Keeping the Fleet Alive

[00:00:03]Well, folks, check it out. We got a bunch of more random things we're doing today. So, uh, this one I think the gassy smell is kind of out of the way.

[00:00:15]We're, uh, I want to actually just put this interior back together because, well, I I think I'm I think I'm good. I think the that seal thing worked. And uh I just want my car to be all complete. I think the only residue or whatever I have left here is probably just from me spilling fuel in the car. So yeah. So I'm going to jump in, put the interior back together. I have a bad O2 sensor that I'm trying to uh figure out. Uh well, I shouldn't say figure out. I bought some. I basically just got to lift it up, swap out one O2 sensor cuz that thing wasn't driving. And then I have this thing where it wants to throw a belt, but I am pretty sure it's this idler pulley that are on this snout cuz I think it's just hard to tell from this angle. It almost looks like it's sitting like this. And I think it's due to this bracket that I made uh is causing that. I think what I'm going to try to do is just put a washer behind this side. I just did that on there because I was worried that it was just going to walk. So, I wanted to lock it to the motor, but I guess somehow I goofed and misaligned it. I pulled it and it was better, but it's still starting to want to walk off the front.

[00:01:30]So, um I feel I'll put a shim. I don't know if that'll work.

[00:01:37]No, that'll still make it do it. I guess this bracket I got to take this bracket off. And I actually need to tweak it back a little bit because it needs to do this.

[00:01:47]That's why my brain thought the washer would do it, but I don't think it will.

[00:01:52]H. It's kind of an interesting bracket I had to make, but somehow I goofed things up here. I don't know what to do. I don't know. I'll try the shim thing, but I don't think that's going to matter.

[00:02:04]Oh, maybe it will. It'll force it like that. Then I I just feel like when I tightened it down, it's going to lock it and force it to do that.

[00:02:13]Yeah. Not sure yet. Maybe it's as simple as loosening the loosening this like crazy.

[00:02:21]and giving this thing a bop and just popping it over. I don't know. Kind of just thinking out loud, but I got to deal with that. The O2 and then the tune still needs the tune's actually pretty good. I'm actually happy with everything. It's just the tip in. Like when you just kind of touch the gas throttle, it just like spikes lean and then we get a It's like a stumble. I'm trying to get rid of this stumble. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with everything else. It has been sitting outside, so it needs a little wash cuz it looks like hot garbage. But yeah, that's one thing that I'm just farting around with today. So, seeing what uh what else it needs. We have our little uh show in Neverville today. So, we're going to basically hopefully the weather holds out and I'd like to take this out to that show. And then when we get there, I'll kind of show you some of the stuff that's there.

[00:03:54]All right. Okay. Interior back in. O2 sensor in. Pulled this bracket off. And just visually you can see it's not perfect. A there whatever it's.3 but I'm sure if I did this see we're like whatever it is almost not quite 2° but uh we're off. So I think that's our problem. I'm just going to put something under here. I'm going to smack it with a hammer a few times so this thing squares up and hopefully that solves our problem. We shall find out here shortly.

[00:04:32]That's for sure. Yeah, I need a little more than that. But I'll find something.

[00:04:37]I'm just going to bang it with a hammer.

[00:04:38]Actually, we'll do it different. We'll just bang it with a hammer and put in the vise. That's the plan.

[00:05:16]All right, Model A is outside.

[00:05:20]38 is in. Figured my steering box was bad. Something was weird with it, but I'm not 100% sure. I had some slop. I tightened the steering box up. Oh, good thing I remembered that. There's usually a nut on top of all these steering box.

[00:05:33]I don't know if you can see down there, but right where my wrench is pointing.

[00:05:36]There's a nut and then a lock like a an Allen key and that'll ram down and that'll tighten up your steering box.

[00:05:42]But I had a little bit of one of my bolts up top was a little loose. So, I tightened that up and that got rid of that. That got rid of that little bit of slop that was in the wheel. I had a little bit of a little bit of play. So, got that sorted. Uh, I'm working on the what do you call it? Steering column was just loose. Like just annoyingly loose.

