'34 Dodge Brothers, double build.

[Bamamav]

Mac, I find flat black paint covers a lot of sins. Don’t want something to stand out, flat black it, it’ll blend into the landscape!

 

[MercuryMac]

I agree, Bob.
Today, I finished up the bushings in the pedals and mounting pedestal, but slowed down on building an arm to drive the pushrod to the clutch master cylinder. You know how sometimes you make some complicated do-hickey and then realize that that won't work so you have to throw it away and start over. Well, there's nothing in there that's picture worthy, so no pictures.

 

[MercuryMac]

Bama, I have been using Ultra Flat Camouflage Dark brown hide the rough stuff.
I've now got the little actuating arm made and fine tuned and mounted. Pics one and two are the little arm and pic three is the pedal system completed, filled with brake fluid and bench bled.
I sold an old truck to my grandson today. He wanted it running and so did I. That was a pipe dream, it turns out.

 

[MercuryMac]

Don't lend me your wrenches!
pic one, is how I bent a brand new wrench, [a cheap one, Power Fist], to fit bolt heads inside the boxed in frame.

 

[Old Iron]

Guilty of doing the same thing

 

[MercuryMac]

The picture is of the afore mentioned bent wrench holding a bolt head and working.
I have the pedal assembly bolted in there and most of the things worked out. But, when I climbed up into the cab and went to step on each of the pedals, Whoooboy, they both hit the wide old motor partway down. The clutch needed to be bent a wee bit and realigned at the pivot, so I've got it sorted out now. The brake pedal will need some more persuasion.

My grandson's new pick-up, [1996 Ford] is now running and the clutch is also freed up. The starter solenoid was corroded internally, I guess. So a new starter fixed the situation. Then we realized the clutch was rusted onto the flywheel. A quick little trick worked, you just start the vehicle up, in gear with your foot on the clutch. It broke free right away.

 

[smallfoot]

If it weren't for homemade tools, I probably wouldn't get by...nice work around!

 

[kenny c]

That is sometimes the only way to do it. Nice work around

 

[earthman]

Was that some Farmer ingenuity? Probably a colloquial term for it

 

[BillM]

Well done MM. I have a drawe full of awful looking homemade tools, bent wrenches, box ends with rods welded to them, etc. I smile everytime I look in there, then think I should scrap them but can't bring myself to!

 

[gene49]

I might need that custom bent tool, it might work someplace else. Maybe it just needs a bit more bend to work on something else. Most of the hard work is already done.

Then, all I have to do is figure out where I kept it so I could find it if I needed it...

It will show up after I no longer need it. But then, instead of scrapping it, I will put it someplace else, that I'm sure I'll remember where it is then.

I have a drawer full of them someplace, I think...

 

[dutch]

Since the mess in my head is huge all the time, I really need my surroundings to be nice & tidy.... That said, my wheelbarrow and I go through every drawer ,box and cabinet in my shop about once a year to clean up. That usually is when custom one time use tools go. I used to keep everything I could but it soon became a mess where I could not find anything when needed. One year no use? Away it goes.

 

[gene49]

Dutch, I'm retired now. Based on the amount of work I've done in my shop over the last year, if I got rid of everything I haven't used in a year, I wouldn't have much of anything left.
I have cleared out a bunch of junk, but someday I might get ambitious again. I better keep some of that stuff, couldn't afford to buy it all again.

 

[smallfoot]

I seem to find a use for those items I toss after no use for a while....right after I toss them! So T guess I'm a hoarder.

 

[Old Iron]

It's call comfort tools.
It's like comfort food.

 

[dutch]

let`s see how many pages we can spam Mac`s build thread with this ....

 

[MercuryMac]

I can add to the spam; I have a place in my tool chest for my homemade stuff. There are quite a few bent wrenches and I use them once in a while, so NO throwing things away.

Anyway, Here's a picture of my pedal setup, bolted in for [hopefully] the last time. It might not be wise to say exactly how I adjusted my pedal trajectory on the internet, so use your imagination.

 

[MercuryMac]

I've taken a small step today, but a really big step also. I aired up the tires in this truck as they were getting a bit spongy, [pic one]. It got me started back on my main project again and that is a big deal. [pic two] is a view of the truck and [pic three] is looking through the hole in the X-frame at the flange on the back of the transmission. It is a little bit high and I'm afraid the the rear-end is also a wee bit too high, so the drive-shaft will sometimes touch the top of the X-frame. I've got a plan to raise the back of the body by lowering the rear-end. I aired up the tires so the truck will be sitting at its ride height so I can measure the drive-line angles and if I have to change the pinion angle while I'm taking out the lowering blocks I can do it all at once.

 

[MercuryMac]

I had to take one rear old shock off and rebuild it earlier, so today I remounted it, [pic one].
[pic two] is the spring pack with a two inch lowering block on it.
[pic three] is the lowering block removed.
[pic four] is the U-bolts getting a change over. I cut them off shorter and now I have to put about a half inch of thread on each leg. There is also my deep socket to drive my thread dies in the picture.

 

[kenny c]

Nice work as always.