Scrapping the S10

A quick update. Took the S10 to the scrapper today. It was a major accomplishment to get down there without anything falling off of the trailer. You can see the bed going away on the loader. That loader is the only one I've ever seen with those completely untreaded tires. Bet they're expensive.

Dead S10 motor, unceremoniously pushed out of the truck and onto the ground. "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a man of infinite jest..." How'd I do?

The motor has been pushed aside by the loader. I'm now waiting to leave. I'm scrapping a neighbor's car next weekend. If anyone else has a dead car I can scrap, I'll give you $100 for it.

Here's a pile of parts I saved for possible use. I also have a second smaller pile. It was having access to all of this junk that made getting a whole truck the way to go. At least the yard looks a little better with the S10 carcass gone. Next we'll get started on the chassis.

Stripping the S10 is completed...with just a small fire

Well here we are. The motor is out of the S10 frame. There are only a couple of small brackets and things left to remove. You can see the face of the transmission as it hovers there, it is the big dark circular thing in the middle. The power brake assembly is lying on the front tire for now. I have figured out 2 possible ways around that massive ABS unit that is lying on the front of the tire.

The motor removal was quick and simple. Probably one of the easiest motor removals I have ever done, and I've done a few. Of course, it almost never happens that the motor is sitting on a bare frame out in the open like that. Nonetheless, a half dozen bolts removed, and the motor pulled free. I apologize that I do not have photos of the motor out and hanging off of the hoist like a dead tuna. I could not find the camera at the time. I justified moving forward without photos because I have done so many motor pulls that it is not a big deal to me, even thought it might look impressive to the readers. Also this was the time slot I had available, so I had to keep going.


Here's the same basic shot from the back. You can see the fabricated trans mount from last time in place and holding the trans up nicely. The stock rear trans mount is out of view. You can see the shifter, and the lower steering column in place; it has an odd orange sleeve on it.

It seems like a lot of work just to get to this point, and it was, but I am very psyched to get on with the frame refurbishment. I can't wait to see it all redone and ready for the body swap. Also I know it seems like I am not using much of the original truck, and that's true, but I also have a whole big pile of parts I am keeping for reuse. I also needed to be sure I got all of what I needed, and in good shape, so I felt that a complete truck was the only way to do that.

I made a preliminary parts list for the brakes and suspension, and then looked up the part numbers and prices on-line. Now I can go to the local auto parts chain store and have them just double check the part numbers when I go to get the parts. The prelim cost is about $550. If I don't need replacement brake rotors and drums, that would save a lot of money. I don't like to cheap out when I'm replacing parts though. It's usually more work to replace related parts later, and the new parts work better if they are not working with other worn out parts.

This rig is going to be heavy when it is done. The battery pack alone will weigh about 1500 lbs! It will be like driving around with a full load of dirt or something in the bed the whole time, so I want the brakes to be up to par.

On something like brake and suspension work, I usually figure a shop would charge the same amount as the parts cost again for labor (maybe more!), so in this case it would be $1100 total. If I do the labor, I feel like I can spend more on replacing more parts. Trust me, shops are not bashful about charging you for labor.

Here is what's left of the S10. All of this will be going to the scrapper. I almost feel bad about taking a decent truck completely apart. Almost. Got to keep your eye on the end goal. Some must be sacrificed so that others may live on, and become electrified, or something like that.

Ok. Here is the baby. The S10 motor. I drained the oil, to be environmentally friendly. This is headed to the scrapper too. I put some ads on Craigslist for all of the unneeded parts, including a running motor, but I didn't really get any responses. To be honest, I'm kind of burnt out on trying to sell stuff anyway. It's a BIG hassle. People don't know what they want, try to haggle on give-away prices, then still complain, etc. I don't have the time for that nonsense. I'll get maybe $50? from the scrapper.

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Not shown is the flywheel, clutch disc, and pressure plate, or clutch hat assembly, I took off of the rear of the motor. They all looked like they had been replaced recently. I was curious when I saw tool nicks on the attaching hardware. When I pulled it off, all of these components looked really fresh. This is a nice find; the replacement clutch parts would be about $200. Hey, it's better than having to pay for that too.

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Oh, I will save the proselytizing (never thought I'd get to use that word) about removing one more foul, polluting gas motor from circulation, and how I will be single-handedly saving mankind and the planet with the replacement electric motor, blah, blah, blah. Not up for it right now. Maybe later. Although, get a good look at that motor. It's there, under all the hoses, and belts, and wires, and pulleys, and gizmos, and the oil stains, and the grease blobs. Remember it, to compare with the nice, efficient, clean, simple, pretty electric motor that will replace it. Kind of makes the old gasser seem pretty pathetic, actually.

Lastly, we have...well, it's like this: I wanted to cut out the sheetmetal where the brake booster and clutch cylinder mounted, to splice into the firewall of the F100. Then these would just bolt up later. Easy. Figured it wouldn't hurt to have the steering shaft hole and gas pedal mount too.

