Gas, tires, oil.

One of the brackets on the trike that I marbleized has a light spot on it, the black bottom coat doesn’t cover the primer.

So I thought I would kill 2 birds with one stone and touch it up and throw some paint on something for the “Name that tool” contest winner. I decided to paint one of those AOL metal CD cases (I figure, it’s recycling, its potentially useful and it’ll be cheap to ship). First off I had to see the current finish would be removed by enamel reducer.

It didn’t lift or smudge, so I’m just going to scuff it up. Next time, I’ll show the steps in using House of Kolor Marbleizing with a urethane clear.

We picked this up at a recent yardsale for $2:

I figured that even if the kids didn’t play with it, the hardware was worth that much (even one set of hinges will cost that at the hardware store).

Actually, my 3 year old played with it for about 2 hours straight on a long road trip. He gave it such a workout the the hinge pins fell out of a couple hinges. I’ll have to make new ones from some 3/32″ brazing rod.

Here’s a pic showing some more progress on the frame.

On the right, you can see some of the boxing of the joint between the frame and sub-frame. It’s hard to see, but I only welded on the side and edge of the frame rail. Never weld on the top or bottom flange of a frame! If I were to weld all the way around (at the back of the boxing), it would be no better than just butt welding (think about it).
Same goes for the transmission cross member mounts, I only welded them on the sides, not across the bottom of the frame. The trans cross member is a stock one from a nova.
The rear axle is a 9″ ford with disc brakes from a ~’77 Lincoln. It had a four link, I just torched off the brackets and welded on the spring perches from 1/2 ton chevy pickup rear. The rear springs also came from a middle ’70s chevy pickup.

Last time I described why I wanted to use an np833 4spd overdrive trans in my ‘55. The only things that needed to be changed were:
1. The shifter, the car had 3 on the tree, new trans was 4 on the floor. The shifter mounts to the trans and the car already had a hole in the floor (probably from a 3 spd. floor shifter), so this was easy.
2. The driveshaft yoke had different splines. I went to the junkyard and picked up a driveshaft for a 350 turbo trans and just switched yokes (to be shown in a future post).
3. The front bearing retainer on the trans, which also centers the trans in the bellhousing, had the larger truck diameter of 5 1/8″. I didn’t want to change the bellhousing, so I unbolted the bearing retainer and took it to a local machine shop. They turned down the O.D. to 4.68 for only $15 (I think they gave my wife a good deal). Below is a pic of the newly machined part, as you can see, the bolt holes are very close to the edge.

You can see the original diameter from the gasket, nearly a 1/4″ had to be turned off (I later trimmed the gasket with a razor). I had to replace the hex head bolts with allen head bolts. Next time, the driveshaft gets new univerals and the trans goes in (for the first of 3 times).

Here are some things I’m looking for:
1. Help with wordpress design. I’d like to make some changes, but don’t really have the time to learn wordpress.
2. Fiberglass body parts for ‘68 Pontiac Tempest, Lemans or GTO.
3. Fiberglass body parts for ‘55 chevy.
4. Pontiac engines, especially 421, 428 or 455. And aluminum engine parts like heads or an aftermarket aluminum tripower intake.
5. Takedown lever action rifles.
6. Dan Wesson revolvers and parts, especially long barrels for 44 mag or 445supermag.
7. Combination guns like cape rifles or drillings.

In return, I can trade labor, money (if I really want it), GTO parts, guns, some tools (a liftmore truck boom,…), other parts (Doug Nash overdrive unit,…), etc.
Post a comment if you can help.

My daily transportation is my ‘89 Sportster 883-1200. It had problems with sluggish starting last fall, so I bought a new battery. That fixed it until last month when it started turning over slow again. Jumping didn’t seem to help much, so I bought a new starter. Turns out the battery had gone bad. I had noticed that the lights would occasionally get very bright for a few seconds, so I decided to check the voltage. Because it only happened occasionally, I wanted to monitor the charging voltage while commuting. So I dug out a voltage gauge that I bought at a yard sale. Its a cheap one made to be mounted under the dash of a car. I wired it in and used electrical tape to strap it the handlebars:

Pretty ugly, but it has served its purpose. Every couple of days it will suddenly peg out for a few minutes. So thats what killed my battery so quick. I’ve bought a new regulator, I just need to put it on before I ruin this battery too.

I use my ‘55 Candian Pontiac to get to work when I don’t take my sportster (basically, rainy days or when I need to haul stuff). The car came with a 3 speed on the column (3 on the tree) manual transmission, and 1st gear is not syncronized. The rear axle ratio is at least 3.55 or numerically higher, so the poor old 283 was really winding up at 65-70 mph. And I often get caught in several miles of stop and go backups on the highway. So out came the old trans ( I’m getting some help from my middle kid, 2 yrs. old):

But what to put back in? An overdrive auto would be nice, but I wanted to be able to do the swap over a weekend, and I didn’t want to spend too much money. To put in an auto, I would have to put in side motor mounts and a trans crossmember. If I were to do that, I would get the mounts that move the motor ahead 3/4″ so an HEI distributor can be used. That would mean getting a new 6-cylinder mount radiator for fan clearance. And if I am going to pull the motor, I might as well assemble the new motor for the car. So things would snowball (these are all things I want to do eventually, just not right now).
The 5 and 6 speed transmissions that come the ’80s and up camaros and such would be nice, but pricey. And, they use a 26 spine clutch, so I’d have to switch mine (10 spine) out, a real pain with a front motor mount and bellhousing ears. And some use a hydralic clutch.
I had pretty much made up my mind to get an overdrive unit from a ’50s-’60s GM car and pair it up with a 3 speed manual that had syncros in 1st. I was searching ebay for one, when I found an NP833 transmission out of an ’80s 1/2 ton chevy pickup. Its an aluminum case 4 speed with 4th being overdrive. A slightly different version was used in ’60s and early ’70s mopars behind some high horse motors (hemis and 440s). The Chevy version has a 10 spline input and the output is the same as either the 350 or 400 turbo (mine was the 350 size). It is the same length as my old 3 speed and came with a floor shifter. The only problem was that the front bearing retainer, that also centers the trans in the bellhousing, was the larger truck size. Some chevy pickups use a bellhousing with a 5 1/8″ opening, instead of the 4 11/16″ opening in the cars. I’ll explain how I got around that problem next time.

With wrench (for bolts) and gas wrench (for the PO’s welds) I stripped the trike down to the bare frame.

I ground the frame tubes smooth where the seat and rear platform had mounted. Spray-on paint stripper and a cup brush on the grinder got rid of the old paint.

Nowhere to go but back together. Next time, primer and spot putty.

Here is a shot of my old ‘76 Chevy 4x4 truck, loaded down with a small journal 327 (currently, it’s fresh from the machine shop, on the engine stand, just waiting for assembly) and a couple Model A frames. But what this post is about is the boom I used to lift the 327 onto the truck. It’s made out of 2 1/2″ schedule 80 pipe, and some other tube or pipe that just slips over it. While its kind of crude, it’s nice in that you can pull the angled piece out of its socket and pull the vertical piece up out of its socket, leaving the bed of the truck flat, with no obstructions.

I also made a socket for it on the back of my Suburban. I made the rear bumper out of a piece of 6″x8″x3/16″ rectangular tubing (to transfer the weight to the other side of the frame without twisting).

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Someone has gotten all 3 mystery tools, I’ll put the answers inside. If you haven’t seen the original post yet check it out first.
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