February 14, 2009

Why do so many things have to happen on the same weekend? My roommate had plans, I had plans, it just happened to be valentines day, but most importantly (for the subject matter in this blog) it was the same weekend as the Webster Auto Swap Winter Extravaganza! I found this guy, Darren, from Texas on craigslist who specializes in 60-66 Chevy trucks and Suburbans. He makes trips to Florida and different areas of the southeast for events like the auto swap. I can provide contact information if anyone wants it, just leave a comment requesting it.

Friday I left from south of Miami, stopped in Orlando for dinner with the girlfriend, and on to Citrus County to my parents house, a convenient 30 miles from Webster (if you know the back way). My dad and I headed for the swap meet the next morning after an early breakfast. Now, the auto swap is held monthly, but this being their special event, it was twice the size it normally is. For those of you unfamiliar with this show, its like a big flea market with an auto theme and a car show. Hundreds of people from all over the southeast (and Texas, like Darren) set up tables or benches in this big field, or many sell stuff right off their trailers. Car parts, model cars, whole cars, mostly classics set up in an almost orderly fashion as far as the eye can see. They have a smattering of vendors that sell things that aren't even car related, which I have always found to be frustrating. I'm there to look for parts and accessories, not rugs or toys or wood carvings.

My dad and I walked around for probably over an hour, with my dad having to stop to rest a few times. By the time I found Darren, we had walked almost the whole place, and dad was out of steam. So he left. I bought the bedside panels and fenders that he brought with him. In the process of walking back across the fairgrounds to the ATM, I wound up finding other parts for sale. The long and short of it is that I left there with two sets of rear fenders, two sides of the box that makes up the bed, a tailgate, a rear bumper, and a seat. Sure, I spent more than I planned on, but I can use the best parts and sell the ones I don't use and get my money back. Plus, I can sell the fenders that are currently on the truck (a different shape, since they're off a '68) and get a little back for them, too.

All in all, it was a good trip. I drove back to my house with the back of my Taco piled high with parts, unloaded the truck, and still had time for a shower and a lovely evening with my girlfriend. Best Valentines Day ever.

Post Written on 4/15/09

A Week of Vacation

August 30 - September 6, 2008



It's pretty sad, to me anyway, that I have to take a week of vacation time to spend a week at my own house. But that's what I did, so thats how I got here. The previous post (September 2) takes place during this period.

This video was taken hours before the "big" USF @ UCF game on September 6th. For some reason, I decided that the most fun time to roll my truck out of the garage would be when all my friends were at the house. By the time this video was taken, I had replaced the last remaining brake lines, installed the new master cylinder, filled and bled the lines and popped the new drums on. And, as you can see, I'm sporting four brand new tires. For the first time since I've owned the truck, I have four matching tires and four working brakes!

The remaining brake lines went on without too much hassle, except the last tee I went to install turned out to be stripped out on one side. A quick trip to the auto parts store remedied that, but set me back an hour. I hadn't bothered to install the anti rattle clips yet (and as of this writing, still haven't gotten around to it yet). Since then, a failed attempt to adjust the parking brake cable tension has led me to believe that the cables are seized in their sheathes at the back wheels. Other than those two items, the brakes are done!

I had some interesting comments during the event. Mostly in response to the noise. My girlfriend said, "I'm NOT riding with you in THAT."

...so, with the brakes out of the way, now what?

September 2, 2008

Well, the truck is proving to be a worthy adversary. I'm still working on it on the weekends, but I'm spending much less time on it than I could be, due to a voluntary rearrangement of priorities that are outside the scope of this blog. At any rate, Tropical Storm Fay gave me a good reason to hurry up and finish the shed. We got it together and loaded up with truck parts and lawn tools just in time for it not to get blown away. You know, by several inches of rain.

The storm gave me another day at home, so I cleaned out all the junk in the bed of the truck. This allowed me to weigh down the shed (and the trash can) with truck parts. I threw away years of trash, and looked at half of it and wondered why I had kept it so long. Of note, there was the rubber floor mat that I had taken from the parts truck nigh a decade ago, which due to improper storage had torn and broken and was no longer worth saving.