[00:06:07]And I hate how much work it is to get it out. Anyways, you can see I didn't get into it. Like you can see I kind of blew the whole steering column apart inside the steering column. Once you kind of dig down, you'll see that little Allen, that little hex, that screw you can see right there. And there's another one right there. For me, it was only this one that's loose. I am imagining there's another one or two bolts, but I have absolutely no idea how to get at those.

[00:06:38]All I know is this is the one that usually gets loose. I tighten it and then all this, you know how these GM steering columns start to walk around. I think it's a lot of time when people pull themselves into a vehicle. Anyways, I snug that up. This thing is tight again, 100%. So now I just got to reverse the sucky process of putting this thing all back together, which is it's not that bad, but it's not that fun either. I think the hardest part is just getting this clicker onto here for your high low beam. Getting that thing lined up is probably the roughest part. And then it just has there's three bolts that hold this in. There's one bolt that holds the key in. Three screws hold this.

[00:07:23]There's one for your hazard and that's pretty much it. And then you put your steering wheel back on. I mean, that's the really simple simple version of what it is. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I'm pretty happy this is not all loosey goosey now. So, I'm just going to finish putting this together and then that concludes this thing. So, be pretty happy with it. It's not too bad. What have we had? Do a little review here.

[00:07:51]This truck's been doing really good.

[00:07:52]good. I've had no problems with it. It gets a little moist when it rains inside, but I feel that was the cowl.

[00:08:01]So, I kind of just gooped it up and I did a really bad job of it. I was going to scrape some of that off, but I gooped that up. Uh the only other thing that flawed is the window crank to push it out. That thing gave up the ghost, and I did struggle with that, and it's just the mechanism is just bad inside. And that's pretty much all there is to it. I uh I tried to fix it. It sort of worked, but it'll go out, but when a semi or something comes by you, it'll just slam shut. So, it's kind of I think it's pretty much hosed, but that's not a big deal. Other than that, it's been great.

[00:08:34]I mean, the 28's a little underpowered in my eyes. It's a little little big of a truck for it. I guess I wouldn't think it would be a 28 that's got a lot of power, but it pushes it around. But today, we had a headwind and it was like fifth gear was a bit much. You kind of had to do a fourth gear run.

[00:08:51]Anyho, I'm going to put that all back together. And then the next thing I'm going to work on is my T pickup. It's pretty much a maintenance day here. I'm just kind of going through all my junk.

[00:09:32]Well, we have this thing back in. That's been a while. I haven't used it. Our son was using it a couple years ago, I guess. And what had happened? I think a diff seal was starting to go, so he had stopped running it. But in the meantime, it's actually needed a lot of TLC.

[00:09:51]It's uh well, he had it. The window stopped working. The door was acting up.

[00:09:56]I noticed the hinge is actually super loose on this door. I don't know if something broke in here or what happened, but there's definitely a lot of well, a lot of play everywhere.

[00:10:13]actually now that I look at that. So, if you're not familiar with this, this is actually the very first thing I ever built on my YouTube channel. So, I've had it for quite a while now. Uh what is it? It started as a tall T. It was uh well, a regular tall T sedan except somebody had cut the rear quarters off of it. So, I chopped it 9 in and I took 9 in out of the back. And then of course I had a model A pickup or like a Model A pickup box. Uh I was somewhere in the States, man. Although this thing did get driven year year round. It's uh taking a kicking. Any I was in the States and they had like one of those yard sale things like just throw your junk to the curb, take it if you want. Somebody actually had some Model A fenders, but they were bobbed really weird. They were bobbed up here. So, I made these back halves when I kind of knew when I was sort of starting metal shaping. I wasn't all that great. Any we made the chassis.

[00:11:14]This thing's got four bar. I built a fuel tank, made adapter duad, so I can put in a uh like a sending unit from a pickup truck. It's got turbo 350 and uh LS. I think it's just a 4.8. I think so. But it definitely needs some valve stem seals. It always did chooch a little when I started it, but it's excessive chooch right now when it starts. So, I think I want to do the valve stem seals and fix all the other things. There's just a bunch of stuff it needs. The door is the big one. It's the the window and the window's not a big deal. These things, they just always kind of go bad. So, it it it sort of works, but it's like stripping a gear in there. So, I just got to get that out.

