Let Me Shed Some Light On Something!

    It has been very hot here and I have tons of yard/house stuff to take care of but  Idid manage to get a little done the past few days.


I went ahead and hook the head lights up. This is the first  time they have been hooked up since I fixed the dimmer switch, so I really did not know if I fixed it or not! It works great! One of my headlights is foggy .. it works and that's good enough for now! I still ahve to secure the terminal blocks to the frame.

Then I went ahead and removed the carburetor to clean up. I got started cleaning it but I still have more to do. I still plan on removing the tank again and cleaning it out once more as well as blow out the lines again.

I'm not sure if I posted about this last week or not ... I did get the brakes bled! I hope to be able to run this thing around the block a few times soon!

Creating More Holes & Bleeding.

   It's OK there were no holes in me this weekend .... yet ... and no blood! LOL I'll get to that later.

    I have been very busy keeping my yard from becoming a jungle this past week. I did mess with the truck a bit .. I cant seem to keep my hands off of it!

I got the truck running ... again .... and moved the truck outside. I wanted to take a new walk around video. I lost interest when the truck would not stay running. I have yet to clean the carburetor! so it's my fault I'm sure. The truck ran fine last year and I could move it about the garage, around the block etc. I let it sit part of last year and most of this year doing the work to it. The work has created a lot of dust and I fear it is clogging up my carburetor. I had it covered most of the time, but that stuff gets in everything! Anyway after blowing out the line and pouring gas in the carburetor I had it running on it's own Friday.  Of course I went to start it today and it would not start. Gas in the carburetor would let it run for a second before shutting down with the occasional backfire. It was too dang hot to mess with so I left it. I am positive once I remove and clean the carburetor, blow out the lines again and probably the gas tank cleaned that it will fire on up. I did make some adjustments to the cold idle setting and I don't know what I'm doing so I should be able to get that right once the truck will run with me out of it! LOL

You can see the crud in the carburetor ....

    Now ... What about those holes?!  To make a short story long, the reason I had moved the truck to the center of the garage ... I had noticed the bed was a little out of wack. I had it looking great ... um ... a while back. Since bolting it back on, adding the fenders, moving the gas tank etc ... I never checked on the bed to make sure it was still right. So I started measuring and adjusting.

   The front of the bed is pretty close. The bed sides bolt thru existing factory holes. This pretty much eliminates any issues for alignment there. It is off a slight amount, but I have some room for adjustment with the bushing spacers I am using. I also think there is a slight bend in the top rail of the rear panel, causing the corner to have a slight angle up. This is not something you would probably not notice.

    I find the back to be about a half inch off. Not shocking news. Without the floor in place the frame has some give. You can easily move it up and down. Once the floor is in the sides will be fastened to the frame via the floor board braces. Looking back now, I have a feeling I am about to learn a lesson in proper way to replace the back end so your floor goes in properly LOL. OK so my focus here will be to determine the best way to put the floor back in and tie the bed side neatly into it. While at the same time leveling up the rear of the bed before I permanently tie in the bed, bed frame and bed sides. OH this is going to be fun!

    I had decided I had devoted enough slack ... um I mean  planning time for the day, so I decided to go ahead and punch the threaded D inserts out of the bed frame. For those not familiar (or if I'm confusing you by calling them the wrong thing(?) LOL I will verify and adjust the post), the bed frame has 4 cross bars. Each cross bar has (don't quote me, I'm going on memory) 5 "D" shaped holes with inserts that are threaded to allow the braces, to hold the wood in place, to be bolted down. Now for the short of it ... I had broken off a lot of bolts taking the old floor out so I just punched each insert out. Easy, no issues ... just the way I like it!

    Next I decided to get the rear lights working properly. I had crossed the two wires for each tail light when I hooked them up. This made my running lights bright (like hitting the brake). I just swapped the wires and that was that. As for my brake lights ... I was sure is was because I had not bled the brakes yet and was not getting enough pressure to activate the switch .... The part that is going to drive me nuts until I fix it ...the yellow wire going to green and green going to yellow! I am not sure how I managed that!

