What did you do to your non-G Body project today [2024 edition]

[mclellan83]

Well had an adventure with my buddy that helped me with the motor on the Monte and currently has it sitting at his shop for the winter. So when he asked if I'd go for a trip to DC to drive back with him in a Jeep he was buying for the wife I was more than willing to go. So we flew out at almost 11 with one of the quickest flights I've been on, got to the dealer he was getting it at and dealt with the normal BS of attempted upsell and offer more financing. Which worked in my advantage cause they knew what they were doing and had 3 smoking hot finance "managers" that I got to see walking back and forth between customers. Once they had him jump through all the hoops even though he was already pre-approved from Capital One we were able to get on our way, the ride wasn't as bad as either of us were expecting and except for hitting a snow storm on the way back it was all pretty smooth sailing. Oh, and the reason for the trip is that even though he found better deals closer the wife wanted this color with the 6 speed

 

[mclellan83]

Ordered one of those super high power LED lights for the garage door, it wouldn't fit properly as it was so ended up buying an extension and now I got tons of light and able to make it so it doesn't blind me when pulling in

 

[86LK]

update:
cleaned out all the trash in the truck, found about $2 in pennies and dimes, some new headlight bulbs in packaging....Bonus!...found the blue title from the 3rd owner who never registered it. so the impound yard was sending tow paperwork to the 2nd owner and his lien company, who had already signed off on it, all the time 😁
even came with a small fishing kayak in the back, which I should be able to sell for about $75

looked up all the RPO codes after getting home....came with 20" wheels, towing, 5.3, 4L60e, 3.73 rear positraction limited slip, auto climate, rear seat stereo in console


got the tires mounted, poured another gallon of coolant in, it sucked it down.....ooooookay, poured 1/2-gal of water in and it stops sucking it down. start engine to circulate, it sucks it down, I pour the rest of the water in...sucks it down, then part of another gallon to top off the overflow because now I know I have a leak in the overflow at the least as I can see it dripping underneath. grab another gallon of water for the 8 miles home. my buddy drives it home with me watching the rear view mirror and talking to him on the phone all the way. get a half mile from the house and the temp starts going north of 210 just as we top a steep hill into my 'hood. I noticed "smoke" coming from the front drivers wheel that last halfmile, told him to get it parked in my driveway and shut it off. we make it, pop the hood, and can see where antifreeze is leaking out of the radiator and getting that whole front corner wet, and I can hear it boiling and popping in the upper radiator hose. I think the only reason we made it home that easy was because the outside temp was 44.

so now I think I know why the truck was abandoned by the owner at the apartment complex they towed it from. looks like a new radiator, overflow tank, hoses, and coolant . with that and tires, my total cost so far is <$4400

get it fixed, get it registered and titled and charged sales tax by the DMV. but since the tow yard are good guys they don't fill in the auction price and let buyers do it. I think it's worth.....$500? sounds good to me!

the good: got a solid truck as a spare driver that even after I clean it up, fix stuff and use it, I can probably double my money. trucks are gold here in Texas
the bad: gotta fix stuff, possibly some bad front ball joints

update:

so, finally got around to taking a look at the 07 Silverado truck since bringing it home 5 days ago. haven't turned it on or anything. average temp has been in the 40-50s with scattered rain and some fog. checking oil, which I hadn't done since driving home 5 days ago, I find what appears to be tiny moisture droplets/air-bubbles on the dipstick, specifically on the bottom quarter of the stick along the edge. I drove it home with that 1 qt low and it still reads 1 qt low so no changes there.
wiped it clean and scrubbed it dry, checked again, yep still got tiny droplets. added 3/4-qt of oil, checked 20 mins later, still have droplets, but not showing water on dipstick or milkshake. inside of oil fill cap shows a medium brown film residue.

I know the truck was towed a year ago and pretty much sat the whole time. mileage is unknown because the PRNDL display is out even though truck runs and gauges work, but known info indicates 200K+.

thoughts?

 

[Ugly1]

update:

so, finally got around to taking a look at the 07 Silverado truck since bringing it home 5 days ago. haven't turned it on or anything. average temp has been in the 40-50s with scattered rain and some fog. checking oil, which I hadn't done since driving home 5 days ago, I find what appears to be tiny moisture droplets/air-bubbles on the dipstick, specifically on the bottom quarter of the stick along the edge. I drove it home with that 1 qt low and it still reads 1 qt low so no changes there.
wiped it clean and scrubbed it dry, checked again, yep still got tiny droplets. added 3/4-qt of oil, checked 20 mins later, still have droplets, but not showing water on dipstick or milkshake. inside of oil fill cap shows a medium brown film residue.

I know the truck was towed a year ago and pretty much sat the whole time. mileage is unknown because the PRNDL display is out even though truck runs and gauges work, but known info indicates 200K+.

thoughts?

