Well.....Bye.

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Actually rarer yet as I checked the rear brake master and it is pretty funky also- a trifecta! The bike never froze as I keep a bit of heat on --There are canned goods in there as well as laundry so freezing would be a disaster.

Believe it or not but we have electricity to the property and everything. I think there are considerably more drug addicts then moose in the region.

I have been thinking of Mendicino County quite a bit of late.

Opto
 
Since Stella doesn't need anything (as usual) and the EBR is prepped and ready for the next track day at LVMS, I might as well do a slightly early service on the Brutalé. I find it very comforting to work late on this quiet Sunday night. Ya I know I'm weird:black_eyed:

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At least I don't have to split this one in HALF (Ahem, cough, cough):black_eyed:
 
Theres a couple out by .002mm but being shim under bucket I'll get all cray-cray-middle-of-the-spec perfect, and hopefully avoid having to do it again at the next service.

In the meantime I had a great day yesterday finishing little details of the perfect bike hauler Josephine Dirté!
First I swapped the open carrier for a posi unit. The 3.08's are fine for long distance at speed and it's still pathetic to buy anything for a 8.2" rear but heck, I really need to leave 11's! The one tire fire ain't cutting it and donuts>burnouts:angel:
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It was an easy swap, thankfully got a good pattern first try! So feeling good, I decided to attack the worst bit of cancer on the rear 1/4. I'm NO body man, but I'd never use construction foam to fix sheet metal. Grrrr.
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Gross.
 
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I had bought one of those air powered flanging/punch tools and for $39 it worked really well to prep the edge of the 1/4 panel and punch spot weld holes in the patch panel:up:
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Just a little bondo and sanding later...
Lucky me! I found a can of Krylon high temp silver BBQ paint that actually matches the "Millennium Falcon silver" on the truck pretty well:) 821C54E4-3A3F-47BB-B043-212CBE1F03BE.jpg
 

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Bubbles and I had realized that 2 bikes and overnight camping gear is a little much for the tiny El Co bed. We need a little more room for stuff and the added utility of a trailer hitch would be a welcome addition. It IS a truck ya know;)

When I put the ebay rear bumper on the JK I just sold, it came with a hitch in it, so I had removed the stock "tow package" bolt on receiver. Guess where it ended up?
Some 1/4" thick angle to the frame rails and a 2x3" 1/4 wall sq tube makes for a stout hitch. I pity the Foo who rear ends me now!
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sorry for the pics from Australia :(

I added an old flip down plate bracket from a 90's IROC Camaro, wired up a 4-pin plug and Bam! All hitched up
 
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Been Social Distancing with friends in the Angeles Forest a lot lately. With all the track days cancelled, I'm seriously considering putting a headlight and signals on the EBR race plastics. I miss my girl! The Brutalé will have to do and frankly it does really really well:rolleyes:
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But for now I'll try to stay motivated and add some more car content to my rambling thread. Hey man, its MY thread! LOL

Thankfully we got most of the jobs in the shop all done and shipped before the shut-down so I pulled out and zero-ed the chassis for the '57 again:D
If you are keeping score the SBC turned into the BBC from the roll-over Blazer (Lord please help me down this wormhole), mocked up a crossmember to hold the body mounts, trailing arm pivots, and frame bracing, and set in the exhaust. I REALLY want to have full exhaust, I remember how LOUD this engine is through dual Flowmasters.
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The '2-piece' 57 frame is really thin, so I feel I need to make weld-plate for all the attachment points.
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And horrific old frame 'repairs'. Ugh. I had to patch a big hole from the inside, grind flush, make this plate and attach it. Then do the other side.
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Got some frame stiffening mounted. I'll cut out the center of the crossmember for driveshaft clearance later. I just needed it to be perfectly straight and as a stiffener while all this heat is getting put in the frame.
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As the French say... Walla!
Dropped the center for driveshaft clearance, welded the top side of all the bracing, and got the trailing arm pivot tabs knocked out:
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and since all of the braking/accelerating/articulating forces from the tire act on these two bolts, I felt stiffening tubes were a good idea. #OverkillCooter;)
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Time to play with tranny's!
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The trans crossmember needs to be removable of course, but I really wanted it to help stiffen these notoriously wobbly frames. I found a couple of these roll-cage knuckles in a dusty bin for the win!
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Sleeved it with some 1.75 (.125) HREW, fish mouthed both ends and "walla" again!

