51 International Budget Build

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Here is a close up of the urethane. I glued the glass in place on the pinch weld then let it set up for a few days. Then taped off the area around the windshield, filled it in with more urethane and tooled it off. Used soapy water and smoothed it the best I could. Urethane is a mess to work with, so be prepared with a couple rolls of paper towels and some mineral spirits to clean up everything you get it on that you don't want it to stay on...

Also glued the rear Plexiglass windows in and put my visor back on as well. Even hot wired the thing today, ran the cam in and am pretty pleased with how the motor sounds. As in it sounds LOUD! Tried to post a video, but it won' up load. File is too large maybe...?

Dang! The urethane actually looks pretty dang good!
If I fight more then 2 pieces of glass into the factory style rubber, I might just go this route.
You won't have to have the cuts exactly perfect with this method too, which is a plus.
 
Rough week

Been a rough week for sure. We had to put our garage hound down. My head's not been in the game too much since so I just been polishing on my old 5 slot wheels and mounting tires. Put some free bee dirt trackers on the back. I like the look. Really need to be running wires to get it drive-able, but think I'm going to take a break and go to the rod show in Cumberland Maryland this weekend. I think it will do some good to go look at other guys' work and try to get re-motivated.
 

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My heart goes out to you brother.
Pets are like family, and it's hard letting family go.

The wheels and tires look fabtastic though!

Take the time for the show. I find shows to be somewhat therapeutic. I don't know if it's the cars, or the thought of all the work that everyone put into them that I didn't have to :)
Lots of great ideas out there too.
 
Drove it a little

Got it out for a test ride. Still plenty of bugs to work out. Some issues I had before I left the garage were the front brakes not releasing. Turns out residual pressure valve was bad. When I removed it from the system, you could see the spring in it was cocked and the rubber duck bill looking valve was tweaked. It was installed in the proper direction, so not sure what was up. I just eliminated it and seems fine. The rear brakes were the opposite on the test ride, even with the proportioning valve turned all the way to "increase" they are just barely grabbing. Maybe the pressure valve needs removed from the rear line too? Anyhow, I can say a big block, light vehicle, locking diff and sticky tires make it a handful out of the hole...! Gonna keep tweaking on it and try to get it dialed in before the snow flies.
 

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You done a great job [cl
I don't use any proportioning or residual valves until after I try the brakes out first.
If the factory proportioning valve is in place when I start, I'll use it, that's the only exception to what I do.
 
Brake advice

You done a great job [cl
I don't use any proportioning or residual valves until after I try the brakes out first.
If the factory proportioning valve is in place when I start, I'll use it, that's the only exception to what I do.

That is the best advice ever. The brakes seem pretty happy with no proportioning valve or residual pressure valves in the system. That stuff just burned up my wallet. The only thing I am going to do is adjust my master cylinder rod length so the brakes come on earlier in the pedal travel.

Put a little over a hundred miles on it yesterday and got some minor junk to sort out, but am pleased for it's first ride.

That is a picture of my buddy Kurt (on left) and I with the '46 Kucklehead chopper I sold him in boxes about 9 years ago. We were joking that we wanted the rat and the chopper to breed. Maybe produce some ratty, chopped out servi-car trikes...The other pic is my youngest who wants to drive it pretty badly.
 

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Nice to drive it

Got a little over 500 miles on it so far and have been slowly working the bugs out.

Door panels are upholstered and in as well as the side windows. Heater even works good!

My aftermarket ignition switch started to come apart, ended up crimping it back together with channel locks. Ordered a good Pollack one that was still made here in the good ole US and hoping it holds up better.

My 6 volt electric wipers won't start with the 6 volt Speedway reducer wired up and draw too much current and run too fast on 12v. I am going to remove the motor and see if I can have it rewound locally for 12v. Probably not for a while though, I am enjoying this thing on the few good weather days we have left...
 

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