What did you do to your non-G body project today? [2020]
- Thread starter Bonnewagon
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Looks like I have something to do this weekend to the Regal.
Been working on another vehicle for a while, which my friends and I affectionately call the garbage truck.
I bought this 89 w250 360/4 speed/4wd for $400 in February 2019 and used it as a dumpster for my newly purchased house renovations. It was cheaper than a dumpster, and I could drive it to the dump. But it was far from truly road worthy.
So after its use as a dumpster I turned it into a class project for a few students to dip their toes in the water of rust repair and welding. Mind you, I teach a very basic level auto shop class (maintenance really) but some kids do want to do more, so well build engines and have oddball projects.
This one was massive, and for their skill level I'm proud of their work.
This is what the floor looked like, no cutting. Just removed the seat, rubber floor, and the street sign that was resting on the frame rail.
After cutting some of the thin stuff out. We went from toeboard to back of the cab (along the inside of the rocker)
And how it looks now (I took it home when we closed for corona and seam sealed and painted.)
We built a cab mount and inner rocker structure out of some 2" C channel I had laying around, welded it solid and straigtened out the collapsing cab as best as we could. (We are NOT an auto body class). Then we cut up some door skins I had and build patches. The passenger side is much nicer, but I don't have any pics of their work. I lost a bunch of pics on my phone, but I can take pics of the after.
This video shows some of the rough in from the new cab "structure." Remember, this is no restoration, simply functional. Maybe someday I'll get a cab for it, lord knows it needs one.
<a href=" "><img src=" " title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
Then we get to today's nightmare.
So as much as this things a rotbox, its also previously owned by a man in the meat packing business. No offense to those who actually are one for a living, but this guy was a butcher. I've had to rewire the headlight and tail light harnesses, you can see in the video the column is smashed apart, and the radio was no different. So I opened up the dash to try and straighten it out. The radio lost presets every time you turned the truck off, and one speaker worked.
No surprise, only one was wired! Both at the head unit and at each location! So after fixing this spaghetti, 3/4 speakers work. One seems to just be bad, so I'll see what used junk I've got laying around. The trick to this thing is LOW BUDGET, like leftovers.
Next on the list is mount the new muffler, since day 2 owning the truck the entire exhaust fell off. But that's another story.
I bought this 89 w250 360/4 speed/4wd for $400 in February 2019 and used it as a dumpster for my newly purchased house renovations. It was cheaper than a dumpster, and I could drive it to the dump. But it was far from truly road worthy.
So after its use as a dumpster I turned it into a class project for a few students to dip their toes in the water of rust repair and welding. Mind you, I teach a very basic level auto shop class (maintenance really) but some kids do want to do more, so well build engines and have oddball projects.
This one was massive, and for their skill level I'm proud of their work.
This is what the floor looked like, no cutting. Just removed the seat, rubber floor, and the street sign that was resting on the frame rail.
After cutting some of the thin stuff out. We went from toeboard to back of the cab (along the inside of the rocker)
And how it looks now (I took it home when we closed for corona and seam sealed and painted.)
We built a cab mount and inner rocker structure out of some 2" C channel I had laying around, welded it solid and straigtened out the collapsing cab as best as we could. (We are NOT an auto body class). Then we cut up some door skins I had and build patches. The passenger side is much nicer, but I don't have any pics of their work. I lost a bunch of pics on my phone, but I can take pics of the after.
This video shows some of the rough in from the new cab "structure." Remember, this is no restoration, simply functional. Maybe someday I'll get a cab for it, lord knows it needs one.
<a href=" "><img src=" " title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
Then we get to today's nightmare.
So as much as this things a rotbox, its also previously owned by a man in the meat packing business. No offense to those who actually are one for a living, but this guy was a butcher. I've had to rewire the headlight and tail light harnesses, you can see in the video the column is smashed apart, and the radio was no different. So I opened up the dash to try and straighten it out. The radio lost presets every time you turned the truck off, and one speaker worked.
No surprise, only one was wired! Both at the head unit and at each location! So after fixing this spaghetti, 3/4 speakers work. One seems to just be bad, so I'll see what used junk I've got laying around. The trick to this thing is LOW BUDGET, like leftovers.
Next on the list is mount the new muffler, since day 2 owning the truck the entire exhaust fell off. But that's another story.
Creating new lower guide for my 14" bandsaw from a chunk of aluminum. Original lower guide was made from fragile ZAMAC and cracked off at the mounting bolts. Almost done. I will post pictures shortly.
PS If I continue to have the time and energy, I am planning to convert the bandsaw from a fixed speed 120V motor to a 2HP treadmill motor with an MC-60 motor controller (also from the old treadmill) which will allow variable speed. Treadmill motor provides lots of torque at low speeds. My intent is to reduce speed by about 80 to 90 percent when cutting steel on my bandsaw (which is currently used exclusively for wood).
PS If I continue to have the time and energy, I am planning to convert the bandsaw from a fixed speed 120V motor to a 2HP treadmill motor with an MC-60 motor controller (also from the old treadmill) which will allow variable speed. Treadmill motor provides lots of torque at low speeds. My intent is to reduce speed by about 80 to 90 percent when cutting steel on my bandsaw (which is currently used exclusively for wood).
FedEx showed up with part of my Rockauto order the transmission kit for the C6 and the extra oil filters but no oil pump or rod bearings for the 400sbc
Here is my project John Deere 165 or "Why some abandoned things should be left abandoned".
