2022: What are you doing today?

[idrivejunk]

Put a water pump and new belt on the GT tonight. May have been the gasket. Man what a long day. Time will tell if I finally touched on the persistent coolant leak. It just keeps worsening.

I'm at two fails now uploading some pics, don't know why. Will keep trying later on.

Mom is in the hospital alone tonight, might have had a TIA. Testing.

I ain't grumpin or too worried, just beat like a drum.

[moose]

Matt the GT is a later model Gran Prix correct? I had an 89 and it developed a coolant leak. I FINALLY traced it to s couple pin holes on top of a hard line that ran along the frame rail. Not sure if yours is plumbed the same but may be a place to look if it persists.

[idrivejunk]

Thanks Moose 

Its a 1999, the 3800 Series II. Must be plumbed different. This has the heater hoses going through a cast alternator bracket. The indication today is good, I see no river coming out from under the car but the last couple days it was growing. Don't have another car work weeknight left in me so it better just be fixed. Sick of the house reeking of coolant. New belt was really chirpy this morning but pulleys are still nasty. If that noise is the pump, I'll be mighty disappointed. Mom just texted she will be released next couple hours. What I got my eye on is that bed after work tomorrow if all goes ok. Walking dead today.

[idrivejunk]

Heres a shot of the 51 F1 dash and CADsole. I wasn't involved much. Cut it wrong to start then did some imaginatory visuals to help pick. He wanted a Fairlane speedo initially but the 56 cluster is an easy pick.

[kb426]

^^^^
That's a nice addition to the grille. There still will be someone who says they had one just like it.

[idrivejunk]

Grille?

I am delighted to declare victory. The soggy old serp belt had stretched a good bit and the new belt killed the idler pulley bearing within a couple minutes. So that was the chirp. Loud profane declaration of joy followed. That lets me quit the night mechanic trash gig and just in time to finally collapse. The stinking fill procedure takes longer than most repairs and last night block and all were drained.

What I done was clock out a half hour early, whipped the car in and nabbed the tensioner pulley off the spare S/C engine at work. Ah, silence. Great joy. Runs quite cool and stable now, knock on wood.

This threw me a little though, the pump pulley and hub design. See pic. Tried the one off the other engine too while I was in, but both of them are wobbly looking as can be. The little pulley locating nubs and domed hub / dished pulley seems designed to keep a guy wondering if it is on right and thats what I half figured was wrong. Maybe thats the purpose of the design, so it can be crooked? I can't figure why in tarnation it'd be made that way. The nubs don't engage until bolts are near tight. I don't guess it matters, just looks bad to a car guy all wobbledy but the 02's was more so than the * I'm glad to be past that. If anything on the front of the engine could even be seen, that would have been much less miserable. Everything is hid, disassemble to look. It was like finding a black hole with a telescope... circumstantial evidence is the only clue.

[idrivejunk]

Sorry KB. I get it now. The 56 dash with the 56 grille. Duh. The 56 hood hinges will likely elude the majority.

[kb426]

Matt, if I hadn't watched the build, I probably wouldn't recognize the hood hinges either.

[chimp koose]

More bike time . Machined the spear shaped nuts to hold the rear axle in place . They match the rest of the fastener hardware on the bike.

[kb426]

I've been down with influenza a all week. The granddaughter brought it from school and got all of us. A week ago, I discovered that the right rear wheel cylinder was leaking on my 2000 Dakota. The truck has 97,000 miles and has never had the rear brakes touched. I ordered enough parts to do everything. I ended up replacing both wheel cylinders and the shoes. The drums had almost no wear. The non-leaking side had .020" wear on the primary and .030" on the secondary shoe. I was very surprised at how little wear there was. I'm pretty easy on brakes but the brake bias must be really high on the front to rear ration. I'm fine with that. My former Miata was the same way. Front pads wore out, rear less than .005" wear. That's the excitement for the week.

[kb426]

Fatcat, I tried to attach several videos in the last week and they all come up as unviewable. I'm wondering if something else happened with the update?

[chimp koose]

machined the rear axle for the bike . Tomorrow the chain tensioners should be tig welded in place . Got to get on to ordering the sprockets for the jack shaft soon .

[chimp koose]

I tried to spray some metalflake today ! I got some large flake from the dollar store craft aisle . Sprayed down some clear , then sprinkled dry flake followed by more clear and so on . Looks pretty sparkly but will take a lot more clear to bury the flake . I am experimenting in case I can talk my son into wanting flake on this chopper .        

[kb426]

^^^
Suspected child abuse. LOL.

[chimp koose]

Good one KB ! Made me laugh