What did you do to your non-G body project today? [2021]
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Could run over to the maritime provinces to pick up some lobsters for dinner...
Nope. Because, I'd need full vaccination for that.
Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Government of Nova Scotia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
travel-declaration.novascotia.ca
F that noise.
Not really a "project" but this past week I swapped out the 18" wheels on my F150 for some 20" wheels off of a Lariat. Found them cheap on marketplace with lug nuts and TPMS sensors and couldn't pass them up. Bought 4 new Cooper Discoverer tires for them and mounted them up.
The only other things I've done on this truck are swapped the mirror caps from black to OEM chrome ones and I installed an OEM tailgate dampener. I'd like to swap the headlights and taillights to factory LEDs but the price is a bit much to swallow so I'll live with the halogens. I may get the front windows tinted but besides that I don't have any plans to change anything else.
The only other things I've done on this truck are swapped the mirror caps from black to OEM chrome ones and I installed an OEM tailgate dampener. I'd like to swap the headlights and taillights to factory LEDs but the price is a bit much to swallow so I'll live with the halogens. I may get the front windows tinted but besides that I don't have any plans to change anything else.
Somewhere there's a Buick wonder why those $$$'s wasn't spent on it...
Just ball busting, they do look good.So, looked at a 19k mile corvette today. The oil pan and starter were just about the only thing that I question mileage over. They have documents that lean towards mileage being original, and rest of the car look the part.
Thoughts? It's a NC car, and the radio speakers, exhaust, and tires are the only changed parts on the car.
Thoughts? It's a NC car, and the radio speakers, exhaust, and tires are the only changed parts on the car.
Struggling w/the wheel swap on the Model-A.
The back-story: A common thing people 'upgrade' on their Model-A's is switching to hydraulic brakes from the later model cars vs mechanical brakes. This upgrade also leads to updating the wheels.
The hydraulic brakes (juice brakes for Model-A folk) use a different (flatter) drum set-up. There are multiple 'how-to' threads for what needs to be done to allow the traditional spoke wheels to mount on the later drums. It requires an adapter & longer studs to run your early wheels w/o them failing. I'm not spending the $$ just to 'upgrade' to juice drum brakes (kits for all the parts needed are ~3k). There are used parts available for the conversion but used is used & the assessment of just how used they are is very subjective. Plan to replace almost everything which brings you to the point of the new 'kit'.
If I'm going to spend even half that kit amount, I'll do disc brakes up front & drums for the rear.
The current mechanical brakes work fine for how often the car is used/driven; I'm just not a fan of the original 19" skinny (< 4" wide) spoke wheels. I'm ok w/the later model 16 & 17" spokes but again don't like the limitation on sizes (4.5" max width on these). I've never ran the same size wheels F&R & don't plan to start w/this one. I'm going to run 4.50's in front; 6's for the rear. I'm also updating to new, period correct, solid steel wheels. I like the 'solid-steelie' look better & it was a common update done back in the 40's-50's.
But.... You can't just bolt a solid steel wheel up to the drums on a mechanical-brake car. The shape of the mechanical-brake drum/hub area doesn't allow the hub of the steelie to seat correctly. Using the same info for "how to put spoke wheels on juice drums", I'm trying to do a 180 from that. I plotted out/had spacers made & I obtained the same longer wheel studs the other conversion requires. The spacers will work. but after cutting out the studs from a 'practice' drum, the replacement wheel stud knurl size is much smaller vs what I removed. I'm sorting through various stud options now & also considering an alternative approach (clocking & re-drilling). Some mods just aren't as easy as we hope.
The back-story: A common thing people 'upgrade' on their Model-A's is switching to hydraulic brakes from the later model cars vs mechanical brakes. This upgrade also leads to updating the wheels.
The hydraulic brakes (juice brakes for Model-A folk) use a different (flatter) drum set-up. There are multiple 'how-to' threads for what needs to be done to allow the traditional spoke wheels to mount on the later drums. It requires an adapter & longer studs to run your early wheels w/o them failing. I'm not spending the $$ just to 'upgrade' to juice drum brakes (kits for all the parts needed are ~3k). There are used parts available for the conversion but used is used & the assessment of just how used they are is very subjective. Plan to replace almost everything which brings you to the point of the new 'kit'.
If I'm going to spend even half that kit amount, I'll do disc brakes up front & drums for the rear.
The current mechanical brakes work fine for how often the car is used/driven; I'm just not a fan of the original 19" skinny (< 4" wide) spoke wheels. I'm ok w/the later model 16 & 17" spokes but again don't like the limitation on sizes (4.5" max width on these). I've never ran the same size wheels F&R & don't plan to start w/this one. I'm going to run 4.50's in front; 6's for the rear. I'm also updating to new, period correct, solid steel wheels. I like the 'solid-steelie' look better & it was a common update done back in the 40's-50's.
But.... You can't just bolt a solid steel wheel up to the drums on a mechanical-brake car. The shape of the mechanical-brake drum/hub area doesn't allow the hub of the steelie to seat correctly. Using the same info for "how to put spoke wheels on juice drums", I'm trying to do a 180 from that. I plotted out/had spacers made & I obtained the same longer wheel studs the other conversion requires. The spacers will work. but after cutting out the studs from a 'practice' drum, the replacement wheel stud knurl size is much smaller vs what I removed. I'm sorting through various stud options now & also considering an alternative approach (clocking & re-drilling). Some mods just aren't as easy as we hope.
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Success!! Pretty much a combination of patiently determined obstinate stubborness but the last tweak on the TV cable that I did this pm did the trick. Now I recall why I hated the T200R4 so much. When I bought my Monte someone had b*gg*r*d with the carb and the TV cable was so far out of adjustment that the shifts about broke your neck. Forget how long it took me to sort that out but the trial and error process was about the same.
Thinking now that I ought to take a peak under the Distributor Cap because it has been longer than I can remember since I did anything with it.
May still get to pull the Monte's diff this weekend and park it somewhere for cleaning and delousing. Good idea for a rain day when it is cold.
Nick
Thinking now that I ought to take a peak under the Distributor Cap because it has been longer than I can remember since I did anything with it.
May still get to pull the Monte's diff this weekend and park it somewhere for cleaning and delousing. Good idea for a rain day when it is cold.
Nick
Went through this whole business of early juice versus late juice upgrades for Model A brakes with my buddy, Model A P/U owner. He had the early juice brakes, which were not self adjusting, and wanted the later units, which were. Pulled them from a 47-48 more door out at a private yard back in the summer of 19 and that is as far as the project went. Between Covid and Arthritis he has lost much of his drive to do stuff. Think he still wants to move forward on it but he has other things on his mind right now. As for the wheels, pretty sure his rims are 19's. He used to run the shorter height units but didn't like them, plus I think he had to do some adapting to get them to index correctly and the lug nuts to set down on the studs but not squash or deform the tapered shoulder they abutted against. Again, this is all history from as much as five years or more ago and not something I get into regularly. Now if it was a B body...........
Nick
Nick
This one still has the mechanical brakes so no hydraulics @ all. Just a bunch of levers & pivots that require operator adjustment. Heck.... The brake linings are a different material vs. a traditional drum brake 'shoe'. From my research, the hydraulics started after '38.
Crazy to think of hydraulic 4whl drum brakes (self adjusting or not) as advanced 😳 .
Even crazier is that people pay around (or more) than that $3k price tag for a 'new' kit that has all the parts for the swap. $3k for hydraulic drum brakes??
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