Saturday, March 19, 2005

Tranny Fun

I drove out this afternoon to see if I could get the truck into gear. I spent the better part of a couple of hours trying to lube anything I could get to, gear shift linkages, manual choke, gear shift lever, steering linkages... Anything that looked like it could use a shot of silicone or lithium grease.

The good news of the day: The truck started and ran again today. And the new keys worked like a charm.

The great news of the day: I was able to get it into at least 3 of the 4 gears, 1st, 2nd and reverse.

The bad news: The truck never actually moved. I knew it was in gear because it would choke down and try to stall out. After a couple of trys like this, I finally did stall the engine, and I could not get it restarted

The worst news of the day: The carburetor was leaking like crazy. Right onto the intake manifold. Where I am assuming it gets pretty warm. But not warm enough to ignite gasoline. At least not today! I wanted to take the carb off and bring it home and clean it while checking for any obvious cracks, but I thought better of that plan. So the carb stayed safely attached to the truck.

Hopefully the next time the truck runs, it will only be for a couple of minutes, when I drive it right onto a flatbed trailer.

I brought home the hubcaps tonight. I was thinking that they could be cleaned, and repainted. Now that I looked closer at them , I think they will make fine filler for my trashcan.

2 comments:

Rick said...

Don't throw the hubcaps away just yet. You might regret it in a few months. Store them on the wheels where they will be out of the way.

Are they steal or aluminium. Assuming aluminium, there shouldn't be any rust. You can probably beat any dents out with a little patience and a hammer and dolly.

Mike said...

Steel. And rusty. Want practice with that sandblaster?