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This is looking at it from where the motor was. The main wiring harness is on the right, still firmly entombed in the dashboard on the other side.

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So I fired up my plasma cutter. An electric arc jumps from the gun nozzle to the body panel, and at the same time, compressed air shoots out and blows the molten metal puddle away, leaving a small hole. You move the gun along, and an open line forms, cutting the metal. You can see the line on the panel in the photo. It burns very hot, and you can see the scorch marks from the paint catching on fire.

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Two things: First, I was waiting for a phone call about my bro's medical test while I was doing this. The call came, so I went to answer it. I look over and there's smoke billowing out of the cab. The cab's on fire! I had a bucket of water ready for this, and I calmly kept trying to put the fire out, but it would keep restarting. The dashboard was so convoluted, that I couldn't get the water all the way in to put it out. Some foam rubber had caught fire, and it was proving to be very tricky to put completely out. I wasn't worried about the cab, I was throwing that out anyway. Since it was already on the trailer, I considered just towing the thing down to the firehouse and asking them to put it out. Kind of silly, I guess, so I didn't do that. Would have been funny though. After about 15 minutes, I got it put out, before any American Indians showed up wondering what the poorly phrased smoke signals were all about. Boy was that stinky.

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The second thing is, the sheetmetal area I wanted turned out to be heavily braced from the dashboard side, and I could not cut it all out without a lot more work. So I made some measurements of the holes, drew some diagrams, and that part of the project was abandoned. I'll just make new holes.

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Got a lot done it just a couple of hours.

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A shout-out to Kieran, whom I hear reads this blog. Shouldn't everybody?

Tech- Fabricated rear trans mount

One of the big advantages of the frame swap is that I'll be using the entire driveline, from the flywheel back, as it is. This means the rearend, driveshaft, and transmission will stay in their stock positions. For one thing, repair and maintenance will be routine, since it will all be stock. Also important is that driveline phasing will not be affected. Phasing is the relative angular positions of the driveline components along their axis'. In basic terms, if the angles get messed up, the driveshaft u-joints will not work properly, and the driveshaft develops an imbalance (or perhaps it is really a binding) that causes vibration, humming, and in some cases a bad vehicle shake. This can be troubleshoot(ed?, troubleshot?) later, but it can take a lot of shimming and trial and error. I once had this problem and it only happened at certain speeds; never did get that fixed properly. So I am hoping to avoid the problem.


One thing I have to maintain is the position of the transmission. It is held up in the front by being attached to the motor, and has a single mount under the back part all the way at its rear. Taking out the motor will leave the transmission flopping about. Not good. I decided to fabricate a bracket, sort of a bridge, or girdle, to keep the transmission in position when the motor is removed. With the transmission secured, I would only have to make new motor mounts for the electric motor.

In the lead photo, you can see I made a straight bar that goes under the two stock trans-to-motor bolts. I did some grindy-grinding to make reliefs for the vertical trans strengthening ribs. I'd rather take the material out of the bracket than the trans case. Frankly, I don't think it'd matter either way. I made angled pieces that go down to friendly spots the frame rails, and welded them onto the horizontal piece.

I made two tabs to weld onto the frame. The main bracket will bolt to these. I didn't want to weld the main bracket directly to the frame. This way, if it ever needs to come out, it will be easy to do. Plus I am assuming for now that this will clear the F100 floor and firewall. If the whole thing interferes later, we will have to do something else, but at least it will maintain the trans position for now, so I can remove the motor. The tab on the left has a scallop to match where it will go on the frame .

I used through holes and did not tap either the bracket or tabs with threads. I like the simplicity of bolts and nuts.

I also like round the corners off with a "big" radius; notice it does not go tangent to the sides, but still has corners at the junction of the radius and sides. This is the sort of thing you normally get with a mass-production stamping machine, and I prefer that look over the fully rounded ends you would expect with a custom made piece. So I like the unexpectedness and irony of it. Looks more industrial too.

Here is one of the tabs clamped into position for welding to the frame. In reality I had to swing the clamp up to make room for the welder nozzle. You can see that radius detail I mentioned.

I used beefy 1/4 x 1" steel bar. I had considered going with only 1/8" thick material, to save half the weight, but decided against it. This mount will be holding up part of the motor weight too, so it will do a fair amount of supporting. Angle material would give more stiffness along the beam, but there is really only vertical and rotational (radial?) loading, not front-to-back, so the flat bar will suffice here. Look, I'm not going to have to justify every design decision here, am I? Jeesh.

