[sammons]

Thanks Tom. I've kind of strayed away from looking for 2nd gen Camaro/Firebirds for fear i couldn't get out of them. Have been searching for Monte Carlo/Chevelle/Elcamino instead.  Luckily they sit a little higher than i was thinking, a heck of a lot higher than C3 Vettes.

Tom got me my new Ign switch lastnight, but the rest of the locksets haven't come in yet. Did some trading for a new 800cca 6yr warrenty Battery, those got expensive.... this would have cost $225.🤯 Gonna drop oil and drain overnight. Then Tom told me to put plug back in and pour a half gallon mix of Marvel Mystery oil and gasoline, (qt down each valve cover) and let set overnight before draining that. He said he would then pull all my spark plugs and spray down the cylinders before we try and start it. He grabbed me a gallon of Delvac 15/40 diesel oil and another qt of Marvel to do the fire up to clean things good during the wake up. 🤞

I checked current price on the 3 bags of Soft Seal weather strips that were in the trunk, (roofrail surround L&R, door L&R, and trunk) $214.

[sixball]

That is pretty darn nice! Unmolested and clean. Good find.

I finally got the Kubota steering box back together today. Hope to get it all working tomorrow. It has been the hardest small repair I have done in a long time. Probably doing it without removing the whole steering column and box was not the best way. It was certainly a test and I'll know soon if I passed. I have a "shop manual" for it but it is almost useless. It basically says take it apart, fix the broken stuff, and put it back together. Nothing about how to do anything.

[sammons]

I'll bet you'll get it all done Sixball. A test of patience😁

Speaking of.... thought i would do a quick rear tire/wheel swap to see if my coupe rears would fit on the back or if i had to get smaller tires. No go, under the center cap its rusted to axle hub
 Sprayed it all down last night with 2 different penetrating sprays, nug nuts loose, dropped down jack half dozen times, shoved car side to side, beat as hard as i could with 2 lb sledge, tried air hammering it. Give up lastnight, resprayed overnight soak. This morn tried again  even hooked p.u. up to wheel and yanked. All i managed to do was scoot car over. I'll let it set that way for couple hours with tension on. Got no torch here to heat it up with. Then give up and wait for Tom next week.

[sixball]

When I bought my '70 Blazer new it had 16 1/2" wheels I hated them and changed them out for regular 15" steel Chevy pickup wheels. Those wheels stuck on the center hole on the rear axles. I had to pound them off with a big sledge.  Every wheel I tried was  the same. One day I'd had enough so I pulled both rear axles and turned the center of the axle where wheels bound down just a bit and all was well. When that reared finally bit the dust I replaced it with a Dana 44 from a GMC 4x4 and there was no issue. It is still in there. I have no idea why the original axle was that way.

I finally got the tractor back together and working. With out a doubt the hardest simple repair I have ever done. It  took all day yesterday to put in 7 of 9 bolts that hold brackets for the throttle and fuel filter. Hard to reach and hard ti see, Could do both at the same time. I lost the other two in the dirt. My magnets could not locate them.  I was able to move the tractor without them and went back this morning with my metal detector and found them. All is well I was dragging weeds this afternoon! 

[sammons]

I had a few tight fitters in the past. This one, just the one wheel. I believe it was from the center cap holding moisture and rust stuck it. The worst i had was my 77 Thunderbird with those factory aluminum fin wheels. I went to put new tires on and both rears had bonded together due to disimilar metal thing. One i finally beat it off from back side pounding sledge with a freind holding a 2x4 on the wheel. The other beating, spray, heat just didn't budge. I left lugnuts light loose, did a couple burnouts and a little wiggle wag down tje block and it finally let loose. Lot of wire brushing and anti-siez going back on.

Glad you got her back together Sixball. Ya that can't make the hands work at certain angles and just going by feel gets harder as a guy gets older and lose dexderity. I'm always moving stuff out of the way to find all the bolts/ screws i lose.

I got the rest of the rear seats cleaned up. The are presentable now. If i have to i do believe they would take well to a redie for the sin fade. I'm finding i am missing way more interior pieces than i thought. Got to make a good list. These dang steering wheels ate the stickiest nasty getting things in the 70s. Had some C10 pickups same. Mine was almost black from the goo. I started with lacquer thinner/ acetone and white wall cleaner. Slow going. Told my neighbor i was about to try gasoline and a match, problem solved. Then i thought about what i said, i hadn't ever tried gas. It worked even better.  When Tom takes it off to replace my ign switch i'll take and clean up the all the nooks and crannys.

