Huntsville Times Column

Happy New Year to all.

The Huntsville Times has given me another year to write columns, WhooHoo. I have created a Page on Facebook that links to my online column posts. If you like reading these columns please go to this link http://www.facebook.com/BrimmersColumn and “Like” it. This way you will get a notification when I make a post.  It does require that you have a Facebook account.

My plan is to keep the “1954 Chevy Truck EV Conversion” blog focused on the truck project and use the Facebook Page for my columns.

My latest column is about a friend that finds an unwanted hitchhiker in her laundry. Here is the link to the column.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2012/12/its_a_good_thing_he_was_in_the.html

Just a note, “liking” the story on al.com does not work to subscribe, you have go to the Facebook page to subscribe.

Enjoy,

Shaving the Gas Tank Filler Hole

My latest mantra is “progress progress progress”. I am knocking out tasks one by one, getting better at welding, and doing it all faster. The goal is to get the truck done before Brooke graduates from high school – that gives me a little over one more year, it will be close.

The latest task is to cover over the gas tank filler hole in the cab. This 1954 Chevy Truck is going to be “shaved” - it will be one sleek ride with nothing but a smooth body line.

Okay, enough with the visceral explanation, the practical reason is that with the truck being converted to an electric vehicle it does not need gasoline for fuel therefore the gas tank filler is unnecessary and must be removed.

This task has gone about as good as it could go. I must have been possessed by the spirit of Carol Shelby because everything went exactly as it should.

The first step was easy; remove the gas tank filler unit and gasket from the cab body. As you can see we now have a perfect hole in the cab.

Step two was to fabricate a piece of sheet metal to cover the hole. This involved a little metal work since the replacement part must match the curve of the cab. I had to cut out a circular hole and then put a curve on it by rolling it over a pipe, my Hillbilly metal forming equipment.

  

After careful trimming and grinding, the replacement cover plate precisely fits the hole. It is clamped into place with special clamps before the welding begins. For those of you that have read 50 Shades of Gray you might recognize these babies from a different perspective.

  

Step three is to butt weld the cover plate to the cab. The proper technique is to place a series of tack welds around the seam to hold the cover plate in place. The other reason for doing it this way is to control the heat applied to the sheet metal. The extreme heat from the welds will warp the sheet metal so you have to weld slowly and let the heat dissipate before continuing.

 Slowly I added more spot welds, gradually filling in all the gaps. I also used the angle grinder to grind the welds flush with the cab, still being careful to go slow to let the heat dissipate to avoid warping.

 Voila, tu es magnifique! It is all welded in place and smoothed out. The new piece did not match exactly the body curve and I did get a little warp on one side as I am still learning patience and butt welding. However, everything can be fixed with a little body filler and elbow grease.

 This is the first layer of body filler. You basically put it on, sand it down, put more on, sand it down, put more on – you get the picture. Each layer gets you closer and closer to Nirvana, until finally you rub your hand over the cab and it feels perfect and I mean purr-fect.

  

With the body filler sanding finished, the last step is to spray on a coat of primer and baby does that look good. When they say “shaved” this is what I am talking about y’all.

Cab Update

I have great news – the cab is mostly done. Did I trick anyone? Everyone knows that “mostly done” translates to something like – pretend done. The term is only used when the claimant wants to believe that something which is unfinished will be worked on and competed by magical elves that night.

Even with mostly done there is still cause to celebrate. The inside of the cab is completely primed. Yippee-a-mundo. I have successfully removed all the rust or encapsulated it and sprayed epoxy primer on everything inside. That’s right; the cab ceiling, the floor boards, the dashboard and the back of the cab. And baby, baby, baby does it look good.

Currently I am in Dante’s third circle of Hell (Priming the Cab) and have three tasks to complete before I can go to the next level Hell (Butt Welding the Cab Corner).  There are two small areas in the front of the cab which I will get done this weekend and the final test will be removing the rust and goop that is under the cab, followed by spraying on the primer. I am hopeful that it will be a straight forward operation, you know I do believe in the magical elves.

As soon as Virgil and I finish this six-pack of El Diablo IPA, I will get back to work.

Huntsville Times Post

I wrote a story about getting Brooke her first mobile phone.  Enjoy.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2012/11/it_takes_two_tries_to_get_the.html

Another Lesson

With the outside of the cab progressing quite well - thank you very much, my attention is turned to inside activities. As rust is enemy number one with this restoration I am focused on eliminating it and the long pole in the cab tent is the rust on the top of the cab.

Taking out my trusty wire wheel brushes, I commenced to grind off the rust and old paint. Soon into the campaign I discovered the ceiling was covered with something else along with the rust. After extensive scientific analysis, I determined there was some type of goopy coating on it. I was at a loss as to how it got there, but I figured it had to go.