Here you can see one tab welded to the frame, and the bracket in position behind it. I am going to use a transfer punch to mark the bracket for drilling the matching holes. A transfer punch is a center punch that is at the end of a particular diameter rod. These come in a set of many diameters, and you select the diameter that fits tightly into the hole in the first part, in this case, the tabs. You then whack it with a hammer, and you get a center for drilling your matching bracket hole that is exactly centered with the tab hole. This is a big improvement over the "trace the hole with a pencil and try to make an accurate matching hole" method I have used for years. The center punches have vastly improved my fabricating; parts fit together with better alignment and less slop. Way more professional.

Unfortunately they have not improved my ability to focus a camera.

Here is the bracket installed, bolted to the trans and the frame tabs. I took it off and gave it a little zippely-zoot with a spray paint can, and it's done. I like semi-gloss (semi-flat? no, satin) black, it has a factory stock look, and again is also an understated industrial look I dig. It didn't show up well in the photo after being painted. I can now remove the motor and bolt the trans to this in preparation for the rest of the conversion.

This took about 2 hours total to make. Maybe less, but I did other things while I thought about the next step, and I was trying to take photos and plan this post as well. Fabrication is the part I really enjoy most anyway, so why rush through it just to be done?

Off topic- The Glider

So I built this thing...I'll call it the Glider, late on Memorial Day. I had picked up a discarded small girl's bicycle a while ago to do this. This is a replica of something I had seen for sale online once. The real ones are $100 new.

The concept is to make a non-pedaling bicycle with a very low seat height. A young child can sit astride it and push themself with their feet, and glide along on it. It is supposed to teach the child how to balance themself on two wheels, without the complication of having to master pedaling at the same time. Once they are good at balancing, they can move on to a real bicycle. I think it is a great concept.

I cut the seat mounting post way down. I cut the upper struts from the rear wheel and layed them down. I cut the handlebars all apart and made them flat and low (can't really see that from the photo). I took off the pedals, sprocket, and chain. An hour or two with a hacksaw, grinder, and welder, and it is done. Maybe I should have taken a before photo so the changes are more evident. To give you some idea, the seat is now at about half the height from the ground as it was before. It's 14 at inches now.

I do somewhat remember learning to ride a bicycle. I seem to recall that it took me a long time. I don't know if something like this would have helped me, and I don't know if it will help "k" either, but I saw the promo video online and the kids on there were zipping around like it's the greatest thing.

Ultimately, I think this is still to tall for k right now. She is only 18 months old at the end of this month. She's only been walking for like 6 months. Perhaps by the summer she will be more ready for it. Maybe I should cut it and mount the seat even lower. She did see it tonight, and she stopped to look at it and touch it, so she is interested in it. I didn't want to set her on it, as it was time for her to go inside and have her dinner then anyway.

So it took an hour or two, but it was a fun little diversion. Didn't really cost me anything. Hopefully she will be able to use it. Knowing her, this will be too "easy", not enough of a challenge, and therefore she will not want to use it. Either that, or after an hour on it I will see her doing wheelies. Daddy's little daredevil.

Almost done stripping the S10

Usually when I get a project car the gas in the tank is of questionable age. I drain it into containers and wonder what to do with it. I mean who ever has to get rid of gas ? It's a real problem, because I don't want to put it in the tank of anything I own, but I can't just dump it either. So I have all these 2 liter soda bottles in the garage filled with gas, and I don't know what to do with them.

Rich told me he had just put gas into the S10 recently before I picked it up. He wasn't kidding. There was 3/4 tank! Cha-ching! I drained probably 12-15 gallons of fresh liquid gold from that thing. Filled my 2 portable cans, and I put about 5 gallons into my car too. Bonus.

I got the cab loosened from the frame after a couple more hours. 2 body mount bolts needed to be torched off. I broke a couple more sockets too. BAM! Cracked socket. Craftsman too. I know they're free replacement, but I don't want to waste time and have to go all the way there. I'll work around it for now.

I rigged this up. It's a lifting strap, connected to a 2 x 4 through the cab, lifted by my engine hoist. I must say this worked exactly as well as I had hoped. Easy.

Here's another angle. I have the hydraulic clutch cylinder out. That is going to be so easy to retrofit. It's like a brake cylinder with one plastic line. Simple.

So by the end of today, Saturday, May 24, this is where it stands. The hoist made it easy to drop the cab onto my open trailer. Done. Probably did 6-8 hours today. I have about 20 hours total into the demo. Don't know if I'd do this again. This is not as simple as the 60's and 70's cars I used to do. Either this is tougher than it used to be, or I'm getting old. Or both.

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After this photo I took the exhaust off, the fuel tank out, and some miscellaneous brackets and lines off. I have the brake and clutch pedals out. Boy was that a wrestling match. Brutal.

What else...seats are out. Wiper motor and mechanism out. I'm saving lots of miscellaneous small stuff on the chance I might need it.

