Old Blue - 1984 XL Flareside

[grumpin]

Gsmblue wrote

grumpin wrote

You should come ride in my Bronco, noisiest vehicle I have ever owned!

YES PLEASE

Bring ear plugs!

[Gsmblue]

I’ll bring the wife, she can drown out any noise on her day 😆

[ckuske]

Resolution achieved with a razor blade:

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Champion-radiator-install-tp104218.html

[Gary Lewis]

[ckuske]

Just catching those interested up with what I've been up to.  

I've painted the interior sheet metal/floor pan and doors with the original color paint (3L).  Don't mind all the tape - just there for masking and to keep wires off the floor as I painted.  



I've also wired in the push-button for my electric fuel pump (to get fuel to the carb for a few seconds after long sits between starts)

Today I hope to lubricate the window regulators - they aren't bad, but can probably use some new grease.

I have my SEM paint on order form Vinylpro for the dash/interior plastic, that should hopefully be here by the weekend.  I will paint the dash and then reinstall the instrument cluster, and try to start 'er up. (Been about 18 months at this point)  ​My daughter helped me change the oil last weekend.

Once I confirm things are OK at the front of the truck, I will continue to paint the rest of the interior.  I also have Dynamat to lay down on the floor and door panels.

I have also gotten the stock  wheels from Rob (Sac79 - thanks Rob!) which I will be taking to get blasted and powder coated, I'll post more on that as it develops.

The basic plan is to finish the interior minus carpet and new speaker wiring, then move onto fixing the rear half of the truck.  That mainly involves new bed wood, replacing one crossmember, and fixing a leaky diff.

OK, now that I've put all that out there, I am now accountable to actually do it!  Still having fun though.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, you are accountable.  But in what timeframe?  We just want to help you along.  

Seriously though, it looks good!  You are doing a really thorough job, and the truck is going to be a pleasure to drive when you are done.  

[ckuske]

Well, I completed about half my goals for September that I set for myself. In my life, that’s pretty good.

I’d like to get the dash reinstalled, the truck started, and the Dynamat laid in October. I’m guessing the bed and rear end will keep me busy through the rest of the year. After that, shake the bugs out and hope for next paint next year.

I’m trying to be thorough. It is my Dads truck afterall, and he was a perfectionist. The 16 year old me would have shaken his head. But, turns out the older I get the more like my Dad I become. I’m ok with that... Now my kids just shake their head at me working on this old thing. The family is behind me at the end of the day, even if they secretly wonder when the Amazon and UPS deliveries will stop.

[ckuske]

While I have the dash out, I'm wondering if I should replace the blend door.  I think it is working still and I will verify once I have the engine running (as I'll have vacuum to test).  It works though - leave it, or replace?  I think I know the answer but I'll ask anyway

[Gary Lewis]

They are a pain to change later, but easy now.  I would replace it, for sure. And I’d use a piano hinge so it won’t break.

[ckuske]

OK, I'll do that.  I'll buy the piano hinge etc.  In the meantime, I've ordered the SEM paint from Vinyl Pro so I can reinstall my dash (and paint everything else, too)

I'm getting new flooring in my house next week, and I probably won't make any headway on the truck until the dust settles from that... there goes my accountability.

[Gary Lewis]

Sounds like a good plan.

Wasn't Vinyl Pro easy to work with?

[ckuske]

They were indeed!  I'm finally getting to the point to be able to actually start painting interior parts.

It's a long story, but I was diverted by the flooring/painting work on our house for a month - all seemed to settle down.  Then, I was in Las Vegas for re:Invent (AWS conference) and my wife called me pretty upset - there was a water leak inside a wall and was there was wet drywall and water under our new floors.... Bottom line, a crew member of the flooring guy put a baseboard nail through our hot water supply pipe in my sons closet.  It didn't spring a leak (that we knew of at least) until the nail corroded to the point that water was able to get by... so, now our floor is torn back out in two bedrooms to be replaced.  Thankfully the flooring guy took responsibility and is covering it....  Given all that, not much time for the truck.

But, there has been progress:

1.  I showed a friend at work the piano hinge contraption.  He asked to borrow it and two days later came back with a 3-D printed  hinge and door that is WAY better than what I made with my limited tools.  He is printing me an ABS version that is more temperature resistant and has a few tweaks to the dimensions.

2.  To test the door to make sure it worked smoothly, I needed to run the engine!  So, I finally filled the radiator, crossed my fingers, and said a little prayer.  I used my new electric "priming" pump that's on a push button in the cab, pressed the pedal down once, turned the key and the engine started and ran for the first time in about 2.5 years!  I had a few little issues - the transmission cooling line fitting on the radiator wasn't cinched enough so it was leaking at first.  And even after re-torquing the valve covers, there is some burning oil near the #4 cylinder.  I'm not sure yet if it is residual from before I retightened the covers, or is still leaking.  I also put ThermoCure into the radiator and did a radiator flush.  It got a decent amount of crud out, but not a ton thankfully.  I have the Champion in-line radiator filter, and the screen is catching some old scale/rust.  I have to do one more flush I think with water before I'm ready to put 50/50 antifreeze.

That was a long way of saying that the door works, so now I can paint the dash and start painting/reassembling each interior part!  I hope to post updates more frequently now, and fix that valve cover issue.  Of course it's on the side with almost all the emissions junk, so taking it back off to diagnose will be a bear...

[Gary Lewis]

Yippee!  I'm glad it is all starting to come together.

But that is a bummer on the floors.  Sure glad the guy took responsibility for his actions.  That is probably an expensive process to hire done.

You'll have to post a pic of the hinge for the door.  Better yet, maybe your friend will share the file?

[ckuske]

I have it pseudo-mounted in the truck, I'll take a picture in the next day or two.  My friend has an idea to try to print them for sale, but I'll ask him if he'd consider it.  He drew it up in FreeCAD but I don't have really any more details than that.

[Gary Lewis]

If he's going to sell them then he won't want you to post the file here.  And that makes sense.

But we'd still like to see pics.  And if he does sell them be sure to let us know.

[kramttocs]

Yes, would be good to see what it looks like.

Did you take a big whiff of the Thermocure after draining?

[ckuske]

Oh my gosh it's gross... I ran almost 7 gallons through it and there's still a whiff.  I gave up finally.

[ckuske]

Here are some pictures of the proof of concept, there will be another print after having to shift things up and down a little bit etc.  The current one does work, but the vacuum arm gets a little caught up when the engine first starts, where the arm connects to the door needs to be brought up some, the next version will fix that. Hopefully I get the new version after Christmas

[Gary Lewis]

Chris - That looks great!  Ought to work forever.

But is the door stiff enough to not deform if you put foam on it?  I'm just wondering if it might eventually fail due to flexing.

[ckuske]

Hi Gary,

Yes, it's actually pretty rigid.  Only at the edges does it have much give, and maybe 2-3mm when you apply a decent amount of force.  Actually I've found that the little bit of flex helps, as you have to angle the door into the plenum, stand it on edge (normal orientation) and finagle with getting the vacuum motor arm set up with the pin holding it in place.  If it was totally rigid it may be more difficult to get it installed.  I forget which plastic this is currently... I think it's PLA.  The hopefully final revision with be printed in ABS for a better temperature range that it can handle.  We also thinking about putting some raised walls around the back side of the screw holes, that way nuts can be pressed into place and machine screws can be used instead of the sheet metal style that the hinge originally had...

As soon as I get the new version I'll post pictures of that, and then I imagine we will want a tester or two to verify fit in another truck.