Gas, tires, oil.

The middle boy had his 5th birthday last spring and we had a party for him at the local park. He got lots of presents from his friends, but everyone of them was a) made of plastic and b) made in china (probably made from lead-filled plastic by political prisoners who get shocked by cattle prods if they don’t make them fast enough). Every present except the ones I gave him that is:

A real Crescent adjustable wrench and Channellock slip-joint pliers.

He has loads of fun with them, and if he doesn’t lose them he can use them the rest of his life. Not likely, I admit, but how long before those plastic toys are in the landfill? And they weren’t that pricey, $13.10 for the 8″ wrench and $10.61 for the channellocks from McMaster-Carr.

With my cam bearing tool made, I just had to put it to work. Below I am using it to remove one of the old bearings.

It worked really well, but I was worried about dropping a nut or washer down inside the engine. I didn’t replace the rear-most cam bearing, it was impossible to get to. But it looked pretty good, the bearings got worse toward the front of the car (farther from the oil pump). Next was the reassembly, I soaked the lifters in some oil and worked them with a pushrod to get some oil inside.

Below the cam and lifters are in, new timing chain (if you have the opportunity, always replace the timing chain and/or oil pump on a pontiac motor), new pushrods and new roller tip rockers (some of the pivots were galled on the old ones).

It runs great: no more ticking lifters and I think the oil pressure has gone up a bit. In spite of it being rather mild performance cam (mellings mtp-1, 278 duration and .422″ lift on the intake and 288 duration and .444″ lift on the exhaust), the gas mileage doesn’t seem to have decreased (16-17 mpg on my commute to work).

From the last post you can see that I need new cam bearings, but I didn’t have the installation tool. You can get one for chevy for about $75, but a universal one is about $300. A quick look on google shows several people making their own out of threaded rod and an aluminum mandrill. I didn’t have any suitable aluminum stock, so I looked around for something I could modify. I found a tapered bearing race driver that was already close in size.

I chucked it up holding its handle because I needed to turn the whole outside. I didn’t want to turn half and then flip it over because I wanted to keep the 2 steps concentric within a couple thousands of an inch. I know it’s bad practice to hold something so far from the chuck, but aluminum turns easy.

Basically I just wanted an area that would support the bearing and keep it straight, then a step that would be just a tiny bit smaller than the OD of the bearing. This way the tool can also be used to remove the old bearings. Below I’m testing a bearing for fit.

Just some 1/2″ threaded rod, nuts and washers and it’s ready to use. Next time I’ll show it in use and show the reassembly of the engine.

The ac on our suburban was disconnected when we bought it and since I had no plans of ever hooking it up again I decided to remove as much of it as possible. I figured that the compressor had gone bad. But when I removed it, I realized that the compressor turned fine, it was the pulley that was locked up.

You can see above that the pulley is crooked (clutch bearing is shot). Though I still had no plans of getting the ac working, I have wanted to add onboard air to the truck. My brother had a nice rig in his jeep, he put a small 110v air compressor (the kind with a tank, that you might find in any garage) in the back. Then he plumbed the ac compressor up to the tank and wired the ac electric clutch to a pressure switch. When ever the engine was running, it would keep the tank topped off. If he was somewhere with 110v power, he could also run an extension cord to the compressor so he wouldn’t have to keep the engine idling.
I just wanted to be able to re-inflate my tires after airing them down for offroad driving. First I had to fix the clutch bearing. The book says to use special tool j9401 to pull the clutch (and j9480 to reinstall it), but of course I don’t have that tool.

The inside of the hub is threaded, I found that a 1/2″ pipe fitting would kind of thread in (I suspect that it’s actually 13/16″ like an oil filter but haven’t comfirmed it). I sawed off a 1/4″ off the end so it would screw all the way in (it was loose, and since pipe threads are tapered, the farther I could screw it in the better). Then I tack welded a 1/2″ nut to on the end. Then I screwed on to the hub and screwed in a 1/2″ bolt to pull the hub.

Here’s a pic of the tool after I got the hub off.

As you can see below, the bearing was really shot.

The new bearing was pricey, about $40, but worth it in the end. Next time I show how I got an air hose to connect to the compressor and how I controll it.

After scuffing up the surface, I taped off the stripe. This was made easier by this masker that I found at a yard sale for $2.

