What did you do to your non-G body project today? [2023]

[CopperNick]

Rotated back into shift just in time to experience the Friday Follies on the local roads. End of the day, last stop an elective, running the perimeter highway at pack speed, more or less keeping up with traffic and trying to keep from being trampled in the rush, and up pops a highway cop who, as I pass by, pops off all his lights, more wattage than a Christmas Tree. Thing for me is that he is on the west side of the multi-lane and I am running east in the passing lane because I am passing. Fast as I can, execute the pass and pop back into the right lane. No one seems to be slowing down any and no lights in the mirrors so keep moving, duckin' and weavin'.

Off shift, brief detour to the East End Burger Stand for some seriously good french fries and a couple of gut bombers, and done for the day.

Home, Down the fries, and head for the shop.

A close inspection of the one side on the rad cradle tells me that the Rust Mort did not do its job as well as I had wanted it to. Bark up the compressor and plug in the air drill with a cone body wire wheel mounted up and start digging into the various nooks and crannies one more time (actually more like a couple of times more before I was satisfied) Got the surfaces to a degree of clean that I knew would accept the Mort and produce a good result and laid on another coat to see what was to be seen. Looked pretty good for a useable surface just before I shut down for the evening.

Also took some time to revisit the bumper with the DA and some disks to strip off the POR 15 drippings from places they had no business being. Usually that takes you back to bare metal to accomplish but that was where I wanted to be anyway so all good there.

The oddest thing is that while I was in the shop, the temp dropped from Tee Shirt comfortable to "Where's my Sweat Shirt?" My body does not like such abrupt shifts and may be warning me that there is rain about to faill in the immediate future..

So tomorrow is the first coat of POR15 for the one side of the rad cradle and the second for the other. And maybe some Mig time to get that doubler strip for the lower edge of the bumper set into place. There is a cutaway down there that is the inlet for air flow to the A/C intercooler and apparently a lot of crud had accumulated up in there over the years, to the point where I was actually suprised that the A/C still was working as well as it does. Cleaning the intercooler took some serious applications of Castrol Super Degreaser and a lot of air gun work. No high pressure air for this. The topic may or may not have been discussed when I posted the installation pics for my compressor but, when I plumbed it, I set up two circuits, one high pressure at around 95 psi and the other, low, at around 35-40. Low air is useful for cleaning purposes where fragile or small parts are involved so they don't try to fly off into oblivion.


So before I commence to trying to put it all back together, maybe a few pictures????? Hmmmm, could be.



Nick

 

[jlcustomz]

Getting back to my dirtbike chopper drift trike project, which will eventually ride in the el camino under my bedcover with a custom lift mechanism. Started out as a lowered dirtbike with go kart axle attached to swingarm. It felt very controlled this way, could do 360's in my double driveway right next to my truck without worrying about hitting it.
Next lowered back of frame, started forward controls etc & couldnt work on for a while. Started back on it recently and raked the front & did swinger chopper front & routed exhaust under seat.
Gave it a little try barely put together & it lost some of the control it used to have. Traded in a little function for looks. So I tacked the removed frame part back in & removed approx 4" from fork tubes, Still has extra rake from fork length, will try as is after finishing a few other things.

 

[jlcustomz]

First pic was the latest, Here the pic with extra rake that didn;t handle like I wanted.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Got into the Z06..

It appears the shaft of the motor where it rides in the casing siezes up and it sticks. Only thing I can see. Couldn't find my white lithium so Teflon infused silicone dielectric grease should work.
Was pretty runny even with outside temp so hopefully this stays working. Motor housing is sealed on the end so it won't leak out.

 

[CopperNick]

The S-10 front rad cradle and frame horns with their first coat of POR15 applied. Although appearing to be shiny, this is actually a semi-gloss finish once dried. The cradle and horns will get another coat of the POR tomorrow and then a double top coat of the Krylon Anti-Rust Flat Black as protection for the POR from U-V and abrasion.

My new to me replacement front bumper. The edges and mounting points have already received a coat of POR15. In the last pic of this group, you can see the doubler strip that I made by cutting away the mail slot from the old bumper. Before the next layer of POR, while the metal is still clean and shiny? it will get welded in place right over the current mail slot to double the thickness of the metal there and add some meat/mass to the structure there.