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I think the wiring harness is a no-go. The majority of it is still stuck in the cab. I have uncovered so many sensors and plugs, wires and connectors. I mean it is crazy what is on a modern vehicle. I did a preliminary schematic during the week, and it doesn't look too complicated to start from scratch anyway. Probably still be better than reworking the monster harness in the S10.

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I am making a bracket to hold the transmission in place for when the motor is pulled. Then I'll pull the motor and whatever's left that has to go. Almost done. It's been a lot of work, but I keep thinking how nice it will be to have that modern drivetrain, brakes, and suspension in there. Ahhhh.

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My hands are beat. Just cut up and skinned to all heck. It's been a long time since I've done this. Broke some tools too. And there's a couple of parts I couldn't figure out how to take off. Still got time for another try though. I'm tired. Looking forward to relaxing at Wilcox tomorrow.

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PS: To take a break, I mowed my lawns. My MTD riding mower threw the deck belt off, and I can't get it back on. Does anybody know how to do this and can tell me or show me? Yes, I know, how surprising, it's broken again.

Swine mower.

Still stripping the S10

I took a half day from work Friday and got some time in on the project. Here's the handsome devil gettin' ready. The camera adds 10 lbs. At least. You can see I have the front sheetmetal clip loosened here.

It may not look like much, but the manual steering box came this week. Thanks Rich!

By the end of Friday I had the front clip off. I have been doing a lot of wire labelling, but I don't know if I'm going to use it. It's a pretty complicated harness. Hard to see but I had to cut the front bumper mounts off the frame with an oxy-acetelene torch. I bought a torch rig a couple of years ago, and it has come in very handy. I literally don't know what I'd have done at that point without it. The power brake assembly is just lying on the tire, but it is all there and ready for reuse.

Here is what the interior looked like by the end of Friday. Steering column is out. Didn't get hit by the airbag. Lots of the dash is out, but the harness is sort of literally built into the dash. Don't know how I'm going to get it out, and the remainder of the dash is very difficult to remove. Kind of tough going in here. I have probably 12 hours into demo at this point. Seems like I have a lot done, but it seems like it has been a lot of work as well.

Related- What if gas cost $10 a gallon?

A bit of an unscheduled post. One of the self-imposed rules I have for this blog is to keep it light; no conspiracy stories, no doom and gloom. Well that didn't last long. Since I'm not even sure anybody is reading, I guess I can step over the line just this once.

I came upon this article today at MSN:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveonaCar/WhatIfGasCost10DollarsAGallon.aspx

Basically outlining how our lives might be if the price of gas suddenly jumped to $10/gal. I think this is a real possibility, and sooner than later. And no, I don't think my one electric vehicle is going to make a whole lot of difference at that point.

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But anyway, if you'd like, check it out.

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If you'd rather ignore the whole thing and pretend it's not happening (a position I may not admire, but I do understand), you can look at the picture of the pretty flowers instead.

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(Sorry for the condescension. BTW oil is now $132 a barrel).

photo: karachisnob.com

Related- Please don't take your cars apart people

Philosophy today folks. A little kick back and ponder time.

What I want to mention today is a dangerous phenomenom of the car hobby. It afflicts many people and their project cars. I have done it too, so I'm as guilty as the next guy. What this is, is...well, I'm not sure there is a name for it. But if there was, it would be along the lines of: "Taking a project car completely apart with the intention of fixing it up, but then abandoning it, never to get it even remotely back into some semblance of a complete car".

I will tell you that taking a car apart is kind of fun, in a non-destructive, exploratory sort of way. I suppose entropy, the tendency towards a natural state of disorder, is on your side here. It's easy to undo bolts, strew pieces about, to break stuff if you have to, all in the noble pursuit of car "restoration".

I understand how it happens, most project cars are disassembled with the best of intentions. All it takes is an old car that someone purchases, and becomes somewhat attached to. No harm there. They go to a car show and see all of the beautiful cars in pristine condition. They get the dream of getting their car into show condition as well. This is where the naive get into trouble. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to fix up a car nicely. Do not underestimate this.

I am not against car restoration, or complicated projects. Far from it. I want people to enjoy the hobby, and to take little ventures into fixing up their rides, and to gain experience and have fun. What I am saying is this: DO NOT COMPLETETLY DISASSEMBLE YOUR CAR. I see too many people go way too far once they get started. It sometimes looks as if there's some magical, unknown, key fastener that inadvertently got unscrewed that caused the entire car to fall apart at once.

I personally know of a car that has been apart for over 30 years, still waiting for reassembly. I know of a guy that took a project car apart and became overwhelmed. He bought another car to have something to drive, but again, the urge was too much. He took that apart too, and now has 2 cars COMPLETELY apart, and nothing to drive. Hey, I understand the reasons. Lack of money. Lack of time. Can't find the parts. Don't have the proper space. Don't own the proper tools. Got a hangnail. Whatever. And no you can't sell it like that and just get out of it. Maybe for pennies on the dollar. Maybe.

