My J-4500

[chubbinius]

Glad that it had been running well for you (and probably getting lots of smiles and compliments too!).

Bummer that the fitting and lines seemed to have failed. Silver lining though was at least it was just fuel you smelled and not something burning!

Best of luck on the fuel line shopping, and please let us know what you pick up for replacement lines.

[Crankyolman]

Glad that it had been running well for you (and probably getting lots of smiles and compliments too!).

Bummer that the fitting and lines seemed to have failed. Silver lining though was at least it was just fuel you smelled and not something burning!

Best of luck on the fuel line shopping, and please let us know what you pick up for replacement lines.

Thank you,



Yes it does get a lot of smiles and compliments.


I think I'm going to buy some Russell Proflex line, I figure if Edelbrock puts their name on it it should be quality...hopefully

[Crankyolman]

Well, I'm back up and running


I replaced the the failed line with Russel (Edelbrock) Proflex line. One thing worth noting is the Proflex was easier to assemble because before you cut the line you have to tape it to keep it from unraveling but you have to remove the tape when you put the fittings on. When removing the tape the old line unraveled so quickly I didn't have time to put the fitting on so had to leave the tape on until the fitting was started then try to carefully remove it and slide them together. It was not very easy. With the proflex the wrap would take a second or two to begin to unravel so if you are ready and have the fitting in your hand when you unwrap the tape you have just enough time to start the fitting before it unravels. The fittings also slid onto the hose much easier.


I seriously considered switching to teflon hose and making it E-85 comparable but since I already bought new fittings for the braided line and would have had to buy new fittings for teflon I decided against it. Some day I would like to be able to run my truck on alcohol but I've done the math and it would take about 5,000 pounds of apples to make enough alcohol for one tank of gas and there are no E-85 stations anywhere near me so it really isn't practical.

[rang-a-stang]

...I've done the math and it would take about 5,000 pounds of apples to make enough alcohol for one tank of gas and there are no E-85 stations anywhere near me so it really isn't practical.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!!! Funny because you are not joking! LOLOL!!!

[Crankyolman]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!!! Funny because you are not joking! LOLOL!!!

I actually wasn't joking I would like to some day run my truck on alcohol but it really isn't practical, although I think I could get the amount of apples needed as low as 3,500 LBS to a tank but that is a lot of apples just to drive around for a week or two and I have a lot better things to do with that many apples. Not to mention all the time and effort that goes into picking that many apples.

A really good tree will produce 300 - 800 LBS of apples a year. It takes me around an hour to pick 250 - 300 LBS off of each tree. On my best year I picked and processed something like 1,600 - 1,700 LBS of apples, which was right at 100 gallons of juice, not that I couldn't do more if I could get the free time. My apple chopper can potentially handle 3,000 LBS per hour but my press can only handle about 150 - 250 lbs per hour so it would be a very long weekend just for a tank of gas. Then there is the wait while it all ferments and the additional time and equipment it would take to make into fuel alcohol...but all of that said in the event the pock-e-clips come and it's the only source of fuel I would be ready

[Crankyolman]

Well the trucks been running good and I'm now on vacation and since because of the virus I can't go anywhere I'm sitting around eating big meals, getting fat...er and working on the house. I did find time to to do what my truck was intended to do...haul apples. I managed to get about 300 lbs which I now need to process them all.

[SOLSAKS]

nice photo.

love the tailgate,...
...love the apples.

ready for the restriction on shipping apples to be over,......

glad the truck and the cranky driver are doing good.


dave in NC

[Crankyolman]

Finding free time has been very tough lately. It seems the older I get the less time I have.



My son who is now legally blind can no longer drive so he has to sell his 2002 mustang that we had fixed up some years ago and I had to go over there and get it ready to sell since it had been sitting for a couple months.



While doing that the neighbor walked by and saw I was working on it. When I started it up and was getting ready to take it for a drive to get the rust off the brakes and make sure it was ready to sell he came up and asked if we wanted to sell it.



