Finally!

[hillbilly]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Another useless update.

Haven't done nothin'.

Nothing serious anyway, dangit! I have most of the parts for the front end job in hand, upper and lower ball joints, springs, upper and lower poly bushings, but I haven't had the 2 day time window.

One thing of note - changed the radiator hoses. Simple, right?

WRONG! The water pump and radiator were changed recently, and the dipweed that installed the lower radiator hose must've put it on the water pump before the radiator went back in.

Sooooo, there was no way to get at the clamp screw. None. Fortunately I've become scary with a recip saw, I could just barely get the blade on the screw assembly with the blade hitting the pump on the extension and falling off the screw on the ... um back stroke. (the web says the opposite of extension is 'flexion'). Radiator hoses - 4 hour job!!

That idiot should be flayed and boiled in oil.

Kidding. Just flayed

Good news is I've gone almost 3k miles as a daily driver and it's started every time. For all it's niggling problems I really, really like this car.

It dang well better start, now that I'm down to 1 car!

Pete

Don't feel bad Pete. I remember calling the man I bought my dually from years ago and really blastin' him with words you've probly never heard from a hillbilly before.

This guy builds engines and ships them out on crates, has a website and sells his crate engines in the weekly wheels & deals books too. He told me it was his personal truck that he used to haul engines on up until he bought his new truck, and the engine in the truck was one of his own and had barely been ran. He said the truck needed NOTHING exept a driver and was very road worthy. OK, so I bought it, told him I'd get someone to follow me back to his place the next day after work to pick it up and drive my car back home. Well, the next day I came home from work and the truck was in my field down below with a note on it. It said, ''Dave, wasn't any need to drive all the way back to my place. I had to pull the trailer to Nashville to pick up a Bobcat I bought and had to pass by your place anyway. I just pulled the truck up on the trailer and dropped it off for you''.

The key was in it, so I fired it up, pulled it halfway up my driveway and a lower balljoint fell out. I had to go buy a set of balljoints, and jacked it up where it was blocking my driveway to go on and replace the one that fell apart 'first', to get it upto my shop on the hill. Well, it got even worse. I went to remove the caliper & rotor and the caliper had been WELDED to the spindle. Turns out, the dumbass had broken the bolt that holds the slider in place and rather than drilling & tapping, he just welded the caliper in place. Only the inboard pad was making contact with the rotor as the caliper was not able to slide and apply pressure on both pads. I had to grind all day to get it apart, then hunt down a caliper and spindle for the heavy duty som-beech. Man, .... you talk about pissed at a feller ... ole hillbilly was so mad that friends didn't hang around to shoot the shit that day. Some say I was really 'on the rag', that day. I was yelling shit like .. '' and that blankety black mother f*cker calls himself a blankety blank mechanic ... somebody orta shoot that blankety blank mother f*cker between the blankety blank eyes ''!!