Let me tell you some realities. If you think a project car itself takes up a lot of room, you'll find out it takes up about 4 times that amount of room once you've taken it completely apart. Parts get lost. You need specialized tools. Replacement parts cost a lot of money. You'll need professional help at some point, that costs real money. Oh, and if you didn't bag your bolts and label parts as you were doing disassembly, and neophytes rarely do in the heat of the moment, you reduced the chances that you'll ever get those parts back together by like 90%.

I could put your project back together for you, but I'm not going to do it for free, either.

What I'm advocating today is this: Just drive your car. Sure, do reasonable upgrades and improvements. But keep it together and functional. Enjoy it. Embrace it's battle scars and aged patina. Don't worry if someone owns a nicer car than yours. Don't you think a car would benefit more from being driven for 30 years, even in imperfect shape, than sitting as parts, dusty and unused, like the bones of a skeleton at an archaeological site? Older cars are so rare now that I have to smile every time I see one in traffic, no matter how ratty it is. Keep your heap together and get it out on the road this summer. Make me smile. Make yourself smile.

photo: treehugger.com

First work on the S10; bed removal, keep the wiring harness?

I got to work on the S10 Saturday afternoon, after doing some errands and chores. I only got about 4 hours in, but I made some progress. The main thing I got done is removing the bed. It isn't that difficult, but taking it off makes such a difference visually that it looks like I got a lot done in a short time. A few friends (thanks guys) helped me physically pick it up and take it off on Sunday. The bed is surprisingly light; I would estimate no more than 250 lbs. I expected it to weigh about 500. Interesting.

I do as little work under stock vehicles as possible. Mainly because it is inevitable that I will get at least a little grit in my eyes, and my contact lenses are very unforgiving in terms of comfort if I get even a small bit of grit in them. Glasses don't give me great vision, and goggles are uncomfortable, fog up, and grit gets around them anyway.

The work I was doing required that I get underneath, and of course I got some grit in my eyes, so it was not great fun after that. I was spurred on by the fun of disassembling the truck though. I also got some of the wiring harness disconnected. I am planning on using it to rewire the F100, so I have been diligently marking EVERY connection I undo with marker on a masking tape label.
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By the time I got into the underhood area, I began to realize how complicated the stock wiring harness really is. Hoo boy. There are A LOT of sensors. There are airbag sensors (and airbags inside. I don't know how I'm going to get them disconnected yet). The truck has ABS. The brake combination valve is ganged onto a huge complicated valve body of some sort that has like 3 wiring harness connections going to it. I assume I will have to substitute a non-ABS combination valve later, since I am not going to use ABS. All that mumbo-jumbo just because people don't know how to stop a vehicle. Unbelievable. There is an underhood computer with more connections.
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I was able to do a bit more on Sunday. More wiring harness labelling and disconnecting. I want to reuse this harness, but what a job this will be. I now expect that I will have to trace a lot of wires and make "jumpers" to complete circuits that have sensors that I am not using. I could just clip off unused connectors, but I doubt I could be satisfied with ghost wires (wires that lead nowhere) left in the harness, so I would end up taking the harness apart and rebundling it at some point anyway.

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I began taking the dash apart, but did not get too far. I keep looking at the airbag in the steering wheel, expecting it to blow open at any second and hit me in the head, snapping my neck and killing me. Not good. I don't know if this could happen without power, as I have the battery out. But maybe there's a capacitor in there storing energy in case of battery loss, I don't know. Don't want to find out.

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I have done a couple of complete wiring jobs on race cars, even using relays for higher load circuits and such. I think I could do this vehicle as well, but wiring a car from scratch takes a long time too. I look at time spent on this project in terms of real world labor cost and opportunity cost. A new wiring harness kit for the F100 is about $300. Professional auto repair rates are close to $100/hour. A pro shop would likely start with a kit anyway and the labor would be tacked on from there. So if I get the kit and install it I'm saving $100/hr.
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How much could I earn at my job in an hour? It's no $100, but it's something. How long will I have to mess with the S10 harness to get it to be useable? 10 hours? 20? Time is precious to me now. That's the opportunity cost; the cost of what I can't do during the time I'm working on the project. My point is this: it looks like reusing the stock S10 harness might take more time and effort (and $ value) than getting a new harness kit. I'm cheap, $300 is as much to me as it is to the next guy. But why rebuild junk to save a buck? The problem with doing so is that at the end you just have rebuilt junk that you wasted a lot of time on. I'll keep working on the stock harness for now and see how it goes. A lot to think about though.

Picked up the S10 donor; should I just convert that?

I picked up the donor S10 this past Saturday. Rich, a real nice guy, was there when I arrived. Young guy, like 20. Between him and his family, there was a ton of car projects sprawled about the large property. The truck was NICE. Way nicer than I expected. I mean the whole thing had a used look about it, but overall it was still very decent. A quick peek underneath, and I was really happy. The frame, the main thing I am interested in, is in excellent shape. He started it up, and drove it right up on the trailer, so I didn't have to winch it on. He reported that the fuel pump was intermittently failing, and that was the only real problem with it.