This seemed like perfect timing They negotiated a price and the neighbor said he had the cash in his house and would go get it. I told him I had to run and get the title from my house which is where it's kept for safe keeping. When I got back he asked if he could drive it. I said sure and handed him the keys and he was gone just long enough for me to begin to worry. When he got back he said there was something wrong



So I jumped in and took it down the street to see what was wrong. I made it about 300 feet and it sputtered and died. This stupid car has been trouble free ever since we put it together years ago and the very minute someone is standing there with the cash to buy it it conks out.



I've been working on diagnosing the problem and it looks like the fuel pump gave out which is much more of a pain to change than the one on the truck. So now my plan is to bring the Mustang to my house and hopefully find time to change the fuel pump in the next week or so but time is something I have precious little of these days.



I did manage to find a little spare time at work this week to paint my new wheel but of course there has to be a complication in that as well which I'll explain in a bit. I was also going to strip and repaint the tailgate chains but that didn't go well. I think I'm just going to replace them with stainless steel chains so they won't need painted.


So here are the pictures of the wheel.


This first one is the wheel as I received it from one of the guys at work



I took it in and sand blasted it



Primed it



and painted it



Now it just needs a tire and this is where the complication comes in. Shortly before I bought the truck it got a brand new set of Kelly Safari SJR 235/75 R15s that now still have less than 15,000 miles on them. My plan all along was to buy a new matching tire and have that mounted on the new wheel while keeping the one that won't hold a hub cap as a matching spare. So I went online to find where I could buy a tire locally and discovered not only could I not buy it locally but apparently a can't buy it anywhere. They are no longer in production and everywhere I look is sold out. So now it looks like I'm going to have to buy a mismatched tire and have the one on the bad wheel moved to the new wheel and the mismatch installed on the bad wheel as the spare... I know first world problems but it's just more time effort and money than I was hoping it would be.

[rang-a-stang]

I am with you! I HATE mismatched tires. The rim looks fantastic.

I thought you were going to say the buyer broke something. As annoying as that is that the pump died, at least you know what it is and you know it was not something schiesty.

[Heep-J4000]

To me a new tire for a spare is waist of money.
On most vehicles you don't see the spare tire , and because of not in use the tire gets old and dries out.
So why not use a used one in good enough shape and some okay thread for spare tire!?

[Crankyolman]

I am with you! I HATE mismatched tires. The rim looks fantastic.

Thank you, now I just need to re-paint the rest of them

I thought you were going to say the buyer broke something. As annoying as that is that the pump died, at least you know what it is and you know it was not something schiesty.

We are selling the car for nothing really but a 2002 Mustang with a V6 isn't really worth much even if it has under 100,000 miles. It's been a good car and has paid for itself over the years.

It's kind of a funny story. My son was doing well, working and had finally gotten all his crap together and needed a car to get to work. I decided to buy him one but I'm a cheap bastard so it was going to need some fixing. I asked him what kind of car he would like and his first answer was "an old Mustang".

So I started looking at '65 thru '68 mustangs with 6 cylinders and auto trans and sent him some links saying "what about this one?"


His response was "Not that old!" So I had to ask what his definition of "old" was and he responded with '98 or newer. So I changed gears and started looking in those years.

The Mustang was done on the cheap. I bought one that was a light front end hit project with less than 80,000 miles, that some kid had started fixing but it was too much for him so he gave up.

Growing up in a junk yard you learn that light front hits are what you want. In this case the kid had already done most of the work with new radiator, core support, a/c condenser and pretty much everything but a new K member.

We then bought another one with new tires but a rod through the side of the engine block to get parts off of and made one good one from the two.

My son mentioned yesterday that he is actually reluctant to sell it to someone who lives 2 houses away because he's afraid he is going to hear about it every time something goes wrong on a 19 year old car but I think whomever buys it should be very happy with it.

To me a new tire for a spare is waist of money.
On most vehicles you don't see the spare tire , and because of not in use the tire gets old and dries out.
So why not use a used one in good enough shape and some okay thread for spare tire!?

Ordinarily I would agree with you but there are a few factors at play. First is the left front is wearing to the inside, it isn't significant yet but there is noticeable wear but the major thing is cost. Around here used tires cost nearly what new ones do. On top of that it costs something like $40 a tire to have one mounted and balanced, so the cost of buying a used spare tire, then having the tire currently on the truck removed from that wheel and mounted on the new wheel and having the used tire mounted on the bad wheel would cost as much as a new tire so it would work out best if I could just find a matching new tire.

