Allan R

As opposed to a "BFH". All 3 tools a requirement of a DIY mechanic. Oh yeah add 2 more 'secret weapons' - duct tape and WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't - Duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should - WD40!

Lady72nRob71

This will happen when it is too humid out or the metal is damp. It dries too fast.
I did mine in 30% or less, so there were some bubbles but they went away.
The slower it dries, the better the finish it almost seems.

small f'in hammer.

Yep. The guys in the white coats will be taking me away soon...

SERIOUSLY???
I was thinking of my Ford which has that one bolt that holds it all on. It has a 4 speed, so removing it is easy.
Well, it looks like Mr. Pulley will be coming off this afternoon!!

I am sure glad this was brought up!!

Lady72nRob71

And if WD40 will not make it move, enter BFH. Gotta have a backup/last resort method...
OOH, BOY.... Mr pulley gets to meet Mr. BFH this afternoon.........

macrover

Duly noted! Even though I prefer PB-Blaster over WD40 for the things that don't move so easily.

Judging from Rob's work and progress, I'm going to need a few cans of both for my projects, that's for sure.

Oh, make sure not the get any on the BFH, I'd hate for it's to slip off the pulley.

Allan R

Dude! When have we not been serious??? (sound familiar? )

Allan R

Careful there Master Yoda! Wiggle it should off easily..... LIGHT persuasion as needed. So Rubber mallet, maaayyybee a SFH with Light taps and it should pop right off. It did with the one on the 455 I tored down and it was on tighter than a Scotsman's hands on his wallet.

Lady72nRob71

stellar

A block of wood may limit damage and still allow the use of a BFH if necessary. Up north we use pine. it is pretty soft. What is the mesquite like down there?

stellar

This is a great build to watch. The speed of the work is amazing. I wonder how Rob can get 28 hours out of one day.

Lady72nRob71

Super easy, yea. In a fantacy world I guess!
So popped the 4 bolts off with the 18V impact wrench and toss em in the parts washer. Nice going so far!

However.................
Mr. Pulley is stuck. Mr. Pulley meets SFH. Mr. Pulley curses SFH. SFH refuses to work. Grab BFRM (BF rubber mallet). Beat pulley from all sides. Pulley becomes loose. Lots of crap falls out. Grab pulley and pull and twist, lightly and hard. Pulley starts to rotate. Spray with WD40. Beat pulley more. Turn pulley. Pull pulley. Repeat 10 times.
Pulley now spins all the way around easily like its on bearings. Pulley will not come forward. Pry on pulley with 3 screwdrivers. Pulley stays put. Get SBFH ("Big Bertha"). No room to swing. Get beer. Look for hidden nuts or washers. None to be found. Grab pulley again and pull and twist. Pulley curses me and spins. Get big screwdriver and pound it in between SOB pulley and balancer with BFH from below. Mr. Pulley pops off and drops. Mr. Pulley trys to knock Rob in the noggin. Rob trys hard to not launch Mr. pulley into Earth's orbit.

So as you can see, this was no cakewalk.. Almost 2 hours on a stinken' pulley.
However, I defeated the sucker and it got wirewheeled, derusted, etched, and primed. To my amazement, drops of water began falling from the sky. What are these??? Odd....
Therefore I could not apply final paint, but will do that tomorrow.



After this summer, dead...

I wonder that, too... Extra time comes from that 'sleep' time that apparently I do not need. Factor in the day job, errands after work, yard work, and car work and "busy" is suddenly redefined. Add in thoughts of picking up a wagon In MI and helping a friend with his resto, sleep becomes more optional...

The commitment to finishing by October keeps me going, though.
It looks like your starter will get its first juice by next weekend.

ah64pilot

Rob, what are you doing in October? I have an October deadline set for myself as well...I'm trying to make the BOP shootout in San Antonio. I need break-in miles so if there is something going on up your way I'd love the opportunity to drive up there.