It was abandoned by some tenants at a house that my dad was renting out, and I grabbed it to see if it would run. Other than removing a couple cups of water out of the fuel tank from a broken fuel cap, it started surprisingly easily. It has a 12.5hp Kawasaki engine that, other than a little puff of smoke on startup, runs and pulls like new.
The part where it gets weird and frustrating is the mower deck. It has either a 46" or 48" 3 blade deck that the John Deere dealer swears up and down doesn't exist. This tractor is only supposed to have either a 38'' or 42'' 2 blade deck. Their only guess is that this deck came off of a similar era numbered JD mower, but since those decks don't have ID plates of any kind, nobody can tell me what parts I need for it. The original problem that parked the mower was that it ate engine-to-deck belts very quickly. This is only made worse by the fact that the electric clutch pulley is sized for a 5/8ths inch belt while the deck pulley is sized for a 1/2 inch belt. Add to that the deck pulley sits at about a 15 degree angle leaning forward, since the front supports were too long and pushing the front of the deck down, and you have a frustrating piece of sh*t that totally isn't worth working on.
Luckily since COVID-19 happened and I have cleaned the garage of projects, this finally became worthwhile to mess with. I ended up pulling the stacked center pulley and finding one of the bearings were loose in the bore and rattling around, allowing the pulley to c*ck at an angle relative to the shaft that is attached to. The pulley really needs replaced but since I can't find that pulley, I cut up a worm gear clamp and hammered sections of it into the gap to center the bearing in the hole, then staked all around it with a punch to retain everything. That got the pulley straighter but still crooked to the clutch pulley. I then tried bending the shaft to change the angle but it was hard as hell, and would have likely cracked the deck mount before the shaft would have bent.
I then pulled the front mounts off and found that the deck would pivot off the back hangars and could level the pulley out without much issue. This meant that I needed to change the length of the front two hangars to adjust the level of the deck. I could have cut and rewelded the front bars to the correct length, but one of them was pretty mangled up and the holes were egged out pretty bad. In the short term, I bought a set of turnbuckles to replace the front bars and make the deck angle more adjustable.
This worked pretty well, but they are as short as they will go right now so it kind of defeats the advantage of adjustability. Once I can get to the steel store, I will probably measure out and build more correct looking ones but it is good enough for now.
With the pulleys leveled I got a correct length 1/2 inch belt installed and went out for a little test mowing. It mows quite nicely, but is pretty loud since the deck bearings are pretty rough. I'll probably tinker with it some more as I use it, but for now the turd has been polished.
It was abandoned by some tenants at a house that my dad was renting out, and I grabbed it to see if it would run. Other than removing a couple cups of water out of the fuel tank from a broken fuel cap, it started surprisingly easily. It has a 12.5hp Kawasaki engine that, other than a little puff of smoke on startup, runs and pulls like new.
The part where it gets weird and frustrating is the mower deck. It has either a 46" or 48" 3 blade deck that the John Deere dealer swears up and down doesn't exist. This tractor is only supposed to have either a 38'' or 42'' 2 blade deck. Their only guess is that this deck came off of a similar era numbered JD mower, but since those decks don't have ID plates of any kind, nobody can tell me what parts I need for it. The original problem that parked the mower was that it ate engine-to-deck belts very quickly. This is only made worse by the fact that the electric clutch pulley is sized for a 5/8ths inch belt while the deck pulley is sized for a 1/2 inch belt. Add to that the deck pulley sits at about a 15 degree angle leaning forward, since the front supports were too long and pushing the front of the deck down, and you have a frustrating piece of sh*t that totally isn't worth working on.
Luckily since COVID-19 happened and I have cleaned the garage of projects, this finally became worthwhile to mess with. I ended up pulling the stacked center pulley and finding one of the bearings were loose in the bore and rattling around, allowing the pulley to c*ck at an angle relative to the shaft that is attached to. The pulley really needs replaced but since I can't find that pulley, I cut up a worm gear clamp and hammered sections of it into the gap to center the bearing in the hole, then staked all around it with a punch to retain everything. That got the pulley straighter but still crooked to the clutch pulley. I then tried bending the shaft to change the angle but it was hard as hell, and would have likely cracked the deck mount before the shaft would have bent.
I then pulled the front mounts off and found that the deck would pivot off the back hangars and could level the pulley out without much issue. This meant that I needed to change the length of the front two hangars to adjust the level of the deck. I could have cut and rewelded the front bars to the correct length, but one of them was pretty mangled up and the holes were egged out pretty bad. In the short term, I bought a set of turnbuckles to replace the front bars and make the deck angle more adjustable.
This worked pretty well, but they are as short as they will go right now so it kind of defeats the advantage of adjustability. Once I can get to the steel store, I will probably measure out and build more correct looking ones but it is good enough for now.
With the pulleys leveled I got a correct length 1/2 inch belt installed and went out for a little test mowing. It mows quite nicely, but is pretty loud since the deck bearings are pretty rough. I'll probably tinker with it some more as I use it, but for now the turd has been polished.
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why do you lock the doors, anyone can crawl in where the floor use to be.........
Just to keep the kids out of it while we used the shop space and it was parked in the parking lot.
The students in my class are one thing, the others wandering the parking lot, thats another.
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