[00:11:58]And then the door was just weird. It's like cuz the handle can pull. If the handle pulls out, it doesn't work. But if you find that sweet spot, it just it works just fine. I don't know why it comes out, but I think when I'm in there, I can kind of just put a zap on it so I can't pull it out. That's kind of the thought. It's just basically a all around it's a good truck. Nice and reliable. It's just just kind of my beater. Kind of drove it. We just drive it year round. It's got remote start.

[00:12:25]It's got all the fancy bits. Anyho, um first thing I want to do anyhoo is get in there and fix that other door. I think this door acted up. So, I always end up putting like a barrel lock on the one side cuz the latch is uh not the best. And I think I actually have rebuilds for these now. Yeah, you can see I have a a little barrel lock on there.

[00:12:51]Oh, that door is rough. Everything needs a little a little TLC. I got to find the bits. Maybe there was no bits on here. I feel like there was something on here.

[00:13:03]I don't know where anything is.

[00:13:07]It has been a few years.

[00:13:10]All right, we have everything's apart.

[00:13:13]Took the door apart. I got I can see why it doesn't want to roll up if you look. We're We're shy on a few teeth here. So, I don't think I have another one of these. So, we're going to just spend a little bit of time and zap zab zap zab zap and just run a grinder or zip cut in there. It will be fine.

[00:13:36]It'll work totally fine. The spring's more important to me than just some jagged up teeth that we can just weld up easily. Door itself, the door panel has seen better days. I think it's uh been through the wash a few times or something. It is just the panel board.

[00:13:53]So, I do have some more of this. You can see how bad it got wet there.

[00:13:57]So, seeing how the upholstery is still good, we're going to just make a new board and put this down. The other side looks okay. I mean, it's a little warpy, but it's it's not bad for how old this build is, so I'm not too worried about it. It uh for the most part looks fairly flat, so we're going to leave it. This thing needs a huge clean out. The I don't even know what the back is. I have no idea what this was. These are actually the bottoms from a Camaro, but we had such a dust storm a while back that uh everything is so dirty.

[00:14:31]So, I just got to go through clean everything up in here, give everything a once over. I know I had the heater down here. We have all that going, but it does not defrost well. I tried to make a tube. This little heater, it blows okay.

[00:14:45]I tried to make one that went up and then I had screwed down a vent that kind of blew and it like it sort of worked but it wasn't the best. It's uh it's a fair weather winter cruiser I guess. I mean I did drive it pretty hard all one winter but one winter, two winters maybe. The boy drove it for another year/ winter.

[00:15:07]But the motor needs a bit of work. We got to pull this stuff apart and get underneath there. Basically, we got to pull spark plugs and then I can pop a air chuck in there and then we can kind of boom boom bang all the valve stem seals cuz I know I have some just sitting here. So, we'll just swap those out and that should make it like 100%.

[00:15:27]And they're kind of just like small block stuff. You just got to pop your valve spring off and then right there.

[00:15:33]Old one comes off. This one pops on.

[00:15:35]Super easy.

[00:15:37]Yeah, this thing's What is it? Homemade.

[00:15:39]Whatever we got. We got like a 40s axle under here. I don't know what it is.

[00:15:43]40's axle. Juice brakes. I think this is an F1 spring, a front spring cuz it sort of works. If you manipulate these bones, you can do you can make it work. Uh, we got the LS Turbo 350 homemade headers.

[00:15:58]We got O2 sensors like right back here.

[00:16:00]They're actually hidden. What do we got?

[00:16:03]Steering box is actually from a Suzuki Samurai, but works perfect to do a cross steer.