Lady72nRob71

This:
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ow-update.html

Here are pics from 2 years ago when I went:
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...zone-show.html

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...a-members.html

If this aint worth driving down to attend, nothing is!

joesw31

I am hoping to attend the zone show this year to check out all the neat cars!

stellar

The Mr. Pulley post is a classic. Had me laughing for a long time.

Lady72nRob71

Saturday delivery – just in time!
In the box was a choke stove and pipes, two steering column bearings, an ignition capacitor, sway bar bracket, exhaust spring and a valve rotator.

Exhaust spring and rotator was cleaned up and checked out and installed. I did notice the rotator was worn 0.020” more than the old one. Therefore there would be less force on the exhaust valve, but I figure that little bit could not matter that much on a street engine. It turns fine, unlike my old one that binds. My original is on the right.


The choke stove was for a 455, different than for a 350, but easily modified to fit a 350. Some careful creative bending and presto!

Old on the left, new on the right:


For a used part, it is pretty solid. The part that goes in the manifold is a lot shorter than mine, but it should work.. My old hot air pipe had a hole in it, so his new one would surely work better!
I cleaned it up, smoothed it out, and painted it.

The steering column bearings were both as loose as my old one. I am guessing they all have a 0.01” slop designed in, so I cleaned up my old one more, packed it with grease, then reinstalled it.

I never felt any looseness down there before, so I will leave it as is. The added grease firmed it up some also.

Ignition cap, bracket, and sway bar bracket were all stripped, cleaned, and painted.
Cap was mounted on the coil bracket the next day along with the coil.
Brake booster pipe assembly was assembled also.

Lastly, the infamous (pain-in-the-butt) Mr. Pulley was painted with underhood black, along with the bolts..

Good progress for 4 hours. So now the missing puzzle pieces have been found and assembly continues. I will take the parts I did not use back to John when I visit with him this fall - works out great for both of us. Thanks John!


RX pain meds and beer do strange things to my mind.....

Allan R

I knows zactly hows ya feels... Your pulley and my UCA bushings!!!

Lady72nRob71

But bushings are supposed to be a pain! After all they are press fit and rusted on with a shaft through the center.
My pulley? Four friggen bolts that came right out. Nothing else visible to hold it on. That's my luck. The hard parts pop right off but the easy stuff don't.

Aceshigh

Woot. Highly recommend the semi gloss black.
I started out with flat, and then went to semi-gloss instead. This is the flat in the pic tho.

442enginebayclean.jpg

For the plastic fender wells buy the Krylon FUSION rattle can paint.
It's specially designed for plastics, and it works awesome. Just about all parts stores carry it.

Lady72nRob71

After the bozo who was supposed to come weld it with his gas powered unit didn’t show, I hired the legendary gearhead78 to come weld them up with his Millermatic 175 MIG. I should have called him in the first place, but my ignorance of welders never led me to believe they could plug into a regular clothes dryer outlet. We did just that since the welder only needed a 30A circuit.
Richard was here for 30 minutes, only 2 minutes of that was blue-light time…


So in the end I had two nice thick welds, one in each front control arm mounting point.
Thanks for a good job Richard!

The next day was the fun of grinding the welds. They were not easy to grind through, so they must be quite strong! I used an angle grinder to hit the highest points but it would not get into the back.. I tried the dremel but it would take too long. I ended up using my 30 year old 120V 2000 RPM electric drill with a mower blade sharpening stone. It worked but was time consuming and messy. After about 30 minutes per side, I cleaned the areas and painted them with POR15 like the rest of the frame.

Here is the process - before, after weld, after grind, after paint. Good enough.


Glad to have that milestone passed!

The flat black on your firewall looks pretty factory to me. Yes, the frame is best with the semigloss, not only for looks, but for cleanability, too. Should be easy to topcoat over the flat.

No paint is best on the fenderwells and oven cleaner will strip them CLEAN of almost everything.
The plastic paint is a good idea if the plastic is discolored on the engine side like mine were on the tire side.