Rich asked why I didn't seem particularly interested in the details he was mentioning. I told him that as nice as the truck was, I was going to use the chassis and some other parts to re-frame a 1955 Ford F100. He said his brother is in the process of the same exact thing on a '56, and that we could look at it. What an incredible coincidence. We finished strapping the S10 down, and exchanged cash for a title and keys. Done. Just the way I like these deals, easy and fast.

We strolled over to an old 40' semi-truck box that was lying on the ground and being used for a storage shed. He opened the door and we made our way to the back. Sure enough, there was a mostly disassembled '56 F100. It was hard to see in the dark, and mostly obscured by the various body parts; hood, fenders, etc, that were piled on it, but sure enough, it was indeed sitting on an S10 frame. Rich told me that they do a lot of car projects there (I could see that) and that the S10 frame was a popular swap donor for many of them. He said they were easy to do and rode great. This was a nice thing to hear.

I considered happening upon their '56 project, 100 miles away from my own '55, yet right where I came to be standing, as a cosmic sign of reassurance*. Clearly the car gods were smiling upon me. On my way out of his long driveway, I passed some old vehicle carcasses lying off to the side. Could that be? Yes, it is, another S10 frame. He wasn't kidding that they were into them. Has the manual steering box too. The one thing about the truck I bought that was unsuitable was that it has power steering. I need manual. I ambled back to the house and summoned Rich. Was he interested in selling me the manual box? I gave him $20, and another $20 to ship it. He assured me that he would send it out this week. How easy was that? The one thing I thought I'd need to be scrambling about for, I find on the way out. Done!

* This seems to happen to me often. I will go on a long trip, and finally get out of the vehicle, just to be standing in front of some incredibly coincidental thing. Drive 100 miles to where I've never been before, get out, and BAM, some cool thing, right there. No other examples spring to mind, so a bit of a let-down there.

I took a cursory look at the S10 the next day. I tell you, for the $50 for a new fuel pump, and half a day to pull the tank, this would be a nice little driver. If I was ever going to (wimp) out and abandon the F100 project, this would be the time! This would be a perfect electric vehicle conversion candidate just as it sits. It didn't help that I saw an S10 at the tire store that morning that was done really nice; pure white paint, lowered all around, camaro IROC wheels. Very similar to the one I had years ago.

If I was just going to do a straight S10 conversion, I swear I'd be half done by now. Probably be strapping in the batteries next weekend. These look like a perfect platform to convert. If anyone wants me to do a conversion for them, and you like these little trucks, let me know. Looks like it would be so easy it would not even be a challenge.

Anyway, it didn't take me long to realize that I might be temporaily satisfied with a straight S10 conversion, but it was really not my dream. It was not what I had planned and envisioned myself driving. The biggest appeal of doing the electric vehicle conversion was the old truck aspect of it. How cool would it be to drive this '55 everyday? No, how cool would it be to drive the '55 as an electric vehicle every day?

I'm back on track.

Related- New tires

Two weeks ago I shopped for tires on the internet. I found that my local tire store has an excellent interactive website. You can search tires by many different criteria. Maybe doesn't mean much to the average person, but I dug it. Tons of specs, too. I had noticed that you could "reserve" tires and make an appointment online to have them installed. So I did. But there was a $20 "shipping and handling" fee FOR EACH TIRE to have them delivered from the warehouse to your local tire store. So now that's MY responsibility? Alternately, you could have them delivered free to your house.

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Last Saturday I was in an extremely bad mood because of the home repair problem I was dealing with. I had to get a part at the local plumbing supply, and the parts counter guy was kind of a jerk. Ooh, you know more about plumbing parts than I do, so you're a big man now. Jerk.

So I stopped by the local tire store on the way home after that to check prices in person. I already knew that if I got any lip from these guys I would go off! So I go to the counter and the guy asks if he can help me.

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Me: "I'd like some prices on tires"

Tire guy: "$74.99, $89.99, $95.99..."

Me: "No, I'd like prices on tires for my car"

TG: "Oh, what kind of car is it then?"

Me: (starts laughing!)

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My point is, his timing and delivery were perfect, and his little joke was exactly how I think most of the time, so it struck me as very funny to have it done to me, especially when I wasn't expecting it and since it wasn't done in a mean tone, just like he was having a little fun.

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So I asked about the online pricing and he outright admitted that the in-store prices were $20 higher for each tire. He said the fee was a ploy to keep the prices low, and yet be able to charge the customer more to cover the increased prices of gas and materials. Wow. His candor was so refreshing that my respect for the guy instantly increased. For once a counter person that told the truth. I had suspected the real reason for the fee, and it made me feel good, one; that I was right, and two; that this guy wasn't trying to BS me about it.

