My J-4500

[rang-a-stang]

From the side she looks like a corpse! From the front she looks like a corpse.

[Crankyolman]

From the side she looks like a corpse! From the front she looks like a corpse.

Only when standing still, when moving she looks like she is tied up and struggling to get free


Maybe I should get her a pair of sunglasses

[johnsonic]

From the side she looks like a corpse! From the front she looks like a corpse.

BWAAAAHAAAAHAAHAAAA!

[Crankyolman]

If I had known setting up the old lady in the back of my truck would be so much fun I would have done it years ago Everywhere I go people stare, point, laugh and come up to me to talk about it but I also have a lot to do.




Last week my wife and I had the flu...or maybe that Corolla virus from Woo-hoo China (or whatever it's called) but we are feeling much better now. It's still kind of hanging in there but every day gets a bit better. So I have been once again slowly working on the truck.


This week I finally got the center ridges ground down to the same height as all the rest of them so I was ready to install them. This posed a bit of a problem because how do you hold a raised piece in place over an open hole so you can weld it? The solution I came up with is to use some temporary braces.


I began by taking some metal pieces I found in the scrap bin at work



Cut them in half and drilled some holes in them



Then attached them to the ridges using some long self tapping screws



The idea being when I tighten them the braces will turn sideways and hold the ridges against the structure





When I got home I tried it out and it worked like a charm



although I did have to add some screws to act as stops to keep them from spinning.



I was then able to locate the ridges where I wanted them to go and tighten them down. Then I simply tack welded them in place



Then I took the braces off and began welding the full length, welding a little bit on one side then the other, back and forth until I got to the bottom, then start over. It's not hard or particularly time consuming and looks really good but it's slow going since I have so much else going on. The only real problem I have run into is in one area where I accidentally cut too wide when I removed the seam and had trouble filling the gap but that is done. That section will require a little extra attention and grinding but the rest of the seams will require very little to make them look seamless.

[Crankyolman]

I just finished up all the welding, now all that's left is the grinding. Then I can get back to the pepping the bottom side for undercoating.

[rang-a-stang]

That's fantastic! I love free tools like that! Well Done!

[FleetFox]

It's Aunt Edna from Vacation strapped to the roof!

Fleet Fox

[Crankyolman]

That's fantastic! I love free tools like that! Well Done!

Thank you. It looks so much better now and once it's bedlinered it shouldn't be noticeable that it is slightly different. I've been slowly and carefully grinding the welds down and I think it looks pretty good.

It's Aunt Edna from Vacation strapped to the roof!

Fleet Fox

She does bear a striking resemblance to Aunt Edna

[Crankyolman]

I'm a but upset and disappointing lately with my progress.


I'm still not back to 100% after the flu (or Wuhan) or whatever it was and by the time I get off work I'm exhausted and just don't feel up to doing much of anything when I'm off. Then the other day while trying to make some progress on the truck I found this





You can see the fresh tack weld the guy I paid to do the rust repair made but he completely ignored the rust out on this cross support Fortunately I have some scrap pieces the right thickness and I easily made a patch. I just need to cut out the rusted bit and weld the patch in. It's not really that big of a deal but just more work.


Then the other day I couldn't get the doors to unlock no matter what I did and I wound up having to break in through the wing window. I have an AMC lock on the driver's door so at least the key didn't break but I still have a Kaiser lock on the passengers door since I tried my best but couldn't get the AMC lock to work on the passenger door and still haven't had a new key made for that door.


I'm kind of fed up with door lock problems so when I got some free time at work I decided to take Tripwires advice from over a year ago ( http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=186507 ) and started looking up power door lock kits and the next day Amazon dropped this off



It wasn't the cheapest one available but it looks a lot better than the cheaper ones and the schismatic and what directions they have are in English rather than Chinese like the cheaper ones. At $33 it was still pretty cheap but it had what looked like real reviews rather than all the fake ones Amazon is so plagued with. It has 4 actuators, which gives me 2 spares in case I ever need to replace one in the future or want to add something that I want to remotely unlock but this makes the wiring harness pretty bulky.





After checking to see that things actually work how I expect I decided to pare down the harness to make it easier to conceal. So I removed the wires for the trunk release, the parking lights, and 2 of the actuators so it is now down to only 2 doors.





I think I'm going to mount the controller on the transmission hump under the seat whenever I feel up to it and the weather cooperates. It looks like the install is actually going to be fairly simple and straight forward, It will be nice to be able to unlock the doors with the push of a button and stop fighting the key lock.

