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The "What Did You Work On Today" thread

3M views 36K replies 388 participants last post by  cerial 
#1 ·
4 hour work day for me at the shop. Used the time to do a valve body swap on a '01 Jetta 1.8t auto .... I successfully installed a transbrake on the car .... that however wasn't my intention.

Its in 2 gears at once in park, all other gears (R/N/D/2/1) are forward gears.... they all seam to be first gear.

I have it torn back down most of the way. Tuesday I'll actually get the VB back out and see whats up.... but part of me wants to take it out for a test drive the way it is just for the fun of it.
 
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#18,803 ·
LOL. I reached a new level of frugal today. I need some lowering blocks for the car but only had 1x1 1/2 and 2x2 stock. The blocks needed to be 1 3/4 x2 so I welded 2 pieces of 1x 1 1/2 together to get 1 1/2 x 2 and then sliced off a piece of the 2x2 to add the 1/4 I needed. An awful lot of work for such a simple part but it should work well and have nice uniform corners making it hard to tell what I have done once the ends are angled and capped.

Now there is an example of having more time than sense. :D

John





 
#18,804 ·
LOL. I reached a new level of frugal today. I need some lowering blocks for the car but only had 1x1 1/2 and 2x2 stock. The blocks needed to be 1 3/4 x2 so I welded 2 pieces of 1x 1 1/2 together to get 1 1/2 x 2 and then sliced off a piece of the 2x2 to add the 1/4 I needed. An awful lot of work for such a simple part but it should work well and have nice uniform corners making it hard to tell what I have done once the ends are angled and capped.

Now there is an example of having more time than sense. :D

John
I'm ashamed to say that I know you. :rolleyes:

Aw, what the hell. I made slapper bar/lowering blocks for my truck. Ran the, God only knows how many miles on road and strip. Sorry, no photos.

Brian
 
#18,805 ·
The first photo is the left side of my face, undamaged. The black circle is air in my nasal cavity.

The other is the right side, you can see where the drill broke into the nasal cavity just below the eye socket, just a couple of millimeters below the eye socket. It's not all black because it's filled with blood.

Guys the doctor who showed me this CT scan yesterday said over and over and over how lucky I was. Just a few millimeters in a few different directions would have changed everything! And like he said, how about hitting my forehead! The drill went into my face about 3/8 to 1/2 inch, if that happened on my forehead I would have been in the ICU still! Likely with permanent possibly very serious brain damage.

But I have to tell you, he was fascinated by the whole thing and how lucky I was. At one point he apologized "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so impersonal, we are talking the science of it, this is amazing."

I left that office with the doctor shaking my hand as I walked into the waiting room and my heart sank, I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't asking for it, but I almost bawled. He just couldn't stop saying how lucky I was, that I all have is this numbness that may go away (half my face is numb) or it may not, it is a very small price to pay compared to what could have happened!

Brian
 

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#18,806 ·
Tonight after my evening walk to the hardware store to get the correct drill I did a little experiment to see if my brothers idea would work. He wasn't happy with how small the screws were that I used to hold the screen into the radiator box on his bike, #4, he wanted #8 at least. Ok, so I have to remove the welded in number fours and put in number eights. It was a mutha holding those little screws in to weld from the back side and I was not looking forward to it. He suggested that I drill and tap the hole then screw the thing in flush and weld it. HUH? It's friggin sheetmetal, how could you get enough threads?

Done deal, no sweat! This is why we have big brothers!

Brian
 

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#18,807 ·
very lucky, Martin.

Today was another Accord with the rims stolen. Thieves are stealing the rims off of the 2017 Accord Sports all over the nation. We get em cause we put new rims on them and have to put em on the lift to inspect them. They are usually jacked right on the flat part of the rocker, which pushes it so far up the door gap changes. They usually take out the fender and rocker. That's 7 or more hours just for the rocker fix cause you itemize the tack and pull for 1hr as well. replace the fender cause you have to take it off to work it and no blend time so tech and painter don't want that....replace! Learning how to work it for more time. ahhha
 
#18,808 ·
I worked on the shrinker stretcher stand and also the stand for my Bead Roller. I am building them side by side so I do each operation for both pieces.

Today I welded up the lower sections or the feet of the stands and Finished the slots for the mounting bolts and drilled everything. I haven't mounted the center post to the base yet. I and getting all the drilling and adjusting before I lock the column down to the base. I am actually making some progress.

The bead roller will be mounted tomorrow and that will be a wrap. The shrinker stretcher still needs pedals and some trimming but I want to have it done by Tuesday so I can start playing with some metal and try a couple test ideas for the deck lid shell repair. It is sure going to simplify the use of the shrinker stretcher. Here are a couple of progress photos

The Bead roller is a work in progress and while I was rummaging in the back of the shop I ran across a Sears old style chain drive garage door opener. ( Hey John I am learning the frugal ness rules)

I am building more or less "On the Fly kind of loosely following the stand on Metal Meet. I am looking forward to having a semi decent tool to work with.:cool:
 

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#18,809 ·
I took some time away from my school work to get in the shop to take care of a couple of things that I've been wanting to do to my truck. I was able to finish lowering the rear suspension finally. I installed 3" lowering springs up front last year when I had to replace the ball joints. A couple of years ago I had installed 2" lowering shackles in the back to level it out, but level wont out the window when I installed the springs up front. Today I finally installed the lowering hangers for the front of the leaf springs. Total 3" front, 4" rear. The drivers side was a royal pain in the backside with the gas tank in the way.