What many may not understand is that the bumper metal that the factory used is only about a gauge or two thicker than body metal. This stuff is thin!! Although it simulates the appearance of a bumper, it is more of a cover that will collapse in an accident. Not accusing the factory of nefarious purposes here but if you want to sell new to customers on a regular basis then flimsy is the way to go; how many cars has this board seen written off because the vehicle was in a bumper tag accident and the insurance company threw a check at it rather than pay for the fix?

This sort of followed me home last Monday while I was over at the yard poaching heavy frame clips for the bumper bolts. Mine were still serviceable but nasty looking and it was simpler to find some in newer/cleaner condition. At this point I had already dismounted the Chev Emblem because the insert had popped out and gone down the road. The inserts can still be had so a new one might be in order. The exisitng grille has its one intact so ?? swap??

Finally, a pair of shots of my second, now also deceased Pre-oiler. Evidently, even if not used regularly, they have to have a certain default amount of air present in the air side of the tank or it can overpressurize and fail. When I did the post mortem, the piston had been pushed all the way to the bottom and was totally up against the end cap.
The consistent weak point seems to be the threads. Instead of the threads being cut as close to the inner surface as possible while still getting a complete thread form, they are actually sub-surface which removes body metal from the tube in the process. iI does provide a positive stop for the cap and the threads are cut so precisely that between them, the cap and the body, there is almost and interference fit. The pictures show the blow out and it is right at the bottom of the threads just before the shoulder. The bright spots are where the thread tore as the cap blew out.

So totally mea culpa here. When I had to shift the luber to gain access to rework the rad overflow reservoir, I did re- pressurize the tank but the instructions said to use an initial fill of 7-10 psi and then fill the tank with oil which the engine does automatically when it starts up. Once the engine has fed oil back into the tank, the oil will act on the floating piston located between the two chambers to change the final pressure to something close to what the engine generates while running. Which it didn't. More on that in a paragraph to come.


The thing to understand with this pre-oiler/luber is that the valve on the oil side has no "OFF" Strange as it might seem, this valve is a two way unit but is always open. This means that, when the oiler has been switched on, the valve is open to the engine and the air pressure is able to force the oil back into the engine to move it into the oil passages and galleries. However, when the engine is running and you turn the valve switch to Off, what actually happens is that the valve only changes the direction of its internal flow to allow oil to return to the storage chamber. This event is registered by the reading change on the air gauge which goes to Zero with the oil gone and returns back to whatever reading it ought to have when the oil returns.

What I was used to seeing on the gauge was as much as 50 PSI; way too much according to the set up instructions, they specified 7-10. Here is the contradiction.

Moroso, one of several mfgrs who make a Pre-Lube device, has a show and tell video that explains how their system works but which can be applies generally to others. What they did was to fabricate the reservolr in clear heavy Acrylic Plastic so viewers could see what was going on internally. You can clearly see the floating pistion, located inside the tank, that moves back and forth according to demand and return. What caught my attention was the change in location that that piston would show if the air PSI was changed. At 7-10 psi, the piston came to rest at about the 1/3 point, meaning 2/3 of the tank held oil. At 20 psi, that changed to more of a 50/50 ratio or proportion, meaning more or less equal amounts of oil and air. In a 2 quart tank, roughly a quart of oil and a "quart" of air. Of course, more air, less oil. I have no real idea how much oil would be present in the tank at 50 psi, maybe a pint, but the velocity at which it would leave the tank and charge the oil passages and galleries would be a lot faster than if the resident pressure was lower.

So the trade off in air vs oil is more pressure equals less oil but faster oil feed to the engine prior to first start.

For anyone who has made it this far, take a large gulp of coffee and a hot lap around the desk to wake up.

Apparently the only way I can totally isolate the tank is to remove the electric switch and go with a manual gate or guillotine type ball valve. That would turn the tank into a "by hand" operated adjunct that I would have to manually manipulate to actuate and shut off. The advantage to that is, with the manual valve in the closed position, the engine oil pressure would no longer be actively trying to introduce additional oil into the oil side of the tank. Remember that two-way valve? It's primary fault is that it allows that oil flow to continue to try to happen. Shut off valve; OFF is OFF. That divorces the ability of the engine, while running to attempt to push oil back into the tank beyond the point that the tank would be full. To me that minimizes the chance of over-pressurization of the oil side of tank which might have been part of the reason it failed.

Summarily, the tank is scrap; it cannot be saved or salvaged. Mis-Quoting Monty Python, " It is an ex-tank, it has ceased to be."

