Now how hard will that fiberglass mat with POR-15 dry to, will it be as hard as resin? Did you pour the POR-15 over it to let it soak down into deeply?

I cleaned 45 years of dirt and grime off the steering column, then started looking at the steering wheel itself. The wood grain is very faded and the face is cracked on the right side with about 1/2 inch of the face missing. Unfortunately, the other steering wheel is missing the same part of the face, and that one doesn't have the horn rim. I looked online out of curiosity and a very nice one on ebay is close to $300. I thought well how much does a replacement face pad cost; checked LMC and they only sell the one for "without cruise control". And just that is $146! I will just live the one I got thank you very much

 

Well I just checked the POR15 / mat and it will need a 2nd coat at least.
The fella that did this did it on a lot smaller scale filling bolt holes, well it may work good on that but I think I should of used the POR15 on the metal floor like I did and let it dry then used the mat with normal rosin and not the POR15.
I put a coat of POR15 on the floor and put the mat over and brushed on POR15 like rosin. The mat just soaked it up and did not add any strength to the mat like rosin would.
I have a gallon of rosin and I may mix that up to coat the area I did with the mat. I was thinking of more POR15 but at 75 bucks a qt and not knowing how it will turn out I cant see going that way.

I am thinking after the rosin sets up I can put the metal over the top of the mat, it just does not have the strength with the POR15 I thought it would
Live and learn I guess

Cruise control wheels go for crazy money. I am lucky I dont have CC on my truck and the parts truck wheel was in pretty good shape.
The one that was in my truck someone wrapped cord around it, did a nice job, but no horn button.
Dave ----

 

Thanks for the info about the subs. Not sure I have enough juice to power the amp. I'll need to look into it. Still haven't upgraded my alternator.

John, this bike has a manual cam chain tensioner. It was out of spec. I was able to get it back in spec, so thankfully don't have to pull it out.

As for the carb, I started rooting around and as Dave suspected, I was missing a block off cap that goes on the intake boot. It's for the California models and I don't have those parts. I made one from some gas line and plugged it. Then found the original cap on the ground. I also needed to adjust the idle after I got rid of the lean condition. That cleared everything up. Kicks over. Idles well. No more snap crackle and pop from the exhaust.

Next will be the clutch plates as they are definitely on their last friction plate. On my test ride third through fifth were slipping under hard shifting.

 

The CB 450 Honda I had with overhead cams were known for chain stretch as mine had and the fix was replace the chain and sprockets and I was not up to doing that.
It just made it hard to start and the idle would go up / down but otherwise ran good.

Good to hear it was just a missing cap on the carb issue. Dealing with bike carbs can get ugly at times.
I have never done a clutch on the bike and hope I never have too, but they dont look all that hard from what I have seen just glossing over it.
Dave ----

 

Thanks for showing that there are still good people. Reading posts back and forth from you two, (FuzzFace2 and Cracker289), makes me miss living in an area of truly helpful, honest, and knowledgeable folks. I wish it was like that here. Being hesitate of saying exactly where I live, I have encountered a lot of "I don't know what's wrong, but I will take if off your hands for cra* $ amount". I have learned a hard and costly lesson by trusting people around here for help with referrals of honest businesses/people. I was the person who always offered a helping hand, but age and loss of physical strength limits me now. And unfortunately age makes me a target of dishonest people, especially people who want my truck. Thanks for keeping it real and helping people!

 

ForeverFord88, I haven't seen your truck... But I want it And thanks for the kind words, we've been members on this forum for a long time, maybe 8 or 10 years? It's all blurry to me. We used to have a monthly get-together where we would try out different BBQ places around the area (say, within 1 hour or so of the Raleigh area). But it was dwindling in participation and then covid just finished it off.

James if this helps it has two 30 amp fuses, one for each channel. So that's the amount of power it takes when full blasting.

Dave ok so it didn't really add "rigid" strength like resin would. I hear ya on that, POR-15 is not something you can experiment with too much as it costs as much as gold. lol

Both of my wheels are cruise control. I don't know how to test to make sure if everything is good or not. One one I would say NFG as the horn pad is removed and there is a cut wire sticking out. But the lower cruise control portion might still be useful to someone, IDK.



