It is some thing that I do religiously

Mee two now....