As far as seeing the tire, my truck doesn't have a mount under the truck and judging from hole locations I would guess the original spare tire mount was on the forward right hand side of the bed where it mounted vertically. I'm currently thinking about fabricating a spare tire mount to mount the spare in the same place, although underneath in the back would be better.

I am currently thinking I will see if the shop at work will let me use their tire machine to remove and mount the tire I have but the last time I talked to them about it they talked about problems with their machine damaging tires or rims and I really prefer not to damage anything.

[SOLSAKS]

love the rim restoration photos

it just feels good to blast away the rust,

prime and paint

like new

better than new cause you know you did it.

been wondering what you were doing

watching some tv and drinking the happy apple juice that fermented....???

good to see you are kicking

dave in NC

[Crankyolman]

love the rim restoration photos

it just feels good to blast away the rust,

prime and paint

like new

better than new cause you know you did it.

been wondering what you were doing

watching some tv and drinking the happy apple juice that fermented....???

good to see you are kicking

dave in NC

I've been around, I try to get online before work every morning and see what's going on but haven't had a lot of time lately. I've been working on the house some but this time of year it's hard to get motivated to do much of anything. Winter in Seattle is dark, cold and wet and all I want to do when I get off work is sit in front of a warm fire and maybe play video games but my PS2 just broke and the world keeps forcing me to do other things like take my son to all day doctor appointments up at the University of Washington on my days off. Then the problems with the Mustang and it just sucks my motivation away. We went back to 40hrs a week at work this month which is good for the pay check but really I kind of liked the reduced hours, it gave me time to do stuff.



I've been trying to get myself motivated but struggling. I still have 200 lbs of apples in my garage that I should have pressed a month or more ago and I need to get the garage cleaned so I can get the Buicedes in and get back to working on it. It really should go in the hall of shame at this point. Mrs Cranky has given up on it getting done and ordered me to get it ready to sell but then other times she says things about working on it again. She really wants her car done but she also wants the house finished and a million other things.



This is normally the time of year I start working on improvements to my apple processing equipment but would need to buy a new table saw first and just keep not buying it.


All of that said I did make another attempt today at the tailgate chains which was a bit more successful than the last time, although I only work on one at a time.


So this morning I removed the right side chain. If you look in the picture with the apples you can see the chains were beginning to rust again. While painting them I ran out of paint, this new paint doesn't go as far as it did 30 years ago. I thought I had them covered good enough at the time but it's hard to get complete coverage on a chain.


Anyway here is what it looked like this morning.



Getting rusty and making the rest of the truck look shabby. So off it went to the sandblaster.





All nice and clean now. Next I put it under a heat lamp and got it nice and warm so the paint would dry fast. I was extra careful to get complete coverage with the primer.



and even more careful to to get full coverage with the paint. I am using Perfect match spray paint in Wimbledon white, which as actually a good match for the Restoration Shop brand Wimbledon white as well as Fords. The only real issue is the Perfect Match requires a clear coat and the clear coat stays soft longer so the paint has to cure for a day or two after painting before it will be durable but painting whenever I had a few spare minutes and keeping the part under the heat lamp at the end of the day it looked like this.



All painted and ready to put back on. Ultimately I plan on replacing the chains with stainless steel ones but this should do in the meantime.


My plan tomorrow is hopefully to get the tire swapped over to the new rim but we will have to see how that goes. Sundays tend to be very busy.

[Heep-J4000]

About the chains , you could also go for galvanized chain.
Or if you want to keep the original chains , putting a piece of bicycle inner tube over it for protection the tailgate and bedside ends.

[Heep-J4000]

I also have a question about the measurements of the tailgate!

Could you tell what the length and height is of the tailgate you have on the truck?

I'm asking because the one in my 73 j4000 with the handle in the middle measures 151 centimetres from left to right and 52 centimetres high.
And the one with the locking tab on the gate i found for sale online measures 145 X 54 , and it would be helpful to know if this tailgate would fit a 70 j4000 with the round taillights!?
Thanks