    Then I stole my girlfriend from the kitchen to help me bleed the brakes. Now the brake lights are working .. woo I kind of rushed the bleed job because it was so hot. I did not want my GF out there any longer than necessary. I do have pedal and can decide if I need to go over them again once I get the carburetor worked out. I did not get a picture of the actual brake light working, but here is one of the running lights .... Are these upside down? ... I think it depends on if your tag is down or up. I think they were originally above the tail light ??? I'll figure that out  LOL

If it is not too hot tomorrow(today) maybe I will get the head lights wired in and maybe even the horn. I would start on the carburetor but I can do that while the truck is against the wall. It will be going against the wall tomorrow evening. While I still have it out it will be easier to work on the head lights.

Exhaust Back On!

Decided to get the exhaust hooked back up today.

Mocked up and tacked in ...

All done!

A Crappy Video or Still Got Gas

    I have been wanting to focus on the engine again for some time. I am tired of pushing it around to work on it. So, today I removed the gas line running to the back and hooked up the tank. I knew I would have an issue with the carb from all of the dust I have been creating, so I blew out the lines and changed the filter.
    I got it running on it's own so I shot a video with my phone. The idle is a bit high but I adjusted it later. Then I drove it outside and got my regular camera and shot a walk around. I put the truck back in the garage and cleaned everything up. When I went to download the movie to my PC so I could share it here .... I must not have pushed the record button hard enough ... no movie :( I hope to do a good one tomorrow. I cant get one of it driving right now because I need to bleed the brakes yet.

Enjoy!

I've Got Gas!

     The more I thought about it, the more I knew I was just asking for trouble by having the gas tank at the back. I originally moved it there so I could run the exhaust on opposite sides along the frame rail.

    Between the shock mounts and the proportionate valve for the brakes and other obstacles, I would have still had a problem. I would have to had the exhaust re ran as well ... more money ......

    So today I moved it back to the front of the bed. I had to cut the frame back out to allow for it to fit. (Just like before but smaller) I will reinforce this the next time I take the bed off, although ti is pretty stable as is.
   
    What I'm not going to do is cut a hole in the bed side like before. I will get parts to have it come out of the floor and probably near flush to the floor. I think just a different filler tube hose with a bend. I may be able to shorten my existing tube and have it sit further down than what you see in the pictures without having to buy anything.

    I did not get a chance to take out the hard line for the longer run, but that won't take but a few mins. and I will be good to go.

Alignment & Some Cleaning

    I spent today aligning the doors. They both drag a bit opening and closing. I filed down the areas, on the door lip as well as the rocker, with a flat file. I had to coax the passenger side a bit with a hammer for a mild tweak. Things like this are the reason I am putting it back together! I would hate to find these out after paint!

    The catch on the driver's side only had one screw holding it in. I thought that one of the nuts had fell off in the body somewhere. It turns out both nuts are attached to a plate and the plate had slid over and only left one nut showing. I slid it back in place and put both screws in and adjusted it so the door would hold firm without rattle. The gap around the door looks pretty good and it closes flush.

    Then I adjusted the other side. This door sits out a bit at the top past the belt line. I.m not sure if anything can be done about that, short of trying to bend it a bit. :/ (Is this what a sprung door is?)

    I still need to tidy up the wires under the dash! It seems everywhere I look there is a loose end!

   I still need to do the body work on these fenders. The driver's side is pretty rough!

    I hosed the dust from the truck and cleaned up the garage. That took the rest of the day.

~ THE END ~

Jeepers Creepers ... Look at those peepers!

    I got the headlights installed, but not connected yet.

    Got the tail lights hooked up.  They came on bright and I don't think the brake light is working, so I will have to research to see if I have something backwards.

    I moved the horn under the cab on the frame rail and connected the ground. That's as far as I got with that. I did not get any pictures of that. :(

     I ordered a 3/4 20 thread nut for the steering. Evidently I don't know how to measure for the nut because this 25 dollar nut wont work. Too small. So the quest to determine the shft size continues. Grrrrr....