Wednesday Evening, 11/24/99
Boy it's been a long day, and on Get Away Day too! I can't wait for the
unscheduled FOUR day weekend to work on my oletruck. I'll finish the engine,
pull the doors, repaint the interior panels, install new latches,
weatherstripping, rebuild the door remotes, clean paint and grease the window
mechanism, install the column shift box and a host of other things. She'll
all be done but the brakes by Sunday night, and I'm bustin' to get started!
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, 11/25/99
Family and friends over for dinner, much laughter and good cheer. No
progress on the truck, but I still have three whole days ahead!
Friday, 11/26/99
Before I get started on the truck, I need to do a few chores. Jehosifat,
it's 2:00 in the afternoon before I can actually get to my heart's desire. I
work on a broken bolt on the oilpan surface of the 235. I have new tools from
Snap-On, but they prove ineffective. I mess with the Dremel and find the
broken Easy Out. Oh, Lord, what next! Four hours spent on the engine, NO
progress to show for it.
Saturday, 11/27/99
SHMBO has freed me for the weekend, and I get an early start. I pull the
driver's door and strip all but the latch. The old weatherstrip has to be
chiseled off. The door is then wirebrushed and new spray bomb paint is
applied. I check the hinge pins with the door off and find they are both
worn. I made no provisions to replace these pins, so the door will have to
come off again in the future no matter what. No sense installing the new
latches and striker plates. Darkness has arrived with the paint still drying
and the weatherstrip still to be applied. The door will have to spent the
night inside the shop and the truck will spend a lonely night without it. I
stopped only once to wolf down some lunch that SHMBO thoughtfully brought
over. She knew I would not stop otherwise.
Sunday, 11/28/99
My goodness, only one day left and I have just started on my to-do list!
The weatherstripping proves maddenly slow to install and other small jobs are
tackled while the adhesive takes it's sweet time tacking. After it is
installed at last I decide to change out the rubber window wiper on the
outside bottom of the window frame. How hard could that be? The old wiper has
fossilized from 50 years in the SoCal sun and has to be laboriously chiseled
out with my smallest screwdriver and tinniest hammer. How long could it take?
More than an hour. Darkness is fast approaching now. I gotta get the door
back on. Back on it goes, and the door innards are quickly reassembled. I'm
getting to be something of a whizz at this now. Darkness has arrived and the
project is finished by flashlight.
A four day weekend, an rare unscheduled one, was "invested" in this
project. What do I have to show for the time spent? The driver's door
interior is painted. New weatherstripping is installed on the same door, and
a new rubber wiper squeegees the glass. I learned that the column shift at
the top of the mast is screwed up, and my door hinges are worn out. Um, there
MUST be some other things, but I disremember them just now. At this rate the
truck should be finished the year two thousand and . . .
Paul O'Neil, Hudson29@aol.com
1951 Chevrolet 3600 Pickup Project, See it at:
The Poor Man's Advanced Design Tech Tips Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~conntest47/
Fullerton, California USA
AEROMARK - Need Rubber Stamps or Signs? See:
http://www.aeromark.net
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