You put in a roll of tape and a roll of masking paper, as you pull the paper out, it puts on the tape with half over the edge of the paper.

Masking is a whole art in itself, but here are a few hints. First, it is better to under-mask rather than over-mask. This seems backwards, but think about it like this: consider the trim around the windshield, if your tape doesn’t quite go the edge you will get a little paint on the edge of the trim. But this is hard to notice (you have moved the junction of chrome and paint just slightly) and you can remove the paint later with a razor. But if the tape goes over the trim on to the painted surface you will leave a little band of the old color (or primer). And this really looks bad and is hard to fix. Same goes for a stripe like the one I’m doing here. Better to let the paint extend a little farther than leave a strip of the old color on the edge. For really high end paint jobs, they unmask the car and remask it after priming it and before the final paint just for this reason.
I don’t have a pic to show the actual taping (it takes two hands so I could hold the camera), but let me try to explain it. You hold the roll of tape in your right hand and press it down/guide it with your left hand. Keep the tape unrolled a foot or more and hold the roll close to the surface. You steer the tape with roll, the farther away the roll is, the more acurately you can tape (it takes a large movement of the roll to change the angle of the tape). Masking tape is slightly crinkly and can be steered around some very tight curves in this way. First go around the edge with tape, then follow up with the paper. When going around corners with the paper, fold it over (like a christmas present), then tape all along the fold. You don’t want it to flap when hit with air from the paint gun, it might dump trapped dust on the wet paint. When masking really big areas (like the top half of a car) I use old sheets. You can pick them up at yard sales for cheap and they work great for areas that won’t be directly sprayed. Next time we’ll mix the paint and spray it on.

I decided to repaint the green stripe on our camper and I think it will serve as a nice example of how to do a “scuff and shoot” paint job. Now, many people have their own way (and order) of paint preparation and I will certainly not represent mine as the correct way. But I will try to provide the reason for each step, so you can make your own decision. First I wiped off the spider webs and dirt with an old towel. Some people like to wash with soap and water, which is fine for a long term project, but I was going to be painting later that same day. Then I wiped it down with a paper towel (Bounty) soaked in enamel reducer.

This removes wax, oil, grease, tar and other road dirt that would clog up the sand paper and later cause “fish eyes” in the paint. Now, if you were planning on stripping something down to bare metal, you don’t need this step. On a nice paint job, the vehicle would be wiped down again, right before painting to remove grease from fingerprints that happened during sanding and taping. But, in general, don’t touch the surface with your hands (at least not casually). I wasn’t doing any body work or sanding, but I did need to scuff up the surface so the paint would stick. I used a maroon scotch-brite pad.

The large areas just need a general scuffing, it’s the edges that need special attention. This is where paint will peel and lift, so you need to get right to the edge.
Next I used a blow nozzle on my air hose to blow the dust off and blow out any dirt trapped in the seams. This is extremly important. When you use a paint gun you are blowing on the vehicle with high pressure air. Sand and dirt (and possibly leaves and dead bugs and water…) can blow out from its hiding place and then stick to the fresh paint. You have to make sure nothing is going to break loose during the painting, so, before painting you blow on all the seams and cracks with a much more intense blast of air. Everything needs to be done, the inside of bumpers, inside of wheel wells, door jambs. Chrome and emblems that are going to be taped off instead removed need to be done. I put the blow nozzle right up to the edge and go all the way around it. And when you do this, you need to be using filtered air, so your not spraying oil (from the compressor) and water (condensed out of the air if it’s humid) on the the surface.
Next time: taping (masking) and painting.

I had an interesting day at the yardsales today, even though I didn’t buy much. At the first sale, I talked to a guy about his truck for a while. I’d seen it from a distance every day when I’m on my way to work, but I wasn’t sure about its actual make up. It’s Ford 1 ton 4x4 flatbed but it seemed to have much larger running gear under it. Turns the guy put in a 500 hp Caterpillar (3408?) v8 turbo diesel and 10 speed ranger gearbox. Then supplimented the suspension with airbags and 19.5″ rims. Said he gets 16 mpg unloaded. We talked diesels a bit, I mentioned how much I liked my 6.2 L suburban and how I’d like to get a Cummins 4bt from a chevy step van.