The wire wheel was effective at taking it off, but needed a couple of passes to get it all off, slowing down my much desired progress. Not to be daunted, I kept my nose to the grindstone and pushed through, even using solvents to break up the sticky spots.

At the start of this task, I heard “the little voice that never shuts up” in the back of my mind. Not wanting to be bothered I pushed it all the way out of my conscious and continued grinding. However, as the task seemed to drag on and on it escaped my banishment and said “Pilgrim, tell me again why you are grinding off this top coating?”. I whine back that I have to get the rust and gook off the metal in order for the primer to bond properly.

“The little voice that never shuts up” then proceeds to point out that I will be putting a beautiful color coordinated cardboard headliner on the top of the cab, which “mister works hard but not smart” (that is what it calls me) will cover up all your hours of useless exertion.  I have learned that it is always hard to argue with good reason – especially when it is right.

Unfortunately I was beyond the point of no return. This is similar to removing wall paper in a home remodeling project. When faced with the decision to either take off the old wall paper or just paint over it, you are completely committed after you pull off the couple of easy sections of wall paper. Once this is done you have to do all the hard work to remove the stubborn sections.

As I was steaming off the last bits of automotive wallpaper I figured out that the gooey coating was heat and sound dampening material and that it was not really rusty after all. It was just dirty and messy, with a rusty color.  Note to “mister works hard but not smart” don’t remove this in your next restoration. If you look up the definition of this task in the dictionary, it is called tuition.

Finding the replacement heat and sound dampening material was not as simple as you would think. I did find the material in several of the classic truck web sites, but it was quite a bit more expensive than I expected. As I started looking for other options, I let “the little voice that won’t shut up” sit at the adult table with me this time. Together we were going to make the correct choice. Out of the blue I receive an email from Eastwood saying they were having a sale on guess what? Heat and sound deadened material.  I liked the price and started reading the detailed description, the installation process and then the reviews.  The first four reviewers thought this stuff was better than sex, which pretty much had me sold. But my partner felt the need to keep reading.  The next two reviews were 1 star out of 5 star ratings and said that a few days after they installed it, black tar goo started oozing down the wall and puddled on the floor. It turns out that the positive reviewers lived in Greenland where the temperature is minus 50 and the negative reviewers were fans of the SEC – translation lived in the hot south.  Eastwood’s product was fine until the temperature got to 95 degrees, at which time it transformed into black gooey ooze.

Not wanting to repeat the removal process again, I have already taken and passed this class, I am getting the heat and sound dampening material rated to 270 degrees.

Making Progress on the Cab

Progress is a wonderful noun, especially when it applies to my truck cab. Of all the parts in this 54 Chevy truck restoration, it is the cab that makes me the most insecure and paralyzes me into inaction. Everything that has to be fixed with the cab is something I have never done before.

The floor was rotted out with rust and while it was tempting, putting a carpet over the holes, would not be acceptable. So, I manned up and cut out the rusted floor, learned how to weld and welded in the replacement floor panels.  The side of the cab had a dent as big and as deep as the Mariana Trench. This, in case you are wondering is 6.8 miles deep. I banged it out and used body filler to make it perfectly smooth.

Even with all this progress, my mechanical clock is ticking and it is runing out of time. This is the manalogy of the woman’s need to get married and have a baby. Who could forget Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny saying “my biological clock is ticking”. According to my clock it is time to deliver this cab.

With the cold of winter about to shut down this Hillbilly Garage I had to get a heated shop in order to keep working through the cold dark months. I was starting to look for a garage to rent when my amazing wife offers to let me move my table saw, other wood working tools and bicycles into the back room of the house so that there would be room in the garage to work on the cab.

I am certain she was under the influence of a hot flash and didn’t know what she was saying, but I quickly agreed and now we have three rooms filled with truck parts and tools.

Once the garage was cleaned out, the next step was to move the cab into the garage. The timing for this operation could not have been worse. Several of the neighbors were out of town and another had hurt his back. That left me – one old guy, my daughter – who is like anti matter when it comes to helping with the truck, and my amazing one armed wife. Don’t worry, she has two arms, but with a recent rotator cuff surgery, one was out of commission – Doctors orders.

With a good three arms between us, we used Egyptian methods to move the cab. I would lift one side of the cab up off the stand and Stephanie would pull it out and put in a smaller one. Repeating this process we soon had the cab on a furniture dolly and were able to roll it into the garage and perform the process in reverse.

Now that I have the cab in a warm well light garage, I have been able to work on it almost every night after work. I have taken off all the paint and rust on the outside and primed the inside floor panels. Two recent warm days gave me time to spray on the primer and Baby it looks good.

Huntsville Times Column

Here is my latest Huntsville Time column about my mothers boozy fruit.  Enjoy.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2012/10/all_generations_have_their_qui.html