More work on EV-Steve's S-10

I redid the passenger-side frame mount on EV-Steve's S-10. This was in somewhat better shape than the first one I did, but it was still pretty bad. Before, above.

After. The paint is still wet, makes it look kinda bad somehow. It actually came out as well as the first one, although the experience of having done this before did not translate into any time savings on the second one, as I had hoped.

Keep moving, not much to see here.

Quickie tool tech:

To drill the opening in the floor and get at the nut-plate, I had to lift the interior floor matting. But first, I had to get the door-sill molding off. This can be a difficult task on any car older than a couple of minutes. The screws that secure these are exposed to moisture and road salt from dripping shoes in the winter, and direct outside exposure since they sometimes protrude right through the floor to the underside of the car body. They get dirt and gungo packed into the heads, so it's hard to even get a screwdriver in them.

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First, insert a phillips screwdriver if they are phillips head, as most are. Whack on the top of the screwdriver to seat the point, and hopefully knock the screw loose from it's rust. This works for many. Oh yes, use a rust-lube spray on them too.

For the stubborn ones, get an Impact Driver like the one I have here. This ingenious tool is like a combination screwdriver, ratchet, and chisel. This is designed to be hammer-whacked. Seat it in the screw head like so. Whack it HARD with a hammer. No, a bigger hammer. And hard! When you whack this tool, there is a mechanism inside that twists the tip as it is hit, so the twisting torque is delivered at the exact moment that it is being pounded into the screw head by the hammer blow. Ingenious, right? This gets most of the tougher ones.

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I had to actually go in from the side with a chisel and knock the head off of one that refused to loosen. Sometimes brute force is all these guys understand.

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See ya soon. JK

Tech- Fabricating frame-to-body mounts, part 1

I don't expect everybody to run out to their driveway today and copy this tech piece, it's fairly involved and requires some expensive tools. But I want to present it so you know what's possible and how it's done. Just because you don't do heart surgery doesn't mean it's not interesting, right? This is a typical cab mount on a pickup truck. Most classic cars that are body-on-frame construction are similar. The frame is on the right, and the hoop-like mount is welded to it. A bolt passes through a big washer, a rubber/steel biscuit assembly, and into the floor of the body above.

Here is what they look like after time and corrosion has taken their toll. Pretty gruesome, right? You can see the hoop-mount is half rusted away. The biscuit assembly is not really resting on anything. The floor pan looks bad but is pretty solid. I think I can save this.

Cranking on the bolt produced some promising turns, but after a few, it got completely loose and would not come out: something was broken. At the factory, these bolts are assembled up into a threaded plate. After rust fuses the bolt to the plate, the bolt will break, or the plate will just spin. The car manufacturer does not care that you can't get these out; they will, however, be happy to sell you another car.

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I had to cut the bolt head off with an acetylene torch. The biscuit came off, but the rest of the bolt was still stuck on the threaded plate above the floor pan. The threaded plate actually rests in a pocket between 2 layers of steel floor, so you can't just lift up the carpet and pull it out, it's in there good. Now what?

More destruction. I took a big holesaw and cut an access hole right through the floor from inside the vehicle over the mounting area. It's big, like 2-1/2". From there, I could pull the plate and bolt shaft out. Here you can see the rusty devil itself. It looks like I made more work, but sometimes it takes work. After I'm done, I'll weld or screw a patch over the hole, seal it, and it will be the best part of the floor. It actually does look like heart surgery now.

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I shop-vac'd a ton of junk out of the pocket area. It's not owner negligence or anything, cars have lots of pockets like this that collect road junk and deteriorate. Rust happens.

Here are the remnants of the biscuit assembly and the rusty parts that fell off. Boooooooo! I ordered replacement items for all of this. In part 2, I will fabricate a new frame hoop-mount out of steel plate, and weld it onto the frame. I'll assemble the mount parts and restore the whole area. A challenging and fun project. Thanks and stay tuned.

Tech- Fabricating a new throttle linkage

Well, I'm back! I know it's been awhile. I've been on vacation, and I needed some thinkin' time. I have decided to press on, at least for now. At this point, I will turn my attention to some projects on the F100 itself. I am going to try to get it on the road, as cheaply as possible, with the gas motor that's in it. I will save the S10 chassis as is for now, until I decide what to ultimately do. All this could change at any time. But first...some ice cream:Carole, I know you try out different ice creams. Try all the ones you think you might like to try. Then try this one last. After this, you will not want any other, ever, ever, ever. I decree it to be the best there is. I will never need any other. Done.

The throttle linkage on the F100 is the most pathetic, laughable, sorry piece of crap that I have ever had the displeasure to see on a vehicle. When I first saw this I literally could not stop laughing for about 5 minutes. I'm serious. I don't know who made this, and how they could have managed to spend so much time and effort and yet have such a poor result. I think the only thing that could be worse is if it was made from a length of string, except that string would at least keep proper tension. Take a look at this gem while I point out its 'features':

First note the material: wire coat hanger. The bends needed to clear the carburetor no doubt flexed a great deal, so reinforcing bars were soldered across the bends to stiffen them up. This actually kind of works. Kind of. You can just barely see in the back the loose bolt connecting to the pedal linkage. The main piece of wire must have been too short, so another was connected to it with a bolt and nut, you can see them just to the left of the bigger curving black hose. From there, the coat hanger extension goes somewhat cleverly through a 3/8 bolt and nut that is also extremely loosely positioned in the carb linkage hole. You can see how much bigger the carb linkage hole is than the bolt going through it. I can't believe this worked at all.

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Also please note the two throttle return springs, a surprising example of over-engineering, except to say that the rear one is extended to its mount by a length of tiny, tiny wire, so that will be a major subtraction of points.

Here's what I'll use to make a better linkage: 1/4" steel rod, a small steel tab with a hole, a couple of bolts, a couple of washers, and some nuts. The nut second from left is a "coupling nut", much longer than a standard nut; I used this so I had more area for welding. I had all of this junk on hand in the garage.

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I have been turning the current setting and wire speed on my welder up much higher lately, and my welding has improved immensely. You can't be afraid to turn it up and really blaze with that thing! Man I love welding.

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Here I have the tab welded onto the steel rod already. I have bent the rod to fit around the carburetor. I am holding the rod in it's approximate position, and I have made a small black mark at the center where the rod must connect through the carb linkage hole.

From here I cut the rod, and welded a length of threaded 1/4-20 rod (really a bolt with the head cut off) onto the end. This will give some adjustment to the linkage. I welded another bolt onto the coupling nut at a right angle. This is the part that goes through the carb hole.

Here is a comparison of the existing floppy linkage, and the new beefy one I made.

It's hard to see the details, but this is really just a recreation of every mid-'60's factory throttle linkage I've ever seen. I made a bushing that fills the carb linkage hole and allows my linkage to pass through snugly, eliminating all the sloppiness. It's just a 3/16" slice of 1/2" diameter aluminum bar with a hole through the center. Thanks for that bar of material, Mr. big blue computer company.


Here it is test fitted into place. You can maybe get a better idea of how it works from this shot. I will take it off and give it a nice coat of semi-gloss black, my favorite, and of course use nyloc nuts during reassembly.

A little artful grinding, a nice coat of paint, and it looks and works fantastic! Best part of the truck. I am not doing it justice by not showing it painted.

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This would run about $100 (materials included) at Hudson Valley Hot Rods. If I can get this pile running and driving, I'm hoping to go to some local cruises, hand out some business cards, and hopefully get some jobs.

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More soon, thanks for waiting, y'all.

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?