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I mentioned how this fee didn't apply if you had the tires shipped to you home, but that was puzzling to me since most people don't have $10,000 tire mounting and balancing machines. He laughed and agreed, and said that people would have to bring the tires in to have them mounted and balanced anyway, so they just charge more for that. Again, exactly what I figured.

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So my mood was instantly lightened, I suppose by the knowledge that my assumptions were correct, and that at least my local tire guy wasn't going to BS me about it. None of which made the cost of the tires cost any less, unfortunately. Be prepared, the price of tires has gone way up.

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I had the tires put on yesterday, at my appointed time, quickly and without drama. See the nice little nibs? I got Kelly Navigator Golds (ooh, gold), and I am happy with them. I remember I had Kellys on my S10, and got like 70,000 miles from them. I must be easy on equipment or something. I looked up the last time I put tires on the daily-driver and was shocked to discover I got about 70,000 miles from them as well. Nice.

Testing...

Testing inserting multiple pictures to show multiple steps, as in a tech article, for example.
For now you can look at a photo of an overloaded donkey cart.

A photo of an awesome snow cat made from a bus...

And finally a ship that has foundered (not floundered. I think you 'flounder' when you cook a flat fish. Alright I looked it up, and flounder is correct for a less severe loss of control, such as losing steering, or taking on water. To 'founder' is to sink, lose total control, or become incapacitated. You flounder, then founder. So see I was right).

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A ship that has foundered.

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So you load the photos is reverse order. And you can add the text after. Now I know.

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And I seem to lose the extra line space if editing after the original posting. So I have to add a dash to keep an extra line space, like this...

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Photos: unknown

Related- Tools

Tools. Man do I love tools. I love investing in tools, I love using good tools. I take care of my tools. I don't buy everything, but I have a decent amount. Some trick tools, too.

Ok, so sometimes my quest for tools, combined with my penchant for frugality, lets me down. I bought 2 big sets of 6-point, deep well, 1/2 inch drive, impact sockets at the tool tent at an auto swap meet. One SAE, one metric. For like $20 per set. Cheap. They have served me well for the limited amount that I use them. Until yesterday.

I was taking off the winter tires on my late-model daily driver. I have them on a set of dedicated rims, so I can swap them myself at home. For some reason, the lugs were especially tight. I mean really tight. No problem, I have tools! I had the 19mm impact socket on my 24" breaker bar (big time leverage) and I hunkered down for a big pull. I know for a fact that I can pull harder with that than my wimpy impact gun can, even on it's highest setting, with a full air tank.

I lifted up on the breaker bar, and the entire corner of the car threatened to lift off of the driveway. PING! One loose. Again. PING! Whew. Again. Hmmm. Seems to have slipped off or something. Oh rats, galled the corners of the lug nut over. Big time. That looks like, well, we'll go back to that one last. Another. Hmmm slipped off again. Oh no. Galled another one. Geez, I'm dripping sweat all over here, and I can't even get one wheel off. Alright, number five, and...what the hell is this? (Look down at the end of the socket) Holy...I ripped the entire side of the socket open. I mean I knew I was strong, but...that's supposed to be hardened. Who is THE MAN!? Oh, wait, that was that Chinese tool set. Crap.

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So I picked out the closest SAE size, and finally finished without any problems. Lots more sweating, though. No, seriously.

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Cheap tools are a gamble. I'm gambling a little money that they will work decently for a while, maybe longer. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Although in retrospect, these sets might not have been even a justifiable deal. For example, the sockets go down to 3/8 inch hex. These are supposed to be impact sockets. Who would use an impact gun on a teeny-weeny 3/8" hex? That doesn't even make sense.

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I'll get a good quality socket to replace that one (only that one, because I'm frugal), and that will probably solve the problem. I don't use many metric tools.

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For brevity, I will shorten the story up as time goes on. "Well one time I sheared an impact socket clean off. Just gripped it in my hand, and gave a mighty twist. Made a CRACK like a gunshot...'course I was pretty strong then."

Oil hits $122 per barrel...

...what more is there to say?

BTW it's a tiny 40 gal barrel, not a big 55 gal drum like you think.

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photo: unknown

Free your mind

A bonus entry today. On a topic I was not going to discuss in too much detail. But I will touch on it briefly, since it does come up. The topic is: "The concept of the electric car project; what it is, what it is not, and why". Big enough for ya?

I was going to let readers just sort of figure it all out for themselves as the project progresses. And I still think that's the most interesting and instructive way to go. If I just tell you everything that's going to happen right at the beginning, the story is over; why keep reading?

So I will go this far: Yesterday I had a car-person-friend over the house briefly, and this person was looking over the '55. I had previously told him in great detail about the project, and indeed the whole concept, and my various motivations behind it. Finally he says: "it's a shame you're going to convert this nice truck into an electric vehicle".