69442C

I had wondered what happened with this repair since you mentioned a welder was supposed to arrive on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago. People who never follow through on what they promise really bug the crap out of me. Glad you found someone to take care of it and now you don't have to worry about those grooves and feel you need to look them over from time to time. Problem solved. You will find that some of the small welders will plug into a 110V receptacle. These migs are very user friendly and require no special power source, which is why I was kidding you in the past about no one down your way offering to help you out. As for the lawn mover griding stone, I had to laugh at that one because...well.. I did the same exact thing many years ago and it did the trick.

Lady72nRob71

This is what happens when I am not knowledgable in something. I was asking around for someone with a 120V or gas welder. Most did not have one. Most 230V welders have NEMA 6-50 plugs and larger ones need 50A circuits, neither of which I have.
Richard's welder had a 6-50 plug, but he had a 20' extension that had a 6-50 receptical and a 10-30 plug, which is a dryer plug. I never knew about this and I am glad we looked into it. Heck, when he told me his welder only needed a 30A circuit, i was ready to swap out my dryer plug for a 6-50 just so we could get the job done. His extension saved more time and all in all I got a quality repair in just 30 minutes. I learned a lot here! Now to move on with reassembly.

MDchanic

They also make (or you can fabricate) a "Two-Headed" cord that can be used in cases where there is no 220v source available (provided the draw isn't too high) - you just cut the female ends off of two heavy-duty extension cords, and connect them both to a 220v receptacle in a steel box ("Hot" or black of each cord to a different "Hot" terminal of the receptacle, and "Cold" or white of both cords to "Cold" of the receptacle. For good measure, you can connect the "Grounds" or greens of both to the box itself, and to a fourth receptacle terminal, if you've got a newfangled receptacle), then plug each cord into different 110v outlets on different "legs" of the circuit (you confirm by checking for voltage across the "Hots" of the receptacle - same leg will give you Zero, different legs will give you 220). So long as nobody hooked up the polarity of any outlets backwards (which would trip a breaker as soon as you plugged in), you're good to go!

Did I explain that well enough?

- Eric

gearheads78

That mad me giggle a little

Crawling around your floor I sure learned something. I am a spoiled SOB.

It's been 9 years since I moved outside of town to a house with a small shop and now built a bigger small shop. I don't know how I ever worked out of a regular house garage with 2 cars in it all the time like I used to.

Allan R

Got a question now. Seeing as the frame can be welded (high heat) what are the chances my Control arm that got dented during the bushing press can be heated and pounded flat again?

A mechanic said this would be a bad move because it is a suspension part, and heating will ruin the steels tempering rendering the CA useless. Is this true? that CA is bloody heavy gauge steel. It is one of the rear CA bushing holes (the back one to be specific) that got dented.

Jamesbo

Rob, I think Richard liked getting off diaper duty for a little while.

442_Mustang

The frame is an alloy of mild steel as is that lower control arm. However that hole the bushing goes in is a high tolerance hole. Not much of a variance in the size because that bushing MUST fit very tightly. If you heat that arm it could change the size of it. I wouldn't take the chance. It can be cold straightened. There are gorillas swinging BFHs to straighten and metal finishing our big old bumpers.

Allan R

Here gorilla rilla rilla.....Got a banana for you.....
Point taken. I'll drop by a shop and see if they can help. I was having a problem with it because it doesn't fit easily into a vise, and I don't have an anvil to beat it against.
Here's what it looks like:


As you can see there is absolutely no damage to the main seat where the bushing presses in. The damage is on the back side where the bushing sits. Rob and I discussed this and think it may be ok as is, but ultimately would be better if it was straightened.

citcapp

Good job by Richard the care guy. Rob what does Richards giggle sound like?

gearheads78

How about a big c -clamp and two pieces of thick metal sandwiched together.

Allan R

Hmmm, never thought of that. Need to find some thick flat steel. How thick do you think? Would 3/8" plate work?

Lady72nRob71

Yep, I know exactly what you mean. Glad the dryer outlet worked so well.