[Crankyolman]

Today I finished installing the power door locks. Everything went pretty well. I decided to mount the controller under the dash rather than under the seat because I found a good spot for it and was able to run the wires to the doors through some existing grommets, as well as the wire to the battery. The only real problem I ran into was the piece that attaches to the lock rod was under size and had to be reamed up. This wasn't really a big deal, just a little time with a drill and the right size bit. So now I have functioning power door locks and shouldn't have any more problems with breaking keys. I would post pictures but they really don't show much, the whole thing is pretty hard to see.


I was pretty happy until while working on it I noticed this








The scrape is mostly mud and the dent shouldn't be too difficult to work out but it's the fact that someone hit my truck and just drove off that really upsets me. I know this happened in the past few days because of the mud. It's been raining like crazy all but the last 3 or 4 days and the mud is still there. If it weren't the past few days the mud would have washed away.


A while back the same sort of thing happened to my grill. I don't know when it happened but one day I was talking to somebody about it and noticed the lower right corner had an outward dent where the mounting bolt extends through the tab. Looking closer I could see where the grill had been pushed in to the point of contacting the mounting bolt and pushing out a dent as well as the inward dent.



Some people just have no respect for other peoples stuff

[Crankyolman]

I'm finally feeling well enough and motivated enough to get back to work on the truck. I'm slowly working my way through prepping the bed to get the under side primed and coated. There is only one small area left to repair underneath and a few minor dents to deal with and it will be ready for paint.



On another note my wife is also feeling better and has finally managed to have her nails done. She was embarrassed about the condition of her nails so didn't go to her regular manicurist, instead choosing one that happened to be along one of my normal routes home. It also happened to be at the same time I get off work. She was sitting there and kept looking out the window to watch me drive by and noticed that the manicurists were also watching out the window when they were free. One of them noticed my wife looking and asked if she was looking for something. My wife told them she was looking for a truck to drive by and several of them shouted all at once "GRANNY!" "You looking for Granny!? He drive by all the time!"



They went on and on laughing and talking about the old lady on the back of my truck. I had actually considered stopping by to see how her nail appointment was going because we had both had a rather bad day but instead I took another route home because the 2 schools I pass were out and I was anxious to get home and work on the bed.


It's nice to know my goofy little joke on my wife gives so much joy to so many people.

[Crankyolman]

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. It was a gift from SOLSAKS AKA Dave in NC. It was a really nice metal campaign sign for Granny!!! Just in time for the political season. When my wife saw it she squealed like a little girl and loved the little note on the back.






It's such a nice sign I couldn't bring myself to drill holes in it to mount it.



After much consideration I decided what I needed to do was mount it in a frame and mount that on the truck. An advantage to this plan is that down the road I can mount it on the wall of a shop or man cave.



So I found some of the same wood I used to make the ballast box. I took the wood, my skill saw and The sign to work with me today hoping to find enough time to work on it. Work lately has been a bit trying and there has been little time for my own projects but I was hopeful.



At work I managed to get about a half hour in the shop to work on the frame. Fortunately someone had changed the metal cutting band saw blade out for a wood cutting blade which made quick work of the task and in that half hour I managed to get Grannies campaign sign mounted both in the frame and on the truck



I think it's hilarious!!! Thank you Dave


I also arranged for one of the guys I work with to take a video of it after work but then something broke and I wound up working late so we didn't get the video. Hopefully we can get it tomorrow. Other people seem to be taking a lot of videos of it though. On my way home a couple almost hit me because they were too busy videoing me to stay in their own lane.

[SOLSAKS]

I like it cranky.

glad Mrs. Cranky liked it too !

your frame is nice.

hope it gets a lot of laughs.

dave in NC

[Crankyolman]

It has already gotten a lot of laughs, comments, pictures and videos


I just finished editing the video and posting it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EsqEtS0ak

Editing videos used to be so much easier but now it is so complicated. Just to edit a simple 12 second video took hours I did stretch it to 25 seconds but still it shouldn't have been this hard but I got it and am ready to share it with the world

[Crankyolman]

So... my granny is off her rocker


Literally


With St Patric's day coming up I took her off to re-dress her and turn her into a leprechaun. The rocker was fine when I took her off but the next day t looked like this



I can't say I didn't expect it, the chair was never expected to last this long, it's an indoor chair.


My wife suggested buying another chair but my goal is to finish the truck by the end of April so I really don't want to spend the money. So instead at work today I removed the chair, added a board to the bottom side





and a couple of straps of thick aluminum I found in the scrap bin to the top side





and it's all better, although it's looking very rustic but it should last for the foreseeable future.


Now I need to really get in gear on that bed