Dave
 

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#18,811 ·
I am kind of excited. Tim and I are going back to look at the '65 Futura conv today. We are taking some jack stands with us and want do a really good examination of the bottom. It would please me to see Tim replace the 39.

John
Refresh my memory.
39 what, and why would it be good to replace it?
 
#18,812 ·
I am kind of excited. Tim and I are going back to look at the '65 Futura conv today. We are taking some jack stands with us and want do a really good examination of the bottom. It would please me to see Tim replace the 39.

John
Where did I miss you, or him, looking at it previously ? Remember, they are the same as a Mustang, and you've seen the extent they rust from my adventures. Just opening the hood tells a lot of the story about what condition the front uni-frame is in.
 
#18,813 ·
Where did I miss you, or him, looking at it previously ? Remember, they are the same as a Mustang, and you've seen the extent they rust from my adventures. Just opening the hood tells a lot of the story about what condition the front uni-frame is in.
True, true, and true and we know this car did have some rust repair but we don't know how much. We looked at it 2 weeks ago. It looks good from under the hood but we really want to see it from the bottom. The gentleman who owned it passed away 3 years ago at 89 and had been in a nursing home. He was a sheet metal worker and had a small metal lathe, brake lathe and other equipment in his basement so he hopefully new what and how to do things correctly.


Refresh my memory.
39 what, and why would it be good to replace it?
Tim had a really nice '39 Chevy for about8 years but sold it a couple of years ago. He has talked about a gen one Chevy iI but his brother i law inherited this Futura convertible. I will try to get some pictures of it today.

This is the '39 he sold.

John

 
#18,814 ·
True, true, and true and we know this car did have some rust repair but we don't know how much. We looked at it 2 weeks ago. It looks good from under the hood but we really want to see it from the bottom. The gentleman who owned it passed away 3 years ago at 89 and had been in a nursing home. He was a sheet metal worker and had a small metal lathe, brake lathe and other equipment in his basement so he hopefully new what and how to do things correctly.




Tim had a really nice '39 Chevy for about8 years but sold it a couple of years ago. He has talked about a gen one Chevy iI but his brother i law inherited this Futura convertible. I will try to get some pictures of it today.

This is the '39 he sold.

John
He should keep talking about the Chevy II......oh yeah.....:thumbup:
 
#18,816 ·
anyone know the name of a company that sells kits to install C4 Corvette suspension (,front and rear ) as well as powertrain in my 55 chevy,,I found a boxed framenow,but cant remember the company name with the kits..

any help:rolleyes:
I don't have an answer for you but damn that is cool your Vette can live on.

Brian
 
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#18,817 ·
I finished the major construction on the bead roller stand and it is at least functional now. I need to mount some studs on the side of the vertical to hold all the dies and I need to do some basic mods to the roller. I need to add zerk fittings to the shaft bearing blocks and need to improve the adjustment bolt on the top. I did run my first ever test bead on the roller and I was plesently surprized. It was some 20 of 22 ga but it gave me a good idea of how the roller and tool work. I still need to look into my garage door motor power assist I am going to put on but that is less of a priority now.

Here it is still a work in progress. :cool:
 

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#18,818 · (Edited)
End Quote---
He should keep talking about the Chevy II......oh yeah.....:thumbup:


That may be true but the Futura would have made a nice little car for the right price. Tim and his brother in law got to 2500 dollars of each other but never made a deal. Had it been a Chevy II I believe he would have bought it.

John






This is under the trunk matt.




You can tell the old man loved the car and was an antiquer. It had what looked like a brand new single exhaust behind the V-8.:)

The car had not run in Three years. We poored a teaspoon of gass in the carburator, jumped it off and it cranked right up. One lifter clattered for about 3-4 minutes and slowely built itself up. After that it ran quiet as a church mouse.

John
 
#18,819 ·
A friend has decided to sell his 67 Mustang GT fastback. He finally got it running after having it a year, I guess it dont run as well as he expected. I've never seen it but I might buy it. He's unsure how much he wants but says somewhere between 5- 10,000, I just told him 5001.00 is between there. He's been eye balling my 740 BMW pretty hard :mwink:
 
#18,820 ·
I finished the major construction on the bead roller stand and it is at least functional now. I need to mount some studs on the side of the vertical to hold all the dies and I need to do some basic mods to the roller. I need to add zerk fittings to the shaft bearing blocks and need to improve the adjustment bolt on the top. I did run my first ever test bead on the roller and I was plesently surprized. It was some 20 of 22 ga but it gave me a good idea of how the roller and tool work. I still need to look into my garage door motor power assist I am going to put on but that is less of a priority now.

Here it is still a work in progress. :cool:
If that is your T deck lid in the background RIP, it looks like you already have done some good work on it.

John
 

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