[sixball]

That looks a lot better and doesn't have the cracks that go withs old stock steering wheels. Good work there!

Yes this tractor job was a real wakeup call about old failing hands. My guitar playing should have been a hint of what is coming. 

[sammons]

Yep, thats what happened to me first. Started missimg notes on fretboard as fingers went south, then basic cords, no longer could fimger pick then...  couldn't hold pick anymore. So much for self entertainment🫤

[sixball]

I'm not giving up yet. the guitar part is better than it was a year ago. I have trouble holding a pick but I mostly finger pick anyway. I don't use finger picks either. Going to go to light gauge strings on my old Martin that I had the neck reset on a few years ago. I guess I should see a doc and see if I can get a little more time. I wish I had recorded a bunch of stuff a few years ago. I could sit around and listen to me.

[sammons]

Thats what i was down to, the easiest, best sound was D'afdario light gauge phosphor bronze. The don't last as long as the mediums but i've had good luck with them i keep an extra set in my Ovation's case for guests.

Yeah i missed a couple recording sessions with my cousins band, wish i didn't chicken out. But i wasn't with the official band. I just jammed with them when i was intown.

Oh heck, guitars and cars. I get destracted.
Tom came over and beat my wheel to death with a sledge hammer, nope. Gonna see if my buddy has a torch on his service truck.

He did get my steering wheel off and my ign switch changed out tonight. Lol, theres that anyway.

I was getting these from Amazon. They were easy to push and sounded good on my Ovation, Fender accustic, and my Yamaha 12 string.

[sixball]

I'll give those strings a try. I need new ones any way.
 Yeah, Guitar poor. Besides the 000-18 1942 Martin I have the '40s-'50s Harmony F hole my folks got for my brother and me when i was 9 ('54), a big black Ibanez I got new in '80, a probably '50s Stella 12 string. It makes me shudder to think of restringing it. There is probably a 100 year old small Orpheus that had all the notes painted on the fretboard. The original owner had a ranch near Coleville CA and ordered it from a catalog. I guess by the time the paint wore off you were supposed to know how to play it. There are a few more around + a banjo, fiddle, and mandolin. I inherited a classical nylon strung guitar from a guy I played with quite a bit. The first time I took it out to play it played Don's version of  "Michelle". A song I don't know. It scared the shi#! out of me. I put it back in the case and drove it up to Virginia City and gave it to another of Don's friends.

! had the Stella out today and couldn't do much.  I beat my hands up pretty well yesterday moving the 4 heavy pieces of a cast water feature we got to help filter our pond. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Is there any way to get  some citric acid on that wheel? It eats rust fast , a few hours. It doesn't hurt paint or chrome and won't even remove grease well. Food grade citric acid is at the grocery store with the canning stuff. About a 1/2 cup in a gallon of water should be strong enough. Squirt it where it can work its way to the rust. Maybe soak a rag and lay it over the lugs. You may have to rinse it off and reapply. It is not concrete friendly but a little won't hurt Just tune it off. It is safe and won't hurt you, pets, or grass. Cheap and worth a try. You'll need to neutralize the treated areas with baking soda & water to prevent rerusting.

[sammons]

Sixball, i soaked it with muraic acid last night for an hour. Then rinsed it and resprayed with pb blaster. Boy i'm forgetfull, a freind of mine use to work on helicopters. When he gave that up as a sideline, he gave me a nice Snap-on gear puller set. Searched everywhere here this morn, couldn't find. Called Tom at work, "oh its down at the shop on one of your old tool boxes, never thought of that"  Went down and got it, took some configuring but i got it with an extention of an deep impact socket. Hammered it down and heard a loud pop but not off. Hammered the 1/2" impact a little more and a second loud pop.... and finally off.

[sammons]

There was a lot of talk on a couple 2nd gen Camaro sites on max tire/wheel combos. Most saying 235/r60 15s where best. Some were up in the air on Vette 8" wide rallys but some said 4.25 to 4.5 back space was good. My fronts have 235/6015s so just right. My rears are pushing the ultamate  clearence problem, 295/r50 15".  I have 3/4" clearance on rear shocks to tire and 1.5" clearance to my rear springs.