In addition to that, most of the weekend work has involved trying to pull that anchor pin out so I can finish that front right wheel, and working on running the new lines. The lines have been going in fairly well, though I think I may have gotten some air in the brake system. (That's a joke.) Mike and I have been cutting and flaring brake lines, and the back lines are done, as well as the long line leading to the back of the truck. Shockingly enough, today I was able to buy some clips to hold the lines in place at AutoZone. The real reason I was at the store, though, was to trade in the third breaker bar the truck claimed while we were trying the anchor pin again. They were out of stock of the 18" ones, so I traded it in towards a 24" one. This one looks pretty stout.

I came home and decided to re-evaluate my strategy. Obviously no mere breaker bar is going to break this one. I removed the anchor pin on the drivers side and examined it. I re-checked the cylinder to see if there was any way to rebuild it in place. The plan that came up with was one involving, brute force, cutting, and breaking. As usual. I decided to try to remove the old cylinder by breaking the loop off that was being held in by the anchor pin. This would accomplish three things- first, I'd be able to put the socket farther onto the bolt in my attempt to break it loose. Second, it would give me better access to the bolt threads, for direct application of lubricant. Third, and possibly most importantly, it would reduce the pressure on the bolt itself, which could make it easier to loosen.

I drilled into the loop from either side, them proceeded to hit the cylinder with a hammer until it broke off. Unfortunately, it didn't break where I had drilled, rather at the bottom of the loop. So the rest was driven out by drilling another hole at the top, and much beating with a hammer and chisel. As it turns out, this was what it took. The anchor pin has been removed (it came out rather easily), and now the brake can be rebuilt.

Oh, by the way, I missed my August 31st goal of having the brakes done, but I'm on vacation this week, so I expect to be finished before I have to go back to work.

Mid Week Update

I really got to thinking about it last night, and maybe getting the shed was a little premature. I mean, the plan was to get brakes and wheels on the truck, and then start worrying about the body. The opportune time to work on mechanical systems (engine, suspension, etc) is when the body is removed. So, the shed wouldn't be really necessary until I get brakes and wheels on (goal: by the end of August.) So maybe I was a few weeks early. It might set my goal back a bit. But now, what's done is done, and I've got to finish the shed and get it out of the garage!

I've also bid on a gas tank on ebay. It might not work, as it's for a '72, but it looks as though it could be modified to fit. I figure it's worth a shot, for the price, and if not, I can get my money back out of it and the Sumter Auto Swap.

I've had some title issues. I have a "salvage-rebuildable" title, but to register it, I need a "Rebuilt" title. To do this, I need to get the truck inspected, show before and after pictures, pictures of the accident, and show receipts for all major components I have replaced. This last one is difficult, since the body panels came off the 2nd parts truck, and of course we got rid of that 9 years ago. I did, recently, find the title for the parts truck, so I think I can use that. Now, just for fun, do I put the truck in bare minimum legal condition, get it inspected and back on the road, or actually keep it in the garage and finish?

Oh, be sure to check out the Facebook albums I've linked this page to, over on the right side of the page.

August 10, 2008

Whis weekend was really, really busy. Throughout the previous week, I'm making the most of my time in voluntary exile by hitting the auto parts stores to scrounge up the remaining brake parts. Given the nature of my location, I still had to come back to Sanford for a few finishing touches. I do, now, have all of the parts necessary to put the system back together. I still need to pick up some clips to hold the steel lines on.

Last weekend, I had a brilliant idea. No, seriously, this isn't one of my "brilliant ideas," this was actually a GOOD idea. I decided to buy a shed! I can put all the parts currently sitting in the bed of the truck, plus the gangbox, plus any parts I have yet to take off into the shed! Not only that, I can put my lawn tools in the shed and use the space gained to build a workbench! The hard part was convincing my landlord to let me put one in. I had to go with a really small one, a 6' x 8', to convince them to let me have one, but it's certainly better than no shed at all!

A great deal of Saturday morning (after going to Napa) involved the procurement and assembly of the shed. Mike and I got the floor frame together and Erik did a lot of heckling, but we stopped because Mike and I had a BBQ to go to. The shed, conveniently fitting inside the garage, will have to wait until next weekend.

