Sorta finished up the interior on Rusty today. Here's the inside of the repaired door panel. Note the pop rivets that David suggested. I used 1/8" OD aluminum rivets 1/4" long. Worked well, but the #8 washer I used on the one on the left was too big. The #6 on the right was just right.




Here it is on the outside. Not perfect, but the West System epoxy is good stuff.




And here's what it looks like all together - eclectic. I slipped the maroon dash cover on to hide the ugly brown one. Blue carpet, red seat, tan doors, etc.

 

"Rainbow Rusty"!!!

 

I'm not sure that is a compliment considering some of the uses of that term. But, as Dad would have said, if that is a compliment then I thank you.

 

used to have an older underling that worked for me twenty years ago. He drove a 1976 F100 with a topper. When he had truck problems I would go on lunch or after work and fix the truck for him.


One afternoon at lunch, I was working on the truck. I was all under the hood when a man came walking up and asking all kinds of questions. He finally asked if the truck was mine. I said know and pointed across the lot to my restored 1967 F100.


He apologized and left quickly. I went back to work and started telling my friend what had happened. He laughed his butt off and asked me if I ever saw the sticker on the Back of Al's truck. I said, "The NRA sticker?" He told me no, look at the rainbow sticker next to it.


That was when I learned about the "Rainbow".


I can only imagine if Al ever had to bring me in his truck past Jimmy Swaggerts Bible College to get a part for my truck.


His steering wheel was a glitter wheel too.

 

Normally, I would not feel the need to explain myself, but I only meant that the truck had numerous colors. To me, a rainbow is one of nature's things of beauty.

 

David - No need to explain. We both have the same respect for rainbows. I was just making a joke, and obviously a poor one.

 

Just posted this on WHYDTYTT, so if you think you are seeing double you may be. But, I wanted to capture it here in Rusty's thread as well.

Well, I posted these pics of Rusty on a different thread earlier today and that reminded me that the trailer connector's attachment was ...... tenuous to say the best. It was held on with 4 tie-wraps and it kept slipping out.






So, I made a project out of making a bracket to hold it properly. These two pics show the type of aluminum channel that I made it out of as well as a couple of views of the finished bracket. In fact, the bracket came out of a piece exactly like that one.








And, finally, the bracket installed on Rusty. Works well and is recessed so it is somewhat protected from heads and hands, or they from it. But, now that I look at it I should have rounded the corners a bit more. Oh well, it comes off with two screws, so....

 

Gary, I would say that it sucks you had to fix something that someone jerry rigged but lets face it. If someone hadn't have done that then you wouldn't have made such a nice fix for it. You sir, do good work.

 

Well, I have to be honest - I'm the one that jerry-rigged it. I was in a big hurry as my first body man had just fallen out with his "wife" and she kicked him out of the house and shop. So I had to get Dad's truck out of there immediately for fear she would confiscate it. I borrowed a trailer and discovered it took the round connector, so stopped at a parts store and bought one, tie-wrapped it on, and got the parts.

That was almost two years ago and it was still on there that way. But yesterday I shot some pics of Rusty's hitch for another guy and saw the connector. Yuk! So, having some time available, I decided to make the bracket. Now I have a nice bracket on a bent bumper with a rusty receiver hitch sticking out below. But, thst fits Rusty's style.

 

I know how that goes. Taking my truck apart I get mad at the mess I'll have to clean up. Of course I am the one that made that mess. Eleven years ago when I got the truck I was all about the quick fixes. I am glad to have time to correct all that.

 

Time to update this thread. In the last two days I've prep'd Rusty for his 275 mile round trip to OKC to pick up the new-to-us boat:



The boat weighs 4200 lbs dry, so it will probably come in around 5200 lbs with the trailer as it is aluminum. Rusty shouldn't have a problem with that as he was happy with the '50 Chevy pickup on the trailer, which probably came in about 6500 lbs.

But, tomorrow is supposed to start out in the 20's, so I worked on the heater since it has been blowing heat out of the vents and not placing it on the floor nor the windshield. Turns out there were three problems. First, the blend door wasn't working properly so we weren't getting full heat. A lot of lubrication and a bit of adjustment got it working well. Next, the floor/defrost vacuum motor was bad, so I replaced that. But we still had air out the vents, so I reached into the plenum through the floor vent and found the infamous plastic hinge broken. So, I closed that door and pulled the vacuum line off of the motor so maybe the door will stay closed to the vents. A trial run says we have very little air coming out of the vents, so most of it is going to either the floor or the windshield. That'll do until I get a chance to pull the plenum out and repair the hinge properly.

And, along the way I pulled the badly-cracked dash pad, cleaned it, and glued a cover to it. Not only does it look LOTS better, but I discovered that the pad hadn't been screwed in at the windshield, so that explains all of the rattles I've been hearing. Should be much more solid now.

Then I took a look at the vent windows, which have been whistling. Turns out the weatherstripping is bad - hard and shrunk. So, for the trip tomorrow I augmented it with some foam weatherstripping cut to fit between the windows and the factory weatherstripping. That seems to have helped a lot, but on the driver's side there was still a gap. Turns out that a penny is just the right size for a shim between the handle and the window divider to close up the gap.

So, with the fluids checked, the tires aired up, and the tank filled Rusty is ready. I'll update y'all on the trip tomorrow or Saturday.

 

Have a safe trip.

Also, subscribing.

 

Made it home without incident. Rusty amazed me with how well he pulled the boat. I expected to be running @60 MPH, but he kept moving back up to 65. .

 

And you will store this.... where? Back yard? In the shop or garage? As a lawn ornament? At the lake in the mountains up the street?

Certainly not in the basement....

 

In the slip we rented at the lake during the summer, and behind the shop under the soon-to-be-built awning in the winter. NOT in the shop, where it is currently sitting. I had to pull it in with the garden tractor, trapping the tractor in there. And the arms of the lift have to be just above the fenders as the track is too wide for the tires to fit between the arms. It is TIGHT!