Doing what trucks do

I used the truck to pull a trailer with a couple of wheelbarrows full of gravel to a neighbor's house a couple of blocks away. This is the first real work this truck has done in 13 years.

Tachometer deal

I have wanted to put a tachometer on the truck since getting it running. The stock tachs are evidently not very accurate and they are pricey to add. Since my truck is a rusty beater, I could not see dropping $400 on a new dash cluster to add a stock tach.

I started shopping for after market tachs last week. This one was the one I came closest to buying. But I started wondering if I could get it cheaper than $30 at Auto Zone. Yesterday I bought a used one on Ebay for $5 plus $6 shipping. We will see how good it is. I figure if it is too beat up to install, not bloody likely, then I can rig it up to use as a diagnostic tool for tune ups.

I was feeling good about the truck and getting the leaks mostly stopped, so I moved it into the garage this weekend. I am pretty sure last night was the first time in 38 years that the truck stayed in a garage.

A blast and a goof

I got brave this weekend. I cleaned out enough of the garage to pull the truck in, so that I could keep working through the cold rainy weather. I got a new tool this weekend, a pneumatic spark plug cleaner. Since It was cheaper than a new set of plugs, and my dirty plugs only have a hundred miles or so on them, it was worth the try.

I had the plugs out to run a compression test, so it should have been easily done. But I almost killed the battery while cranking the engine, so I had to reinstall the plugs to get the truck out of the garage. After that, I pulled them once again and ran the spark plugs through the cleaner. I am impressed. The nice clean plugs were installed while I stood out in the cold drizzle.

When I first pulled the truck into the garage, I decided to check the oil. It showed a little low on the dipstick, so I added some. Still low. Add more. Then it hits me. Since the truck is half outside the garage, it is sitting at a pretty steep angle. Sure enough, when I back out into the almost level driveway, I am way too full.

The way the engine is designed, I was able to remove the oil filter and drain some of the oil out of it. I did this a couple of times, until the dipstick showed the proper level. Crisis averted.

Almost road ready

After my last post, I started wondering what else I need to get done before getting the truck inspected. My list is growing very short. And a lot cheaper than when I started.

Of all the items on the state list, I still need to get the windshield wipers working and I need to get the parking brake adjusted properly. I think the wipers need a new switch that costs about $30 and the brakes need to be bled again and re adjusted

There will still be a lot of work to do after these things are done, but I'll at least be able to take my hard work out on the road.

One step closer to legal

This afternoon I finally got around to installing a lamp for the rear license plate. Before the truck can pass inspection, this had to be done. Good easy repair, too. I bought a replacement light assembly for about $7 at Autozone. There was only one wire to hook up.

The rear wiring is already hacked up pretty bad from when a trailer light connection was added years ago. The hardest part was figuring out which wire to connect to. There is a brown wire, a dark green wire and a black wire (which is the one I needed) along with a couple of other wires back there. Of course the wires were hard to tell apart because they were all covered in lots of red dirt, like everything else under the truck once was.

It only took me a few minutes to get everything installed and working properly. Ain't success sweet?

By the way, 30 hours since last oil leak!

Truck Ride!

Adapted from an email I sent last night...

I found a solution (for now) to the oil leak. I ended up putting the original plug back in with a little bit of RTV super black for valve covers around the drain hole. It is not dripping oil, for now. Of course it is losing tranny fluid and rear diff fluid still, but we will deal with one drip at a time.

I got the plugs back in after I cleaned them a little more. They were really oil fouled. Several months ago I forgot about changing the oil after the fuel pump went bad. So I had a lot of gas in the oil. Hopefully that is why the plugs were so gunky. Yesterday I finally got that oil change finished up. I checked out the points, cap and rotor and all looked fine. After I reset the timing, she is running well. The son even got to take a truck ride late last night.

The next sunny day that I have some free time, I will pull the plugs and do compression test. Or maybe I'll get brave and clear out some garage space while the weather in nasty this weekend. Yeah, right.

No run, no fun

Last weekend I promised to take The Talker for a ride in the truck. We did not make it out of the driveway. The truck started OK, but it was idling like crap.

It died and I could not get it restarted. Finally killed the battery, cranking away on it. Took the batter to get charged and tested and the starter to get tested, too. Both checked out fine.