Sorry, had to bail before i loaded pics. Tom showed up to help.
They actually fit. I'm as happy as a tick on a harry dog again😁

He got my oil finished flushing. Cut oil filter apart, (Fram😡) mainly very old oil with a lot of carbon. Oil old enough and piece of crap Fram, the media in it was just disinagrating. We dumped gas/marvel flush out to a separate pan  just black no chunks. Ran a magnet thru it couple little sparkles but that was it. He went on to check all my front suspenion, all tight. Good news so far. All my new battery be here tomorrow, tune up stuff gets here thursday/friday.

Then he talked me into putting the fronts on. Ya, its starting to take on my personality. Got that Z/28 thing going on. Don't laugh at my 3-bar swept wing spinners. Tom don't like them, think i do. They were off my '59 Elcamino.

[sixball]

The right tools make a big difference, glad you got it off! I like the wheel, tire, spinner look.  that is a nice car.

[Essex_29]

I've been driving the Buick most of the summer and also daily trips to town in my '69 Beetle.
Not the best for hauling materials, but I've been able to haul  78" long steel in it for my table
 project, I made a new table for my little lathe.

The TransAm has been acting up all summer.
Pic shows usual stance this season. The clutch slave was shot, so I put in a new one, it
also leaked power steering fluid, turned out it was actually the pump that was leaking, I took
one off an Olds engine. It looked the same and almost fit, but the "almost" made it take two
days to get sorted. One of those projects where every time you find a
solution for one issue a new one turns up .
Then it lost spark. New Hei module did the trick. Two days later, no spark again. This time the
coil wasn't grounded, just a loose screw, took a while to find the problem.
Then the engine over heated, the coling fan wouldn't turn on. Probably a long time issue.
I cut away the moving partfrom the thermostat, put the rest back in, but to no avail. Turns
out one or two of the head gaskets failed. It turned into a total project. 15 miles or so
driven all summer.

I tried on one of the rear wheels I first had on the Buick, 275/60-15 on black steelies. I like
that look a lot better than the Borbet 17" wheels with 275/40-17s. Maybe if I find some
steelies for the front I'll change to 15" black steelies instead of the wheels that make it look
like a fake Ferrari. Maybe next summer.

[sammons]

Sixball, looking at spinners since i put them on and they are staying. The stock center caps Vette/Monte/Chevelle just boring. Way back when i built my 57 i had ordered 2 diff sets if these, straight ear and swept ear. I tried the swept ear first it didn't look right so i kept the traight ear on it. Years later i built my 59 Elky, the swept ear looked great on it. The guy that bought my Elky went with skinny craigars style wheels and give me my complete Vette ralleys back, theses are those.

Weds afternoon i barrowed a bore scope to check out my gas tank, smelt terrible in there, but scope showed empty and clean except for center rib which had a dark color with some galvy color still down it. Good enough to leave alone. I'm going to run a wix metal canister filter before pump.  I got my new cap/coil/rotor kit and plug wire set yesterday, but battery hasn't come yet. I went down to my buddy Travis' parts house/shop and got a new set of AC plugs, nice i still get parts for cost there, they were $13.20 for the set😁  We were talking about my a/c, i told him Tom was going to brinh his vac pump over and suck the system down to check for leaks then i was just going to charge system with r152a (Officehub air duster, 8.25 for 10oz can at Dollar General) to see that everything worked (or don't). I'd been pricing r12a/Freeze 12, dang Freeze 12 up to $75 10z now, if you can spot it. Travis got a thinking look on his face, made a call, then asked if i was in a hurry, said i'll be right back. Jumped in his truck and came back with seven 8oz cans of Redtek 12a replacement. Said his father in laws building was getting sold and they needed everything out. I asked how much, free, they were going to through away. Score!

Tom came back over lastnight, pulled my plugs, they all were the same, no oil on any just kind of sooty. Oiled cylinders, pulled cap/rotor and put a little lighter springs on weights. We put a dead batt in with charger, turned over slow but probably within a few seconds the oil light went out👍 tried some of the cars electrical functions, a slow wake up. Flipping switches on/off several times then they are coming back to life. Lights finally came back on, blinkers/brake/park/back ups with excepton of a couple burnt up bulbs.

Tom will come back as soon as i get battery, put new plugs/wires cut in fuel filter and we'll try a start up.  I'm sure glad i have him on my pre paid lifetime mechanical contract😁  Him working on this car makes it look like a 7/8s scale. Lol he's 6'4" tall and was rather uncomfortable under the hood.