Friday, February 15, 2008

Project Truck Update - 15 Feb 2008

Been pretty busy and I haven't done much work on the truck as of late, but I've done a few things.

Thanks to my post at Stovebolt, I found another local Chevy/GMC truck enthusiast named Jake. He stopped by one day while I was working on the truck and helped me fix the headlights. He loved the truck and he said he had some extra parts that were taking up space in his attic. Jake offered them to me for free if I picked them up. So, it was off to the Northshore for an adventure!

Driving the truck for that long gave me a good feel for the truck. It just wants to go! It's fun to drive (although, after a while, it's tiring because of the lack of modern conveniences like A/C, power steering, disk brakes, etc.). The exhaust header's seal was also blown out, so the engine sounded like a infinitely long string of black cat fireworks going off. The cabin was filled with the smell of exhaust, thanks to all the holes in the firewall. Candice's parents also noticed a small oil leak from the truck and I responded, "my truck doesn't leak, it marks it's territory."

Candice followed me to the northshore. I joked she was the Bandit to my Smokey...

We made it to the northshore


My truck's first load...

The suspension is very stiff, which makes it handle great, but wears you down. The springs in the bed are oversized because any trucks built in '62 were going to be WORK trucks... This truck was built before people drove trucks to make a statement about themselves (and the size of their genitals). My truck was built when men were men, Democrats had balls, and computers took up rooms! Anyway, this truck isn't going to become a preening show truck. It's going to stay true to it's roots as a work truck. That's what it told me it wanted to be.

So I put the truck back to work...

...moving me out of the Quarter.


And then somebody broke into the garage I keep my truck in and tried to steal it!

No worries, though. The truck has an anti-theft device: being old and rusty! The carburetor is old and the choke is busted, so starting the engine when it's cold (i.e.- not run in a while) is VERY tricky. You need to smash on the gas pedal to near-flood the engine and crank it a few times, and then it will start. I could leave the keys in the ignition and it would be take someone else 15 minutes to start.

Next project was installing new exhaust headers on the driver's side:

The old exhaust system... No catalytic converter on this truck...

Here's what the engine looks like sans exhaust:

And, after lots of pulling and cursing, here's the new exhaust headers installed on the engine:

All nice and perdy

I unfortunately bent the dipstick tube while installing the header, so that'll need to be fixed/replaced.

I've also been keeping track of my spending and I'm coming in around $2,200 (including the truck, taxes, insurance, parts etc.) thus far.

7 comments:

Ashley said...

You didn't opt for the Gold tone Moroso valve covers. Nice.

Clay said...

That was the previous owner...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that ever since I cleaned out the carb and now the engine has fully functional exhaust scavenging going, the engine is MUCH more powerful. If you put the car into drive and just let it drive (without touching the gas), the car will accelerate, shift to second, accelerate, and shift to third, and then go 30-ish mph without touching the gas pedal. Before, the engine was so beat up, the mis-set idle didn't matter. Now it does.

Anonymous said...

Ashley, no, Clay wants chrome ones. (Chrome, chrome, more chrome...)

Ashley said...

Chrome...on a "work" truck.

Sigh...

Clay said...

Well, it's not going to be a "drive it into the ground"-work truck.

I just mean it's not going to be like one of my coworker's friends trucks. My coworker spent a day putting his friend's truck on a lift and waxing the underbelly of the truck before a show. That will not be my truck.

Clay said...

This is the truck that needed the undercarriage waxed:

55 Chevy Stepside

Crawfish Pie said...

I had one of those back in the early 80's. It's a great truck. I believe it was 235 cid and simple to work on and I'm a girl. Well, not exactly a girl. I could stand between the engine and the fender and reach everything.

You are going to really enjoy this baby. Have fun and watch your arms get big from steering it. :)