[00:16:09]We got a homemade window frame cuz I didn't have one. This door was like super hot garbage. Somebody was giving it away cuz I was missing a door for this. So, that's what that is. The roof is just it's just a plywood. I think I had to do two pieces cuz of course it's like 5ft or something. And then this is like an old tunnel cover. So, that's that's how that fared out. Amazingly, this doesn't let any water or anything in. Usually in the winter I would tape this up and seal it. Right now I can get in there to do electrical if I need to.

[00:16:42]Yeah. I don't know. It's a fun truck.

[00:16:44]It's a really fun truck.

[00:16:47]Okay. Um what I do first? I guess we're going to weld up those teeth so I can put this door all back together. This is a little wobbly, but I think all I'm going to do is just like I did here.

[00:16:58]This one must have been bad. So I'm going to just pull the door up and we're just going to fill this with weld. It'll be good enough for what the truck is, I believe. I don't think I've done it to this side. Nast. These sides are all okay. That door is just, like I say, it's a hot mess, but it works.

[00:17:55]All right. Booger weld for the win. And it won't let the handle pop out.

[00:18:40]I think everything was good. It just my spring was a little weak here as you can see.

[00:18:50]Rolling my window up.

[00:18:56]I'm just going to put something in here just to give it a little more tension.

[00:19:00]I won't do anything drastic.

[00:19:03]I won't touch the spring, that's for sure. I'll just put a little piece of plate in there. This does hold. I found when the window was up, this thing kind of drifted down a little bit.

[00:19:18]Something like that.

[00:20:49]So easy.

[00:22:25]Well, so you can kind of see my hot mess underneath here. So, we got I think this is like a forward. No, it's like maybe this is an F1 pedal assembly that I kind of mounted onto here. Dual brakes, yada yada. Got a swap meat for link under here. And we got a bad pinion seal. I just popped it off, checked it. It is a no bueno. So, I'm going have to pull this off, get this whole monstrosity off of here, and uh we can go check our fluids. Other than that, there's a little dribble of something, but it almost looks like it's coming from Well, who knows? Oh, see, I cut this is early days. I cut a pan down. That was before they were cheap. So, I'm sure there's a leak somewhere around here.

[00:23:12]And that's what's we got a little drip down there. So, I'll probably clean that up, revisit that. But yeah, we used the stock truck mounts. Kind of just mounted them in there. We just did a small little small little Z. And then yeah, you can see how our spring and everything is all up in the front. Shock mounts. Yeah, I don't know. It's a really old build. You can kind of tell there is it's uh getting fair share of rust here cuz well the winters are not kind to anything we own. That's for sure. But it's actually holding out pretty good. Anyways, I'm going to pull that diff apart. See, cross my fingers I have a seal here. If not, I guess I'll have to put that on hold. But I'm going to jump straight into the motor and start doing the valve stem seals in there. Well, unfortunately, I do not have any seal that matches this. So, I'll have to order that. Unfortunately, no big deal. We have plenty of things to do until uh that comes in. So, I'll have ordered that up right away, but I don't think I have any more seals hiding anywhere. I have like two boxes just full of random seals, and I think it was more when I was doing my Model A way back, trying to get proper axle seals for it. But yeah, anyways, let's just dig into the motor. That's the one of the last things to do other than my differential and then some battery things, but I just got to put new tops on it and uh a battery in it and then clean it out and pretty much good to go.

[00:25:21]Heat. Heat.

[00:27:21]want to hop in, buddy.

[00:27:55]I'm going to hurt you.

[00:28:10]3.

[00:28:41]All righty, folks. That is pretty much a wrap on this one. Uh, I think next round whenever we do something, uh, I got to do an intercooler on my truck on my 48 there. So, that'll be the next project coming up when I part around in the shop here. But, uh, this one I'm pretty happy I got all the got the seal fixed, doors fixed, windows fixed. I actually had the running boards. I welded on a little spot underneath there to hold some stuff. So, I got that fixed. Uh, yeah. I think we're good, right, buddy? You're good for your ride here.

[00:29:20]I don't know why he actually really likes this truck.

[00:29:25]All righty. Anyhow, on that note, folks, I want to thank you all for watching and we'll catch you on the next one later.