The points look OK. The cap and rotor and plug wires all look fine. I tweaked the timing a little, but no dice. Today I pulled the plugs and cleaned them. They were all really oily and wet. After I reinstalled the plugs and messed with the timing a little more, we were able to start the truck and back it further into the driveway. I think this means that oil is seeping into parts of the engine where it should not be.

Anyways, not much of a ride for the boy, but he liked it, since he got to ride the whole way in the bed of the truck! By himself. All 15 feet.

Now I am seriously thinking that the engine needs a rebuild before I hassle with getting the truck registered.

Oil dump

Last week it rained. And when it rained I had two partially full oil change pans sitting under the truck. But of them filled up with rainwater. And then I had a huge mess to clean up.

I ended up with about 30 quarts of water and oil mixed together. And you can't dump that mess at the local oil recycling center. So the kids and I went down to the hazardous waste drop off site yesterday.

I poured the oily mess into two 5 gallon buckets, hoping that it would not slosh out while we were driving. Just in case, I set the buckets in big plastic bins and wrapped the whole mess in big trash bags. After I threw in a couple of rags, just in case, we were off.

What a pain to haul a mess like this in a minivan. I can't wait to have a truck to carry junk like this.

Sitting still

I have not seen any evidence of fuel leaking in the past week. I have left the seat out of the truck, so that I could keep a close eye on my repair job. Hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to play trucks.

Fuel issues

The gas tank was leaking a little bit since I filled it up. I thought it was a slow leak. Which might not be a huge deal, if the gas tank were not right behind the seat, in the cab. I finally got around to taking the seat out and getting a closer look. And I was surprised to find A LOT of gas on the floor. Turns out there was a pretty good leak at the connection to the fuel sender. After I tried reinstalling the fuel lines at the sender, the leak went away.

Until I killed the ignition. Then the flood started again. I found a crack in the brass connector on the fuel sender. I'll be needing another sender, soon.

But for now I removed the fitting and used a couple of inches of rubber hose to make the connection. No more leak, but I won't feel too safe with it like this for long.

Stalled Out

I could not get the truck to fire up yesterday. It was parked for a few days, out on the street, and I just wanted to move it to the driveway.

I changed the fuel filter and it still did not want to start. Once it did, it installed and idled really rough for a long time. But once I finally got it back in the driveway, it seems to be starting fine.

I broke open the fuel filter to see how dirty it really was, and it did not seem to be too clogged. The only other thought I had is that the truck was parked on a hill for several days. And it sits pretty level in the driveway. I don't know if the incline affected the fuel flow or not.

A close call

Last night I moved the truck back into the driveway. Good thing, because I saw the neighborhood parking control officer, cruising the street this morning. He tagged a neighbor's car, which means that someone complained about that car being parked too long on the street. Which I bet means that they complained about the truck, too.

But the cop did not come into our driveway to tag my truck. Good for him. He really did not want that much hassle out of me.

But the big problem is that we obviously have a neighbor who is calling in complaints if someone parks for more than a day or two. I assume it is either Wonder Woman or a guy who lives up the hill, but he has a back gate onto our street.

Same old

No truckin time lately. I did drive it out of the driveway and parked it on the street today. The first time I have moved it since Tuesday.

Once it wasparked out there I noticed the usual leaks and a new one. The fuel line is leaking at the connection to the fuel pump. And I think it is leaking at the fuel sender, in the cab, too.

Of course, in the grand scheme of truck things...  The wheel paint and pretty hubcaps might not make that much difference.

Bling Bling

Today I finished painting the truck wheels.  A cheap project that looks like a cheap paint job. Two cans of paint from Walmart, $1.88. One hour of prep time. A couple of hours of dry time. And my swap-meet treasure hubcaps installed. What a great look.

Of course, this tire is the only one that I plan on keeping. So I painted the other wheels without masking off the tire. So now all of the other tires have nice silver side walls. Classy!

Oops

Tonight I had a few minutes to play with the truck, so I tried to find a couple of small things to mess with. I noticed a pin sliding out of the gear shift lever. As it was the pin holding it to the steering column, I decided to hammer it back in.