I'll say! I never thought I would be working on cars like this or I would have bought more land or built a bigger garage! Hindsight is SOOOooo 20/20.
Here is what Richard is referring to; the biggest challenge of this project aside from the extreme heat is CLOSE QUARTERS:




He made sure he was gone before the giggle. His own little secret I guess...

Use a 8" - 12" quality clamp and the base of the clamp could go right on the arm and only one plate of 1/4" or up can be used under the rotating foot of the clamp. Lube the clamp thread well first! Worth a try and should work...
Clamp of the ball joint press could even be adapted for use.

Allan R

Ahhh, I see what the problem is. You forgot that you can park one car outside and use the whole garage to your advantage!!! You are soooo right, Hindsight is 20/20 when the car's apart and up on jacks...... If I don't get finished mine in time, I can still just clean up part of the garage for my wife to park in. A good winter day up here is worse than your worst winter day in TX.


Good suggestion. I have a good 8" C clamp. BJ press? No, it's way too big to maneuver in there & besides I took it back yesterday. I can get it again anytime I need it on the loaner program. (these guys are starting to recognize me and think I'm running a business I think )

Lady72nRob71

Ahhhh.... But what you do not see are up to 3 cars and a bike outside also. No way am I gonna play musical cars for 20 minutes just too do a few hours of wrenching...
And that 7" gap between the front bumper and work bench is what I call "fat man's squeeze". I can barely get by if I stand on my toes and face the wall. Moving a car out will not help that. Note the angled aluminum mounted on the workbench to keep my clothes from catching on the wood edge... Richard found it easier just to crawl under the car...
With all the hot weather and bugs we have, the roll up door has to stay closed when working, so no going around.

Translation - standard sized garages suck for working on cars.

gearheads78

Nice way to say I was too fat to pass through

69442C

[QUOTE=Lady72nRob71;324710]
I never thought I would be working on cars like this or I would have bought more land or built a bigger garage! Hindsight is SOOOooo 20/20.
QUOTE]


Yikes, I started to feel claustrophobic just looking at the pictures. I have a friend with a very similar situation in garage about the same size and he decided he needed a 2 post lift. Talk about 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag! I had a garage like that in the past and it was no fun to work in. So when we built the current house I had the opportunity to solve that problem. But the problem with garages or work shops is no matter how big you make them, they will eventually start to feel too small at some point. I think it has to do with more space means more stuff and more stuff means less room. Less room means stuff needs to be removed or the shop needs to be bigger. I seem to see it as the shop needs to be bigger.

Allan R

Ok, I get it. You rich enough to afford more transportation than you can drive at one time, but too cheap to buy a big garage?? Just kidding.

I guess that I really can't complain. I can open the garage door and it's 75° outside. I close it and it goes down to 65°. And the other part about my garage that makes it somewhat easier to get around, it's split. One side is 24X10 and the other half is 20X10. It gives me some latitude for the 'fat man blues'.

Allan R

I prefer to think of my girth as something earned, as well as bought and paid for! I think we're in the same boat, although from the pic Rob posted of you, I doubt you're more than 200 soaking wet.

Lady72nRob71

Don't worry. Carl (HAMM36) was over the other day and he couldn't make it either. Did not even try. Heck, I had to quit drinking beer and loose weight so I could pass through.

Got the $, just do not want to dump a lot into this house. Doing it right would be very costly. Not the right neighborhood and I would not get it back when I sell. Thought about a cheapie carport but wont help in the extreme temps...
Besides, I screwed myself on the house placement to add on even if I wanted to.
Now my next house in OR will be different. Huge garage and a small shop on acreage.

oldzy

Nice job on the welding. I have yet to get mine done (wallowed out hole on lower front dr. side mounting bracket). I have a new Lincoln MIG/Flux Core welder, but my welding skillz suck.

Lady72nRob71

Mine too. I tried a 120V wire feed unit a while back to repair a spot weld in a door. Even after some practice of blowing holes in sheet metal, my finished spot weld looked more like what ducks leave on the dock.
It held though, surprisingly...