Something with more of a brow would be good inmy eye. Thing 70 duster dashpad, with an overhang to shade and add depth to the dash.
Something with more of a brow would be good inmy eye. Thing 70 duster dashpad, with an overhang to shade and add depth to the dash.
Tonight was mild but good. I got the drivers side mirror mounted and tested the brake lights, and installed the turn signal lever. I still need bulbs, but it all works well.
The best part is my helper. Placing and installing the mirror is tough with only two hands. I had four!
I apologize for being so quiet. We were on vacation last week, though I have not been stagnant. I did a few important things regarding the eyebrow over the grill which I am not ready to share yet. I also realized that I needed to perform a bolt torque check on basically everything, since various bolts and nuts have been untouched for a decade, but by me in various states of fabricobbling. I, in a frustrated state before vacation, went out there, completely in my undies, and spent a half hour tightening things. Long story. I have the front suspension to go yet.
While on vacation, a kid wanted to learn skimboarding. We bought him one and then he wouldn't do it. I figured I would learn and maybe it would encourage him. I found a guy doing it well enough,so I walked over and asked him how to get started. Maybe half hour later, I fell and took skin off my ankle and some of my calf. Bleeding, but also not a wimp, I continued on. After a while longer, getting better and better, I fell again, skinned the same area again, and was bleeding and pretty sure that my toes bent incorrectly. I called it quits. I also learned that the guy I was learning from is 18. I am... not 18. That was Monday last week. After that we did paddle boarding, kayaking, running in the sand on the dunes, cartwheels on the beach with Tunakid #4, burpees on the beach to show Tunakid #1 that I am still much stronger than he is, flying kites, miles of walking, and lots of other stuff. When I got home I unloaded the car myself, did a lot of other things, then noticed after my shower that one foot was much larger than it was before the trip. I am hobbling around now and can't really do much other than seek out ice packs and think with dread about the next time I have to put on or take off socks.
I need some suggestions on the following:
Thanks!
Chicks dig scars. And surfer dudes. So you got that going for you.
Was this you?
NOHOME said:Chicks dig scars. And surfer dudes. So you got that going for you.
Was this you?
It was more "old man falling on his side twice" in reality, but it sure felt more spectacular.
As for chicks digging it, let me recount another fun injury story. Lately I have taken up rowing in the gym and this issue seems finally fixed forever, but for a long time I have had awful knees. They always hurt, and any moment about the axis of my leg resulted in a dislocation of the patella. It hurts.
I'm on the beach in the waves (again) and one foot sinks in the wet sand just as the other foot is in the air and the wave hits me from behind. The planted knee pops out, I go down, and flounder up away from the water as to not die. We were doing this vacation with two friends and their kids. The friends come rushing over asking if I need help, and I say no, as I have managed to drag my sorry butt out of the surf far enough to have air while I recover. A minute or so later, Tunawife finally gets there and says, I kid you not: "I'm sorry, if I was the only other person on the beach, I would have helped you, probably". She says that she didn't mean it, which doesn't necessarily make it better. I wonder if she took the minute to check up on my life insurance policy.
I'm still working on the grill, and not yet ready to share. In the meantime,I am still on a quest to tighten everything before a real test drive. One bolt was really impossible to reach, the inner bolt on the front leaf spring hangar.
I had some help during my brief time in the garage yesterday.
More noise is always good! as is kids in the garage :)
Kids in the garage indeed. I have been struggling for a while with the hood and grill on this truck. The early setup is very slanted, and GMC changed it quickly, as it looked feminine and not truck-like. It looked like this:
Note how the planar section of the front of the hood is very slanted, and meets the grill with a slight crease which then is continued through the fenders. I like the crease, but I think the hood does look silly. Honestly I think it needs to come closer to matching the angle of the windshield.
In the later years, the hood got much more abrupt there, but GMC also added a giant chrome section (in three pieces) between the grill and the hood and fenders, ruining the nice crease with gaudy chrome. Like this:
I like neither of these. As my truck is a 72, it should look like the later versions. There is just too much chrome and trim. The pretty crease is gone. But there is hope! The crease remains, just hidden under the chrome. The hood is shorter, but I thought it could be extended. I started here:
Drilled out the rivets and removed the trim piece leaves us roughly here.
Then cut that in half lengthwise
And then kinda set it in there again:
Hack off the brackets, refold them, and make them grill brackets instead of trim brackets
And then tack on a piece of sheet metal in place, and stare at it for a week or two while I figured out how to make it work:
So here is the problem. The fender is curved here, and the front of the hood is strictly planar. There is not a good way to connect the leftover trim piece to create that crease without having a weird interruption at the fender. GMC cheated here, and used the same fender for each situation, so the lines don't work under the trim:
Then I had a stroke of genius. I invited Tunadaughter into the garage. She's the genius.
If you look close, you can see her solution. I explained that I wanted to fix this mistake GM made, but I didn't want to make it obvious or tacky. I wanted to make it look like it could have been made that way from the factory, like they had a lot of time to spend getting everything just right. She pointed out that the fender is slanted, meaning it's angled slightly along with the trim piece. Knocking that angle off there and recontouring the crease actually makes the line continuous, and makes the fender look better anyway, all while decreasing the depth of the crease. I still have to patch the resulting hole in the fender, but check out what happened in fast forward last night after she gave me this idea.
I still have a lot of adjustments to make, but you can see it coming together. The leftover trim strip creates one side of the crease whereas the grill creates the other. I get the nice crease, the upright hood, and no gaudy trim chrome.
Daughter gets nominated as artistic counsel.
The results look real promising. Kudos to Tuna-daughter and her help solving the aesthetics.
I remember a conversation once upon a time on the subject of "sheet metal repairs are hard". And here you are now, doing custom sheet metal work for the sake of aesthetics.
This project is still awesome, as are you and your hired help.
JohnInKansas said:I remember a conversation once upon a time on the subject of "sheet metal repairs are hard". And here you are now, doing custom sheet metal work for the sake of aesthetics.
This project is still awesome, as are you and your hired help.
Thanks John!
I had some more help Saturday:
It was the first time anyone has welded on the truck other than me. He's thirteen now.
And the second time. She's eight.
PSA: The Bolt parked in the driveway makes an excellent floodlight.
I still have a way to go, but check this out. it's exactly what I wanted it to look like.
This is awesome!!!
yeah, great solution.
I told you I'd get back to this as soon as I finished my bedroom. Give me two weeks for dealing with snowpocalypse here, but I'm back at it. Unhappily I'll be much slower than in the past, having taken up gym many mornings and guitar in the evenings, but behold, I've started to finish the hood.
Assuming that Glass-filled filler is the next step on the hood front? AKA "Kitty hair".
NOHOME said:Assuming that Glass-filled filler is the next step on the hood front? AKA "Kitty hair".
Not a bad plan. What's your favorite flavor?
tuna55 said:NOHOME said:Assuming that Glass-filled filler is the next step on the hood front? AKA "Kitty hair".
Not a bad plan. What's your favorite flavor?
Mancoon.
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