May just be condensation from temperature changes. Do a cheap oil change and give it a good drive to heat it up a couple times then change it again? Or do a pressure check on the cooling system cold see if it drops and then again when hot because of the aluminum heads and intake.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

May just be condensation from temperature changes. Do a cheap oil change and give it a good drive to heat it up a couple times then change it again? Or do a pressure check on the cooling system cold see if it drops and then again when hot because of the aluminum heads and intake.

Intake is plastic on them Engines and it's dry, no coolant in it.

 

[Supercharged111]

update:

so, finally got around to taking a look at the 07 Silverado truck since bringing it home 5 days ago. haven't turned it on or anything. average temp has been in the 40-50s with scattered rain and some fog. checking oil, which I hadn't done since driving home 5 days ago, I find what appears to be tiny moisture droplets/air-bubbles on the dipstick, specifically on the bottom quarter of the stick along the edge. I drove it home with that 1 qt low and it still reads 1 qt low so no changes there.
wiped it clean and scrubbed it dry, checked again, yep still got tiny droplets. added 3/4-qt of oil, checked 20 mins later, still have droplets, but not showing water on dipstick or milkshake. inside of oil fill cap shows a medium brown film residue.

I know the truck was towed a year ago and pretty much sat the whole time. mileage is unknown because the PRNDL display is out even though truck runs and gauges work, but known info indicates 200K+.

thoughts?

Drain the oil, see what comes out.

 

[MrSony]

Added some washers to the lights to straighten them out, and found the torsion bars were nearly bottomed out on the low side. raised em up quite a bit, about a finger width from max, uh, insertion... and the plow mount hasn't bottomed out yet so I call that a win. Gained about 1.5" at least.

 

[86LK]

May just be condensation from temperature changes. Do a cheap oil change and give it a good drive to heat it up a couple times then change it again? Or do a pressure check on the cooling system cold see if it drops and then again when hot because of the aluminum heads and intake.

spoke with the Commercial Parts Salesman at parts store I work at, and showed him pics. he's thinking condensation too. add some engine flush, drive a few miles, oil change.


edit for clarification: for those who don't know, the Commercial Parts Pro sales people are those who have-been/are (experienced) mechanics but for one reason or another (family, money, tired of getting dirty, etc) have moved into the CPP role, getting/selling parts for automotive commercial customers.

 

[CopperNick]

Yesterday I cracked into the front brakes on my dually. The steering wheel would shake when the brakes got hot, but no jumpy pedal. New one on me but OK. Fvckin GM in their infinite wisdom decided to take a simple job to the next level.

View attachment 233968

So after beating the ever living snausages out of these things I got them out at the hangar and brought the sub assemblies home to further break them down.



View attachment 233972

Not too shabby for a 97. After cleaning and painting the hub faces and wire wheeling the studs I got this.

View attachment 233967

Now that's more like it. Next up was the hub extender dealios.

View attachment 233971View attachment 233970

They cleaned up just fine too. I still have to knock those studs back in too, but while cleaning them up I noticed this.

View attachment 233969

I had 9 of the 9.8 and 7 of the 10.9. 3 in 1 wheel, 4 in the other. The 10.9 cleaned up better, so I'm led to believe that the 9.8 was factory. I won't be able to reinstall until Wednesday as the truck lives 20 minutes away.

Use the 10.9's if you can as they are the stronger of the two grades. Originally metric fasteners came in 8.8, about equal to grade 2, then 9.8, around a grade 5, and finally 10.9 which is supposed to correspond with grade 8.

The thing to appreciate here is that the cross is not precise in terms of rated strength. The other thing to bear in mind is that the harder the capscrew gets the more prone it is to snap rather than bend. You do get a higher torque tolerance value but the trade off for that is a loss of ductility. The last point is that, being wheel studs, the shown rating might be nominal and not honestly reflect the actual strength of the fastener. Given what wheel studs have to do for a living, strong is good, broken is not.



Nick

 

[CopperNick]

You didn't mention it but at some point someone did a full fade-away on the front fenders. On a stock 36, the front fender would have ended at the firewall. In the pictures you posted, the side shot shows the front fender running completely back and shrinking in height as it does so before it dead ends at the beginning of the rear fender.

That is a post war custom body treatment that takes a Lot of work to do and get right. Basically those sponsons had to be shaped from sheet metal and then a subframe attached to the body to hold and support them. If done during the era, then it's a lot of brazing or heavy solder work as they did not have Mig or Tig to call upon. The seam and supporting struts where the sponson and body metal met had to be tight and strong or the extra weight could crack the seam, even though the body work was probably lead.

Back in the fifties, before lawyers and liability became endemic, the little books would often post how-to articles and showed how things like that modification were done. They got into details, which doesn't often happen much anymore because of publisher fears that some no-load will try to do what the article is discussing, break or damage something, or do the work improperly and get injured or dead as a result, and up pops a lawsuit.

The sharing of knowledge was one of the reasons the car clubs came to be; if you didn't know how to do something on your car, someone else in the club might and the knowledge would get shared. Sort of what goes on here, only we do it mostly by remote control, otherwise known as the forums.


Nick