I'm about to have less project time as the wife is on me to get started on pool cleaning, plus she's been saying several times that the steps on the far side of the house are getting rotten and rickedy. 20 years she never stepped foot on them, now she's been going out that way in the mornings to feed birds and suddenly noticed.

 

Today was a cant get my butt in gear day. I think the pills have hit me again being tired all the time and my hand has been shaking more today too.
Took a 2 hour nap today and I slept good last night so something of off today
I may get out there later when it cools off to see what I can do but I cant do much on the floor as I need to get the jeep out to get the sons truck in for a front end rebuild.

Does that part on the wheel come off so you can work on it? Maybe try with the broken wire one as a "test".
I was thinking maybe wood grain contact paper cut and fitted in there? On the drag car I used it on the dash panel I made to mount the gauges in that ran across the full dash and it held up pretty good.
Then again my hands were not on it all the time like the wheel would be but maybe worth a try?
Dave ----

 

I was thinking, when I take it apart to work on the tilt mechanism, I can make note of what color wires go to each button, and then I use a meter on the connector farther down on the column to verify each one closes a circuit, etc, when the button is mashed. If I can figure that out then I could test both horn buttons, the cruise on off set accel cancel etc.

I had thought about wood grain decal, but the actual plastic underneath is cracked and gone from the edge on the right side on the better wheel, and from both corners on the worser wheel. On a side note, I saw for the non-cruise faceplates, that Ford uses 2 different "wood grain" colors; Rosewood, and Burl. I think I have one of each, based on the looks.

I had a day like you, just could not get out there to do anything. Which was terrible considering it's Thursday which means only one of two days out of the week where I have full access to the carport. I wanted to pull the car trailer in and do some sanding & rust painting on the underside, but after eating lunch and making a run to the grocery store I was just rag tired and ended up dozing off. I haven't done anything about the 66 Mustang yet and I had planned all week to try and tackle the intake manifold job.

 

I take it you are going to take the 66 to Sanford Saturday so if you start the intake change Friday do you think you will have it done in time?
I know it is a simple swap but you know how that can go and why I well .......... not going to say it
Dave ----

 

Well you know for most people it would be a 1 or 2 hour job, but I'm going to want to clean everything and probably touch up whatever blue paint I can reach while the intake is off, plus I work slow and have to do everything in order or I get flustered. Maybe I'm OCD! And then you know halfway through the job there will be some small insignificant part that I forgot to buy ahead of time, which will require a trip to the parts store only to find that they don't stock it, but they can get it here "tomorrow". And don't forget about noticing something unrelated and having that take you off on a tangent doing some other job that you had not planned on! Part of me says tackle it tomorrow, and another part of me says work on the trailer tomorrow and tackle the intake manifold next week.

 

If taking it to the show Saturday then work on the trailer and the car next week.
My son has to have every little thing just right and it just kills the time to do anything.
He wants to mount a flat screen TV to a wall in the living room but first he wanted to fix some holes from the old one and some "dents".
I told him to get regular spackle but no he got something called hot mud. It dries too fast and is really hard to sand and he has a lot of "patches" to sand now.
Wanted to get some fancy machine he has no money to buy to sand and collect the dust. If he just got what I told him to sanding would be done in no time.

Then he went on about a finish of 4 or 5 and I was WTF is that? It is how the spackle is put on and the sanding I guess?
He said because it is a wall you will be looking at it has to be done right or you will see problems. Hell the TV will be covering most of it!
He wants to drop the wires inside the wall and once he does that and has the mount mounted I will show up and get r done if he likes it or not.

I can see this front end rebuild is going to be fun as he will want everything to be perfect like brand new and that is not going to happen.
He was complaining about having to work down low as I dont have a lift. Told him I am twice his age and I do it, dont like it but do it.
We will see how it goes
Dave ----

 

I would get a tub of spackle, blade it on, sand it with 60 and then 120 and after that primer and paint. I don't think I would run the wires in the wall as once you do you are stuck with having the TV there forever, you can't rearrange the living room and put the TV in a different spot. But I get it, that is something I'm not OCD about. Other things, like building something out of wood, I HAVE to predrill every hole. And I only use the one drill so that means, remove the driver bit, put in the drill bit, drill one hole, remove it, put the driver bit back in, run down one screw, then move to the next spot and repeat. I am 99% sure I drive others crazy if they are helping me.

