Happy thirsty Thursday Nor Cal. Hope everyone has a good day.

Jim

 

TGIF Nor Cal. Must have gotten some rain last night/this morning, as the ground is all wet.

Jim

 

Yeah, I had a sheet of ice on the windshield.

 

Extra nippy this morning, but no frost or ice. I'm OK with that. Kind of amazing the differences in local weather around here.

 

Finally got my door switch connectors repaired and the door switches replaced. Hopefully that will take care of my dead dome light and cigar lighter.

Meanwhile, other issues abound, and I'm still trying to track the wiring problem through the dash (UGH!)

 

I hate tracking down wiring problems.

Jim

 

Good Afternoon to all of you in the Southern portion of Northern California

I hope that your weather was as good Down there as it was up here.

Had a great turn out for our Boy Scout Merit Badge conference. Now to recover my sanity and energy.

 

Happy Saturday evening Nor Cal. Grand kids did not come over, this weekend, and I am going stir crazy trying to find something to do.

Jim

 

Go rake the yard Jim ,the last two days have been great , still sweat shirt weather but nice, the 4 pm cool winds come in and that’s a game changer, well managed to clean up the raised gardens , trim the Orchard, Shot a few Gofers , now my task is getting all my construction stuff in one spot, bought the homer depot husky shelving , easy to install and most everything now is in one place , not scattered all about the garage .now my back is killin meee

 

No yard to rake. Live in apartments, and they don't have a landscaping company because there is no grass here. Just sidewalks, and asphalt, and some dirt areas. One side of the sidewalk has wood chips, the other side just dirt.

Jim

 

Just Got back from going out with my dad and son. A rather cold wind from the South, but still had a good time.

Big Red ran fine and the heater almost drove us out of the cab (gotta love Heaters )

 

Fixed 3 of the 5 lock problems... ignition/doors, happened to have a spare made recently (it was locked inside the truck, of course)... got the sliding windows open in the back window (first time they'd opened in at least 15 years), had a neighborhood kid crawl through and unlock the doors. That was a huge adventure for the kid

I think the Passenger's Side lock broke the last time I tried to unlock it with the key. I'll have to open the door up and find out why it doesn't feel right. It locks and unlocks fine when I use the **** inside the cab.

One locking gas cap came off wen I used a pair of straight-slot screwdrivers on it... overrode the spring-loaded ears that grip under the lip of the filler neck.

Other locking gas cap was steel (instead of rubber), and my lock picking skills are pathetic. Made a torsion bar and rake, but couldn't convince the tumbler that it was ok to cooperate. After almost an hour, I finally (in desperation) used the key from the other new gas cap... applied a little sidewise pressure and pushed it in and out... and the cap opened. It took maybe ten seconds.

The two new gas caps had tabs that didn't fit into the slots in the filler necks, so I ground those down... miniature cutting disk in my Dremel tool took off just what I needed... and I replaced the cardboard gaskets with rubber... I had a thin sheet of rubber left over from another project and cut a couple of donuts out of it, made 'em fit.

That leaves the locked tool box in the side of the bed and the padlock that's securing the chain which holds the spare tire under the bed of the truck.

I've found out that the key blank for the tool box is a "Hudson LL 20", now I just have to get a couple of blanks, get the lock opened and have keys made to fit it.

As for the padlock, if I need to, I can open it with the bolt cutters. Right. Last time I used the bolt cutters under that part of the truck, they sent me to the Emergency Room when they severed the bolt I working on. The rubber grip on the handle smacked my right eyebrow and cut about a quarter-inch slice through it. Maybe I'll post a safety watch this time

Somebody explain to me again how much I love this old truck...

 

Wow. Sounds like you were able to accomplish quite a bit on that old truck.
I cut my right index finger yesterday by trying to clean the inside of a Campbell's soup can, the kind that has the pop top. I wanted to clean out the residue soup left over so my trash can would not stink. Well, I ended up slicing the side of my finger with that razor sharp lip that is left after the top is popped off. And just like a paper cut, it did not bleed until a minute or two later, but it sure stung like heck.

Jim

 

Ya know what? I've done that very same thing, and for that very same reason.

It's the "Campbell's Soup Can" conspiracy!

The dome light should be in pretty good shape now that I've replaced the pins, connector shells and door switches, but I've still got a lot more to go. Once I figure out where the wiring fault is, and fix it, I'll still have to put the dash back together like it's supposed to be.

I've discovered that most of the electrical tape I have around here is so old it's unusable

 

Yeah. That darn stuff seems to dry out and get brittle. I've found the same thing with painter's masking tape. maybe all tapes for that matter. It's the great tape conspiracy!