[Lightspeed Mike]

I made a new heat shield out of stainless for the right side exhaust manifold.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

WOW, very nice !! You work at a sheet metal shop ?? Looks professionally shaped.

Thanks.
I have a small fabrication shop with a CNC plasma cutter.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I rolled my 38 Chevy outside for the first time and fired it up. Damn good day!!!

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I did this......gawwd...........


View attachment 617913

That's called making a commitment......

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I piddled out in my garage for a bit yesterday, got a little cleaning up and straightening out done. Gotta make room for more stuff from dad's shop. I also got a little more done on the Chevelle. A little more picking in the wheel well. Last night and this morning my bride and I have been working on an antique chair that has been in her mom's family for a LONG time. We have no idea what the original seat was made of, but it looked like someone had used cotton rope from a hardware store and it was falling apart pretty bad. My bride bought a spool of natural sea grass to use and we got it done. Middle section is still damp in the pic. Her mom is going to be happy to get it back. View attachment 619727 View attachment 619728

That's really neat!!! I remember my parents had stool like that and was frayed and falling apart. I had thoughts of redoing it but didn't have clue what type of material it was or where to start. I'm sure it got thrown out years ago.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

Made up some tooling to stamp out some domed ends for my bumper. Was so happy with the results I made a video of it.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I've had this Standard-Modern lathe (I'm sure it came from a school) for quite a while but it had a problem. In high range it would sling oil out of the head stock bad enough that it would make a streak across the shop floor. Low speed cutting doesn't always work very well. I googled till I had a sore butt and couldn't find any disassembly information. I found a parts manual and studied it. 5 face bolts and 1 locking collar nut to undo and the shaft taps out. Behind the plate is an O ring seal. Dried out and hard. A trip to the local hydraulic shop and requested a new 4.25" X 1/8" O ring. No charge says the man behind the counter. I threw him $10 and told him to get some coffee. Reassembled the head stock, topped up the oil and hot damn, works like a champ. No more oil spitting out even in top gear. I love my lathe again.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I made a small but long awaited purchase for my car the other day.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

What's that? The license plates?

How's she running?

Yes, plates.
It runs awesome, I measured and eye balled the alignment best I could and the steering wheel is straight and drives good. Will get it aligned properly and new tires front this week or next.
Suspension is nice and smooth. Headlights work awesome. Better than my daily driver. I'd definitely recommend them.
I'm super pumped, 30 years is a long time to wait for the first drive.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

30 years? I thought you were going at this only recently.

I bought it 30 years ago. Started on it shortly after that. Things happened, including getting married, buy house have kids, buy another house. I wanted to do it right, so it got shelved and I built the 47 Mercury pickup meanwhile. By the time I got back to it, I didn't like just about everything that was previously done, technology comes along way too. When I bought it the LS engine hadn't even been invented yet!! Now I couldn't of powering it any other way.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

Mike,

I'd be interested in knowing what alignment specs you end up using. Glad to hear you're up and running. Looks great!

I have a manual rack so my plan is
Camber 0 - .5 positive
Caster 2.5 positive
Toe 1/16"- 1/8" toe in.

I did alignments when I was in the automotive trade but never on custom built cars, only stockers to factory specs.
Will talk to the alignment guy when I get there to see if he has another opinion.

 

[Lightspeed Mike]

I wanted a tube notcher for a while. Cheap ones aren't good, good ones aren't cheap. Went through my odds and ends pile and found a pieces of 1.375" shaft and 3" X .250" wall tube. $10 for bearing that would make the 2 work together. A "V" block from a machine shop exercise and some other scraps. A little lathe time and fired up the welder. Even painted it.