Norman just stopped by in his Dune Buggy. He had borrowed my riv-nut kit and wanted to return it. Then after jaw-jacking a few minutes he tried to leave, but it didn't want to start. Hard cranking. He said always fights him like this when hot, he said probably the timing is off. So I got my timing light and checked it, too bright outside to really see it very well. So I put a piece of blue tape where he said it should be, which was 7 degrees. Then when we got it running I could not see the blue tape! So I kept turning to retard it more and more, went past 2 of the big lines (big lines every 10 degrees, with 5 small lines in between each) and finally after the second big line I started to see the blue tape, still on the other side of the mark. So he had to have been at 30 initial. After locking it down at 7 it started easily. Hopefully it will also run a little better.

I pulled the faceplate off the steering wheel; it didn't clarify anything at all. Now I'm just more confused than ever. Only 3 wires; blue, yellow, and gray. You do you get "on, off, resume, set, accel" with only 3 wires? Maybe each button is a combination of two colors?

 

That is a lot of timing on a little old air cooled motor.
Do you know if he is still running points or a kit in the distributor as I dont remember if he said at the SSS show?
If he is running points and the gap / dwell is off that will change the timing.

I have some good news and some pretty bad new on the DJ
Because my son was bring his S10 4x4 by for a front suspension rebuild I needed to get the DJ out of the garage.
Not being able to sleep and him being here around 10am I was out in the garage about 4am.
The other day I was able to shore up the body so no need to support at the doors and could be moved.

Today I got the rear tires back on then had to mount the shifter that I pulled when I did the POR15 & fiberglass mat.
Because I covered over the slot the shifter arm went through I had to cut the back in place, but shifter is installed.
Needed to mount the battery and where the tray was there was a hole in the firewall so I had to make a plate to bridge the hole till I can fix the hole right.
Got her down on all 4 wheels and a little spray in the carb and she fired up.

This is where the bad part is
The transmission slips really bad both forward & reverse. I thought when we pulled it in it was the brake locked up but not so lucky.
Fluid is red and the level good, it was checked when we moved it in because I thought it was slipping then.
Doing some online checking I need to check the pressure and that can tell me if the pump is bad or something inside.
I also want to see what a rebuild kit goes for and how hard it would be to rebuild it. If Kurt can rebuild his 4OD70W I think it was I should be able to do old school TF727

While waiting for my son to show up, at 12:15pm I figured I would pull the covers off the seats and wash them and that ran me down the rabbit hole
I found the springs on the seat that was the drivers 2 of them were not hooked to anything. So I puled the seat cover and foam to get to the springs and found that the hooks on the frame where gone and someone had used thin bailing wire to hold them but that failed. I kind of pulled them back in place with wire ties and then used coat hanger to lash the springs back in place, I left the wire ties as a back up.
I need to get some hog rings and maybe pilers just in case I cant find the ones my dad had and fix the cover back on the seat.

I also need to put a coat of rosin on the floor and then the metal. I was shocked today the floor was stronger being the POR15 had time to dry more.
I think with a thin coat of rosin and then metal it will be pretty strong. Then I just got to figure what to use for bushings between frame & body.
Dave ----

 

Oh my son found more things bad that he did not order parts for so the truck sits in the garage till he gets them.
He has my Durango to use and the DJ will sit out side.
If I can get it to the house and I can sneak some water I would like to power wash it.
So the DJ is on hold for a bit.
Dave ----

 

Well I would say I come give you a hand pushing it up to the driveway, but I'll be gone all day for the car show in Sanford. The Dune Buggy distributor is a points style with a pertronix under the cap, and it is centrifugal advance only, no vac adv. He said the VW guru in Durham told him if he gets a distributor with vac advance it will be "night and day" difference in how well it runs.

I have never worked on a transmission like that, I tip my hat to Kurt for doing that rebuild, and if you take the 727 down and rebuild it that will be pretty dang awesome. To me it seems like the dark arts; all those discs and springs and check valves. I'd be afraid that I never get it back together in the right order

Good news that the floor has firmed up more. But I understand the rabbit hole thing!

Yesterday I had just enough time to pull the car trailer in and tackle the area around the wheels / axles. That 6 foot section has so many brackets and nooks & crannies, it was a pain to get the wire wheel & sanding disc in there but I cleaned as much as possible, hit it with pressure washer to blast off the dust, let it dry then went over with zero-rust.