And guess what. It was not the thing to do. Now I can barely shift into first or reverse. And I can't get the pin to slide back down, either.

Oh well, I live and learn. Just not backwards or in first gear.

Milestones.

We hit two major points this weekend, one cool one a little worrisome.

First the good news. The odometer now shows 45323.9 miles. Therefore I have driven the truck more than 100 miles. 100 miles of uninspected, unlicensed and uninsured fun! Hopefully all of those items will change before another 100 miles clicks by.

We have come along way since that first mile.

And now the news that bothers me. I am officially $1000 into the truck. It still may not look like much but I am quickly running out of small things to repair or replace. The worst part of this is that the stuff that is left is mostly going to be expensive. Stuff like body work, paint and repairing the bed floor will all come later and drive that total cost way up.

I'm such a hoser

Saturday afternoon I finally got around to swapping out the radiator hoses and the heater hoses. Since getting the truck running again back in June, I have known that I needed to change these.

AutoZone only had one of the radiator hoses and the heater hoses in stock, so I installed everything I could. Later I stopped at Advance Auto and picked up a lower hose. While I was there I decided to pick up a new thermostat, too.

The thermostat was one of the first things that I replaced on this truck. And I bought one just like the one I removed, a 165 degree thermostat. This time I put in a 185 degree thermostat. I'll see if I notice any difference in performance. One change already, I wasn't sure my temp gauge worked, because the old thermostat kept the needle pegged on the cool side. Today it was moving towards the normal range, but still on the cool side, even after idling for an hour more.

After getting the new radiator and heater hoses installed, I filled the radiator to check for leaks. Quickly I noticed the lower hose on the heater core was leaking like crazy.

Sunday afternoon I pulled the heater core out and cleaned everything up. I must have pulled 10 pounds of junk out of the heater box. Guess the farm mice found a way in there. I am considering not even having a heater, since I don't use the truck in cold weather and the internal parts are all really rusty anyways. After I priced the core at AutoZone, I decided to do without it for a while. I reinstalled everything except the heater core and the heater hoses.

I used a short length of the old heater hose to make a bypass from the water pump to the block. One guy on the truck forums suggested that I just plug the water pump and the block and ditch the hose completely. I might look into that if I really decide to lose the heater.

Best of all. Nothing is leaking. From this repair at least.

Oil pan? Still leaking. Rear differntial leaking? Youbetcha. Rear Tranmission seal still leaking? Well for some reason that one stopped leaking when I changed the oil in the trans. Dunno.

The only hassle I encountered in this repair was pretty easily handled. I had to remove the hood to get the heater box off of the firewall. Evidently you either have to pull the hood or the passenger fender. I dropped one of the bolts and never found it and one was already missing, so now the hood is sitting even worse than before. When I replace the bolts, I'll try to get it lined up better.

A little inspiration is all I need

I have not ventured out to truck in a few days. Too busy to mess with anything else right now, I guess.

Anyways, I read in our local paper that the city is stepping up efforts to tow abandoned cars from neighborhoods. In the past they have concentrated on cars sitting on the roadway that were obviously not drivable. Our neighbor had an Isuzu towed, after it sat on the street for at least 2 years.

Anyways, now they are towing cars right out of driveways. And all it takes is a neighbor complaint. The police department tags the vehicle and tows it 3 weeks later if it is inoperable, my truck isn't, if it has expired inspection tags, the truck's expired in 1992, or if the license plates are expired, the ones on the truck expired in 1969 AND they were never registered to this truck!

So I am thinking that I might need to get to work on my ride. Or maybe I'll just hide it in the garage or the backyard.

Add all that to that the fact that I don't really think the city ought to be able to tow something out of my driveway, and this might get real interesting if one of my neighbors complains about the truck.

Me next

The Talker and I took a truck ride last night before dinner. A couple of blocks, just checking out the neighborhood. When we got home, the 20 month old Princess had been crying the entire time we were gone. "No Daddy, MY truck ride."

I could not resist, so she and I went for a ride on the other side of the neighborhood. In total, the kids and I probably rode 5 miles or more.

The wife? She rode in the truck a while back, and that ride ended in a walk of shame. For some reason she hasn't been begging to go again. (But she did chaperone the kid's ride last weekend. I forgot about that sucessful ride.)