Back to the subject at hand, the truck. That blasted anchor pin that I couldn't remove last weekend? The one I need to pull to replace the last wheel cylinder to finish the right front brake? I borrowed a rather hefty Dewalt electric impact wrench with a real set of impact sockets from work. That failed. Tried putting the open end wrench I borrowed on it, with a jack underneath. I stopped because I'm worried that we might irreparably damage the bolt by rounding it off or something before we get it out. I bought a can of PB blaster, and hopefully Mike will soak it down and beat it with a hammer every night. That might be enough.

August 3rd, 2008

With the absence of necassary tools to remove that stubborn anchor pin, I was forced to switch gears a little to keep the progress moving. There's not much left of the old brake system by now, except the steel brake lines, so guess what came out next. There's a lot of dirt and orange sand mixed with grease on the underside. It looks as though there may have been a few leaks both up front at the engine and in the rear at the differential. Add that to the flaking rust spreading in different places o the underside and you get a regular rainstorm of grit falling on your face while you're trying to work underneath.

The rear hose connects to the main steel line coming front the front at a support for the bed. Someone in the past decided it was too much trouble to access the hose, so they cut out part of the support and peeled it back. I straightened it as much as I could and managed to fight all of the lines off the truck and into the driveway. I'll pick up a new rear hose this week.

August 2nd, 2008

Today was the first real day of progress in a long time. The day started with a dismantled front left brake and an untouched front right brake. First thing I did was reassemble the one. I pulled the other drum off, of course, as a reference. The reassembly went rather smoothly once I got rolling with it. I had to clean and re-use some old components, mainly levers and arms and such.



At the flip of a coin, Mike and I decided to work on the wheel hubs. The front left had already been separated from the drum with the proper application of brute force some weeks previous. The inner bearing seemed fine, but the outer bearing race had some pitting. I really have no idea how this happened. I had already purchased a new bearing/race assembly, so it was a simple matter to install that. Or so I thought. I was able to drive in the new race flush with the outer rim of the hub, but tapping around the edges with a hammer on a screwdriver was a bit to subtle to drive it all the way in. I muddled around the garage a bit, looking for some other solution. I needed something about the same size as the old bearing to drive in, to apply somewhat equal pressure all the way around. After a few laps around, I came upon the solution, right there on my workbench! I simply used the old race to drive in the new, and then drove the old back out. Then it was a simple matter to drop the hub back in the wheel and call it done.


Moving on to the second hub, it was still rather firmly attached to the brake drum. I figured it was simply a matter of applying the proper brute force, as mentioned in the previous example. Not so, says the truck. This drum/hub assembly differed from the other. There were three pins driven through to hold it together that the other side lacked. We only noticed this after pounding repeatedly on the hub, trying to drive it free, and the drum showed signs of deformation. We ground, we chiseled, we ground some more, we beat it some more, and we were successful! The remains of th pins were simply ground flush with the hub flange, rather than us attempting to drive them all the way out. Came out rather well.

The bearings in this second hub checked out fine, so I reassembled it and moved onto the last remaining old brake. The shoes and hardware came off without a hitch. The anchor pin (the nut in the middle of the top in the picture) was removed from the other wheel by, again, brute force. The same approach was also taken to this bolt, which was undoubtedly last tightened over 40 years ago by someone at GM. Unfortunately, perhaps due to a lack of application of penetrating oil beforehand, or chaos theory, or just plain dumb luck, this one would not come loose. I broke my ½" breaker bar (using a cheater) where the head joins the shaft. I then proceeded to break Erik's ½" Craftsman breaker bar by twisting the square end off. I need to get this bolt off, as it holds the (leaking) cylinder on. The cylinder can't be rebuilt in place, as there are raised portions of the backer plate on either end of the cylinder which would prevent me from removing the internals.

The next step, once this final brake is rebuilt, is to replace all the old steel and rubber lines.




This image has been reproduced without permission from the Haynes Repair Manual for the Chevrolet Camaro, 1982-1992 models. The parts are nearly identical.