Then, at another yardsale I found this aftermarket oil filter (from back when cars didn’t come with oil filters):

The guy said he bought it for his truck, which he had bought new 50 years ago and still drives today. And then I looked up and saw a very nice ‘57 Chevy Cameo pickup. He said the stepside was $1800, but he sprung for the Cameo at $2200. He had used this add on filter until 1972, when he put in a 350 and automatic.

He recommended Scott toilet paper (seriously, it’s made so a full roll of toilet paper fits inside).

A few minutes of wirebrushing, then 320 grit on the DA and finally some tripoli on the buffing wheel and it cleaned up very nice. I have to wonder if it would actually work better than modern oil filters, the oil has to pass through a whole roll of toilet paper lengthwise, whereas in a new filter it just goes through a single piece of corrogated paper.
All of my cars currently have oil filters, but actually I want it to remove oil and water from compressed air for painting. I’ve been wanting a toilet paper air filter from TP tools, but I don’t paint enough to pay $79 for one.
I think this one will work fine, maybe I’ll use it with this nice airbush set I got at a yardsale last weekend:

Not bad for $5, its got a lot of tips and a bunch of baby food jars with the fittings already installed.

Just about everyone who works on cars and bikes hates electrical stuff, but you have to do it. I have grown to hate the common insulated crimp-on connectors. Firstly, they let water in and become corroded. Next, they are really just flattened or squished by the crimping tool, this allows the wire to wiggle side to side and eventually come loose. And lastly, they just look terrible. So, here’s what I do (I be glad to hear of other suggestions). I use non-insulated connectors (below, bottom) or if I can’t find them, I will cut the insulation off of the insulated type (top).

Not all of the common crimping pliers are made to do the non-insulated ends, mine have it on the handle side of the joint. Make sure you put the split side of the connector toward the half-round mandrel of the crimp tool.

Now, that wire is not going to pull out.

Next I use heat-shrink tubing to insulate and provide strain-relief. If you can find it, they make heat shrink tubing that is coated internally with hot-melt glue, this will help keep moisture out. I then give it a coating of liquid electrical tape (may be called brush-on electrial tape). I beleive it’s just plastisol (the stuff they use to dip-coat plier handles).

If your connection will show (and you care), the liquid electrical tape is available in different colors (nice for battery terminals if your cable is black, you can use it to mark the positive red).

I needed some rubber washers to mount the gas tank on the trike, but the hardware store didn’t have the right size. I decided to make some myself. First I found an old inner tube that I had stashed behind the workbench, just for this sort of thing. Then I got an arch punch that I had found at a yardsale. I quickly punched out the ODs.

The ID needs to fit a 5/26″ bolt, but I don’t have that size punch. However, when at a recycling center I noticed some empty cartridges in their scrap brass bin. I bought a selection at scap price (and got the bucket for free).

5/16″ is .3125″, so 8 mm at .315″ is a nice fit. This is the cartridge head of an 8mm mauser (or 8x57mm) that I found. If you want you can sharpen the end, this also allows you to vary the size slightly, you can sharpen the inside (with a small round file or chamfer tool) for more clearance or the outside for less. So what cartridges should you look for? Well, obviously 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, 9mm and 10 mm will work for the corresponding metric sizes. An inside sharpened 17 caliber should work for a #8 screw and outside sharpened it should work for #10. The new 204 ruger might work for 5mm or #12. 25 caliber (25-06, 257 roberts, etc) or 6.5 mm for 1/4″ bolt. 8mm for 5/16″. 375 caliber or 9.3 mm for 3/8″, 44 or 45 caliber for 7/16″. And of course, 50 caliber for 1/2″. Good luck finding a 600 Nitro Express for 5/8″. Also, some cheap military ammo uses steel cases, obviously these will be sturdier.

I didn’t bother to sharpen the end and it worked fine.

Here are the rubber washers in place on the top tank mount, trapped between stainless washers. I have previously shown the bottom mount.

And here are the fat bobs finally mounted. The dash and filler are just sitting on top, they’re next.

A 4 1/2″ angler grinder is really one of the most useful tools to have: it’s nessesary for weld prep and in an emergency you can cut with it.

But keep your fingers away from it, I notched mine pretty good here cleaning up a shock mount that I had torched off the old axle. Even more dangerous is when they get caught in your shirt, happen at a friends shop. It caught this guy’s tee shirt and wound it up and cut the guy at the same time. He got it turned off right when it was at his throat, but he still needed stitches from his belt buckle to his shirt collar.