Ride!

Took the truck out on Saturday, to go fishing. No worries on thedrive, but by the time the boy and I got to the water, the winds were so strong, we only rode in our boat for a few minutes.

I did notice that the truck cranked Saturday morning without me touching the choke. That is the first time I think it ever fired up without the choke at least being partially cklosed.

There once was a man with a truck

who parked it in the garage.

And it was still there a week later.

Hood Letters

Thanks to a member of 67-72Chevytrucks.com, I have finally replaced the letters on the nose of the hood. They are in rough shape, so they look right at home on my truck.

'Cause she wanted to trash it herself a few months later

I found a file disk today that had a bunch of short videos from my first drive of the truck.



There are a few more over on my YouTube page.

8.4177376798025363860754106732488 mpg

It's better than last time, but I think I'll just stick with "almost 15" when the wife asks.

Lube job

I went over to Harbor Freight yesterday, looking for a couple of cheap tool boxes. I am really bad about finishing (or stopping work on...) a task and then letting the tools pile up on the workbench. Or the dryer. Or on top of the deep freeze, in the back of the truck and when things get really bad, in stacks right on the garage floor.

I thought if I divided up my tools, I would be able to get stuff put away easier. Plus, I wanted to divide I wanted to find something small enough to slide under the seat of the truck, so that I would have the necessary tools with me when I am out in it.

I had no luck finding what I wanted, but I picked up a few more tools, including the much delayed purchase of a grease gun. I borrowed Racecar Man's 6 months ago and it is still here. But it is loaded with grease for wheel bearings and I have no idea how to clean it our well enough to run some chassis grease through it.

HF had one on sale and they had chassis grease on sale, too. Once I got home I started hitting any grease fitting I could reach under the truck. Actually, I only got to the driver's side. The truck was in the garage and I did not feel like moving it into the driveway to work on it.

Saturday I hope to finish up the passenger's side. Then I'll report back if it makes a difference in all of the squeaks and groans on the old truck.

After I finished up with the truck, I picked up AND put away every tool I could find. I am sure there a few more. In fact I saw a pair of bull nosed pliers in the bathrooms drawer a couple of days ago. And I have no idea how or when they made it in there?

He thought we would be driving a Hot Wheel

My college buddy reworked a picture of my truck. He took it from this:

to this:

When I showed the picture to my five year old son, he asked when we could take it for a ride. I think he was a little sad when he peeked into the garage and saw blue old Marge sitting there.

Thanks for the chop, Redneck Mother!

As close to a convertible as I'll ever get

The passenger's window has been stuck in a fully closed position for a while. Recently the driver's side window hung up when I rolled it down. Now it is stuck fully open. This afternoon I decided to tackle the windows. My hope was to have two working windows in short order.

After messing around with the passenger's side window internal components for a while, I decided to see if I could at least get it to roll down. After some urging and encouragement with a pair of vise grips, I got the window to roll down. Now it matches the driver's side. Both are stuck fully open.

Since the truck lives in the garage, and I don't have to drive it in bad weather, I decided it was OK like this for a while. Heck, I already took off the windshield wipers, when the wiper motor quit working last year. So we don't go anywhere in the rain in this thing. Besides, summer is coming and it will be too hot to roll up the windows soon, anyways.

And here are a few pictures of our redneck convertible

8460N

I hope I never forget that number. What's it mean? It is the AutoZone parts number for the rear pinion oil seal. I searched all over this morning for a replacement for my leaking one. After striking out at three parts stores, I gave up.

I had wanted to have the part on hand so that I could pull the old one and install the new one at the same time. Instead I came home, hammered the old one out and took it with me to match up.

Finally found one at an AutoZone about 15 miles from where I started.

Once I got home the install was pretty easy and straight forward. At least until I dropped one of the u-joint retainer nuts into oil drain pan I had in place to catch differential fluid drips. Then I got to spend a few minutes funneling oil into another pan, and hoping I would catch the nut when it oozed by.

I did indeed and I finished up the install in short order. The Talker and I have taken the truck out for a test drive and the rear differential does not seem to be leaking. Hopefully they are right when they say "third times a charm".

Edit: 2/4/07 5:00pm
After another test drive and another twenty four hours, still no leaks...