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The cardboard tube is my driveshaft:upset: But I'll replace it with a metal one for BBC torque, haha.
 
Having full exhaust is going to be a bloody nightmare. I had the BBC built for a decent shot of naaaawse I never used, so I know it will take some boost. Ya think I can justify using a turbo as a muffler and have straight exhaust? Worms....:upset:

Two small turbos would help routing. BIG can of worms..:upset::upset:
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Maybe thats why I just stare at the dang thing sometimes :black_eyed: Late night caffeine and Static-X turned up tp 11 are good for progress.
 
Having full exhaust is going to be a bloody nightmare. I had the BBC built for a decent shot of naaaawse I never used, so I know it will take some boost. Ya think I can justify using a turbo as a muffler and have straight exhaust? Worms....:upset:

Two small turbos would help routing. BIG can of worms..:upset::upset:
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Maybe thats why I just stare at the dang thing sometimes :black_eyed: Late night caffeine and Static-X turned up tp 11 are good for progress.

See you do some great stuff when you are grounded, stay home more often , WOW!!!!
 
Thanks buddy:) I just want this DONE! It's my only car. I only got the ElCo because this one took too long...
Then the ElCo needed more work to be safe, then the wreck, then the track day mods, it's been a huge distraction so it's time to get Marylin back to converting dinosaur bones into horsepowa!
 
Nice work, she'll handle much better when your done.
I just finish up doing Cross member support work on my truck but a friend did the welding, due to rust I could crush the old cross members with my hands. I got lucky that only two had to be replaced, the others are well coated now so they should last.

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I'm working on the front bumper now as it is also rusting.
 
OMG, what a flashback, I forgot all about STS. Glad to see they're still around!

Storytime!

One of my very first self-employed jobs was to lower (2"x3") about 2 HUNDRED used Chevy Astro vans for export to Japan. They would be converted to livable with a raised roof, TV, sofa bed, paint jobs, etc. Like a Mini "conversion-van". It was so the Japanese city workers would drive out from their rural homes and live in them during the week at work. The parking lots of that job would have hook-ups for electricity and TV, and public bathroom set-ups for a dump and a shower.

I was only there to lower them, and the company would do the rest. As a young man I didn't even fathom just how many 200 vehicles is, or that they were used, from back east, and a bit rusty, and didn't even THINK to hire any help. This was just before the mid-90's lower EVERYTHING fad jumped off, so we had a kit designed from a local company (DJM). They were stout, but not the best engineered systems, they required you to remove the gas tank to add some brackets, and all of these rubber mounted suspension bolts were rusted in place and the vans had been staged in a dirt field with drainage problems. Talk about filthy late nights, I probably have Lyme disease or Consumption:upset:

Anyway, that job blossomed into many more jobs on those Astro Vans. One of which was to build a hero vehicle for the newly blossoming SEMA show in Las Vegas. It was my idea (thank you, thank you) to soup-up the little V-6 and settled on a turbo. But its a van, man! No room anywhere for that malarky. Except next to the transmission:eek-new: Working with STS we got most of a kit prototyped and Holy Hell those turbo vans were FAST! In hindsight they probably had waste gate issues and running way too much boost, but longevity doesn't really compute in a 20yo brain:cool:

Just picture a minivan, terrible 90's graphics, big add-on windows, velour interior walls, fiberglass running boards/flares, highroof... and positivly BLASTING your doors off, LOL. Good times. We had some connections with GM corporate, so we also helped them prototype the twin turbo Corvette kit where the turbos would replace the mufflers entirely:) Even got to do donuts the '95 ZR-1 press car with the Lotus/ LT-5 32 valve V-8! Funny how a 400hp car is so common now-a-days, it was a positive screamer back then.

I'm surprised I've never build a turbo anything before? Always been NA, Torque>HP guy. Buell:love_heart: But times may be-a-changin':angel:
 


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