Slogging along

[jim lee]

Friday, September 22, 2017

We went off-roading in “Theodore” or M37. It was a long, hot bumpy ride. Washboard for hours. Quite the adventure, took the entire day. But, it left us both with iffy lower backs. I still think it was a backache virus, but Julie insists it was from banging down dirt roads all day. I also think we broke something in the steering ‘cause it seems sloppier now.



We have a trip to New Orleans coming up. I’m a hurry to finish a couple things with my sore back before we go. I had the seats scheduled to be rebuilt and had to get them dropped off before we leave.

Julie helps me pull out the seats. Her back’s hurting too, but she loves to travel and we we’re heading out the next day. So she was doing anything and everything to make sure that happened.

We were both “Here grab, OW! that, no don’t Ow! Wait, I can’t reach.. Ow!”

In the end we made it in time.



I’'d also come up with some artwork for a heater logo. Not being an artist, I had to cobble together some bits from the internet that were close to what I had in mind. I looked all over for some kind of drawing app to put this together. All the good ones I remember from my past are gone.

Sigh..

Ended up putting this together in Pages, A feebe app that come with Macs. I was in a hurry.



I even screwed up applying the decal. Extreme frustration!

But really, it’s probably just fine. I find that no one notices the decal. And, everyone. that sees the heater thinks I installed a new one. So that’s kinda’' fun.

Then we hopped on the Jet heading out of town for a week.



Home again and finally some time to work on the truck. First order of business was checking up on the upholstery people for a report on the seat progress.

When I arrived, they showed me the springs and frames. Everything had been stripped and sand blasted. There was a lot of damage to the springs and frames that needed attention. As in welding.

Well, I’d bought a torch. I guess I could have a shot at fixing them?



The driver seat spring frame broken into three pieces. I’m getting ready to clamp on a steel bar to hold it straight while I weld it beck together.

Oh, and I’m not in any sense of the word a welder. Last time I held a torch was around 35 years ago. So I’m pretty unsure of myself right now.



I’m making this up as I go along. Someone pulled the seat back out without removing the center mounting screw. The backing plate’s all bent and cracked. So, on a whim, I got some metal and clamped it back flat again. Heck, I even had to buy the metal & clamps at the local hardware store.



Kinda’ flat, going to try welding up the crack now.

Fingers crossed..



Welded and re-bashed flat with a hammer and a brick. Turned out ok. At least, better than I feared.



Pile of welded up seat pieces. I was so stressed I had to take a lot of breaks. Took me all day to do this job. In the end, I had to move everything inside to do the finish grinding, because it got too dark to see outside.



My welding station. I found I needed to be somewhat comfortable before I could weld. Otherwise I’d get in a hurry and just melt everything.

You can see the repair of the driver’s seat frame going on here. Once I was able to get the middle damage welded up, I had to straighten out the sides and clean off the original brass that had failed.

Stretching the metal out with the clamps at the sides also helped pull the middle of the panel back into shape. Win win!

Note: Julie saw this picture and was not happy when she found that I was using one of her fancy entryway chairs as a welding stool.



First side cleaned up, straightened out and clamped for welding.

The original brazing was not properly clamped, so the sheet metal panel had pulled away from the frame while it was still molten. Then most of the brass failed anyway. I pulled what I could apart and ground out the old brass.

Ah, notice the grinder?



These little guys are a throwback from the boat building days. They turned out to be really handy for doing this kind of work.



The next day, nervous as heck, I delivered the parts back to the upholstery shop. The guy at the shop met me at the door, “Wow! That was fast!”

I started showing him what I’d done.

“Will this be alright?”

“Alright? This looks fantastic! This is great!”

“Whew!”



Now, while we were traveling, I thought a lot about... “Do I just finish the brake job? Or, do I dive in and repair the leaking front axle?”

Again I’m hoping to keep this a “repair” and not fall into a “restore” job. But really, I’d feel better if this was addressed. So I decided to bite the bullet, tear into the steering knuckle and deal with whatever I find in there.

I pulled out the axle and found that the seal had been bashed by whomever installed the axle. This shouldn’t be so bad.

Until I started pulling off the passenger wheel’s brake shoes and found the entire steering knuckle was loose. This job just got a whole lot bigger..



Now the job has grown into replacing all the seals, steering bushings and bearings. Another round of ordering parts and waiting for the boxes to arrive.

How in the world does all this stuff come apart anyway? There’s so much dirt, gunk and tar, its more like doing an archaeological dig than mechanics.

Pulling the drag-link off, shown here, really stumped me for a bit. I had to ask online how to get the keeper locking pin out without breaking something. Then I didn’t have a tool to unscrew the keeper itself.



After a lot of head scratching and pawing through stuff, I found that the BBQ fork handle fit great. Seriously it worked!

Luckily the insides looked, to me, shiny & new.



Slowly, with many sanity breaks, the steering knuckle comes apart.



I didn’t realize there were pins pressed in between the bolts until, at one sanity break looking at an internet blog of someone else's steering knuckle being pulled apart, they showed the pins being pounded out.

“Oh! No wonder I can’t budge anything!”

I had to borrow my buddy’s sledge hammer to get those pins out. I borrowed him to help too. Julie gave him a beer.



Bashing out the pins pushed the bottom bearing race out about half way. Everything got all floppy. Then finally, it was apart.

After a massive cleanup, not shown, I was able to pull off the bronze bushing. It was kinda'’ scored up. The roller bearing in the bottom was in need of replacement as well. So, I feel better about digging in this far.



I don’t have the right kind of puller for the lower bearing, so it’ll will have to wait for a store run later.

I did order a puller for the inner bushing and seal. I could work on pulling those tomorrow..

But, that’s how the project sits tonight.