At this point, should I elect to acquire another tank, it will have to get fitted with an oil compliant ON-OFF Ball or Guillotine type valve. Guillotine? Look down the throat of the valve and you see a flat slide whereas a Ball valve is a spherical item. Some valves are metal to metal, others have nylon seals or seats. Think metal to metal as oil can eat nylon or plastic.

Anyway, that is the tale of DOA pre-luber.



Nick

 

[joesregalproject]

Wanted to work on the car today but it was rainy and humid and there was stuff to do around the house. Got the driveway sealed last week, finally able to drive on it today. Somehow the stuff managed to stick despite the countless quarts of oil that the Exxon Val-Dodge leaked all over it.

Cleaned out the chicken coop, it was long overdue. Chickens are happy now. These hens are 4 years old now and still laying eggs consistently.

And I trimmed back the bottom of these four pines on the far side of the yard and cut down a fifth one entirely. They were overgrown and had a lot of dead branches. Also there are some really nice walnut trees on either side of them that I'd like to let grow in.

Unfortunately while I was cutting, I found some of these guys. Spotted Lanternflies. Highly invasive, super destructive insects. They are native to China but hitched a ride to the US a few years ago. They started in Philadelphia but now they are all over PA, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia and slowly spreading outward. If you see them, kill them.

 

[ck80]

Wanted to work on the car today but it was rainy and humid and there was stuff to do around the house. Got the driveway sealed last week, finally able to drive on it today. Somehow the stuff managed to stick despite the countless quarts of oil that the Exxon Val-Dodge leaked all over it.
View attachment 225373
Cleaned out the chicken coop, it was long overdue. Chickens are happy now. These hens are 4 years old now and still laying eggs consistently.
View attachment 225372
And I trimmed back the bottom of these four pines on the far side of the yard and cut down a fifth one entirely. They were overgrown and had a lot of dead branches. Also there are some really nice walnut trees on either side of them that I'd like to let grow in.
View attachment 225374
Unfortunately while I was cutting, I found some of these guys. Spotted Lanternflies. Highly invasive, super destructive insects. They are native to China but hitched a ride to the US a few years ago. They started in Philadelphia but now they are all over PA, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia and slowly spreading outward. If you see them, kill them.
View attachment 225377

Downside to the walnuts is they poison certain other plants and trees underneath through their roots.

If you plan to stick around there long enough, take that into consideration with what you plant or allow to grow nearby.

 

[ck80]

Wanted to work on the car today but it was rainy and humid and there was stuff to do around the house. Got the driveway sealed last week, finally able to drive on it today. Somehow the stuff managed to stick despite the countless quarts of oil that the Exxon Val-Dodge leaked all over it.
View attachment 225373
Cleaned out the chicken coop, it was long overdue. Chickens are happy now. These hens are 4 years old now and still laying eggs consistently.
View attachment 225372
And I trimmed back the bottom of these four pines on the far side of the yard and cut down a fifth one entirely. They were overgrown and had a lot of dead branches. Also there are some really nice walnut trees on either side of them that I'd like to let grow in.
View attachment 225374
Unfortunately while I was cutting, I found some of these guys. Spotted Lanternflies. Highly invasive, super destructive insects. They are native to China but hitched a ride to the US a few years ago. They started in Philadelphia but now they are all over PA, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia and slowly spreading outward. If you see them, kill them.
View attachment 225377

It bothered me while I was bored awake tonight, neck and shoulder are killing me.

Look up Jugalone, its the name of the compound the tree produces, and what your plant palette should be tolerant of. Basically the root zone and the drip line, and/or anywhere you dump leaves and the rotting flesh of the walnut fruit casings.

 

[CopperNick]

My S-10 rad cradle and front frame horns. At this point they have been stripped using an air drill fitted with a cone style wire wheel, two coats of Rust Mort have been applied, then two coats of POR15, and finally two coats of Krylon Flat Black Anti Rust. The wiring harnesses were masked off as were the fender tips, just for a little security in the event of overspray.

The masking tape will remain on the wire looms until the bumper is installed and get stripped off for the rest of the assembly process.

BOOM!




Nick

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Snagged this LS6 Intake as is local for $100, guy pulled it from a 2001 Corvette Coupe so since it came from a LS1 it's all LS1 parts according to him.

Part number and flat bottom said otherwise..😎

View attachment 224543

Took that LS6 Intake and traded it for this 10/22. Has a case with it too.

Barter and trade is where it's at, rifle is worth more than the money I could get for it. 👍