Normally I would be highly insulted and angry. But I'm on great medication now. So instead, I blame myself that I have not conveyed my grand vision effectively. I know this project is out of the ordinary. That of course, is one of the prime motivations. And the concept itself is multi-faceted and complex (also what I dig). But I have a vision. I am looking way out there; years into the future. And I think this project will be appreciated eventually.

I definitely don't see this project as the desecration of a classic vehicle. I see it as an elevation, a tribute to this vehicle's heritage, to bring it into the 21st century, as part of a revolutionary way of looking at personal transportation. It was selected in part for it's potential to get attention.

I know that this person (and there have been others) would have been more satisfied if I had said I was going to drop a 500hp big block gas motor into it and burn up the roads. And I well understand that has been the accepted paradigm for decades.

Sigh. Couldn't have missed the point more. Build a hot rod? Been done thousands of times before. I hope I'm not being condescending when I ask: What's interesting about that? What's in it for me? I know, it's the essence of hot-rodding. Nothing against it. Love it. Probably do it again myself someday. But it's just not where I am right now.

So am I a visionary, or merely a crackpot? We will see when, as they say, the rubber hits the road. 'Nuff said.

photo: unknown

Going for the frame swap!

I won this little beauty on ebay Sunday while I was away at the swapmeet. I paid a little more that I would have liked, but, as they say, it was just what I wanted (I am saving a lot on the mag wheels, right?). At least it has a lot of miles, so I know it must have run well. Back when it ran.

This is a Chevrolet S10, two wheel drive, short wheelbase, with the manual transmission. I am going to use the entire frame and suspension from this truck. I am also going to use the manual transmission and clutch assembly. I have a huge list of smaller items I can salvage from it for use as well.

I have pretty much committed, at least in my mind, to doing the full frame swap at this point. I know it will look like I'm taking two steps back, to go one step forward. But think ahead to when the truck is finished. Instead of bumping along on a mish-mash of reconditioned '50's era farm-truck technology, it will be rolling smoothly on a late model suspension, with brakes and parts that are engineered from the factory to work together. Probably cheaper, and easy to get parts for too.

I had an S10 for 12 years, and that was a tough little bugger. I really liked that truck, it was a decent compromise for all of the things I needed. If I was doing another EV, I would probably just do a simple S10 itself and get it over with. Something to keep in mind.

So anyway, I have to go get it in Connecticut, maybe this weekend. Just in time for mother's day.

Here's the best part: The crusty but-soon-to-be-trusty mag wheels I bought just happen to have the correct bolt pattern to fit onto the S10 chassis! Good thing I put a bid on the truck Sunday morning before I left for the swapmeet, right?

Wheels for the truck

Didn't seem like much was going to get done this weekend.

I spent the majority of Saturday fixing the gas control valve on my house water heater.

Normally I am just medium-intimidated to do my own plumbing. I am usually afraid that I will cause a huge leak and flood the entire house. Plus the water won't work.

THIS time I had to fool (notice the choice of words) with the GAS LINE as well. So not only could I flood the house, I could blow it up while it's flooding. And the water still won't work.

My plumber friend was kind enough to tell me the steps to do to get it ready for him. By the time I had it apart (literally a 5 minute job), I decided to just put the new valve in, and put it back together. It was easy, probably 15 minutes, back together, no gas leaks, and hot water by the next hour. I mean perfect. But it took almost all day getting parts and information.

Sunday, a friend convinced me to go to the RAINbeck swap meet and show. The weather was cold and damp. No sun. I hate that weather. Looks like it's nice enough to be outside, but you never stay warm, and always feel sort of wet.

I didn't want to go. I was tired from Saturday. And I could hear it pouring rain overnight, so I knew it would be soaked up there. But I had forgotten that this friend and I had talked about it last week as a possibility. Since I had not called to specifically cancel, I could not fault him when he showed up. So we went.

It was, to use an old term; beat. Not only was I not enjoying the crappy weather, there was little to see, and I knew I had a huge list of other things I should be doing at home.

The day improved when I bought a set of 4 dingy but sound rims. They are the American Racing 200-S style, or "daisy" mags as they were called back in the day. I never appreciated them then. In fact, I really despised them. Just never liked the look. But now, looking back with a nostalgic whimsy, I find them kind of fascinating. They are real period-pieces, and they are rarely seen today. They are what I had wanted to get for the truck from the beginning, but they are pretty expensive new.

So I got these (one is pictured above), they are 14 x 7's, with a 4-3/4" bolt circle. They were reasonable, at $100 for the four, and I think I can clean them up and make them look cool. Perhaps I will do a tech article on that. Incidentally they are available new (again) at about $220 EACH! This is a huge potential savings. I guess I shouldn't complain next time.