Great success!
Curfman, Stagg, Z and I made the run down to South Texas from Kansas City starting off on Wed morning worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday before spending Sunday rolling on home. 6008 now starts, runs, drives and stops! I'll let the pics tell the story from here:
First off, wire cutter! Of course it has a wire cutter.
The majority of the work revolved around redoing all of the wheel bearings, seals and replacing 100% of the brake system from the NOS master cylinder to the NOS brake pads. Most of this was familiar, well trodden ground but for the one hiccup of getting an A2 hard line set when Brooks ordered an A1 set. Some stuff crosses over but not all of it so we ended up having to make a few lines here and there with the bending tools that we luckily had along to replace the fuel lines with anyhow.
Like the most of the other A1s in the fleet, 6008 now mounts an internal rotary fuel pump feeding out of a just relined tank via all new lines up to the carb.
All through the weekend, Z stayed on top of all of the paint work making sure that any new parts being added were painted and, where required, fit in with the pattern.
As is his way, Stagg insured that the stickering met with the company standards.
Once all the brakes were bled up and adjusted, all the bearings were done, all the new cables installed, all the wiring tidied up, and the myriad of other tasks taken care of, we eventually went after the engine. I installed the electronic ignition conversion and fixed a minor coolant leak at the thermostat and finally:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/72344899@N00/15917148341/
Curfman and Brooks were out on the first test drive. Apart from some minor gauge malfunctions it worked perfectly for the run up the alley and back.
Next up, I took it out and wound it up and down the alley again braking and accelerating a bit to see if anything seemed amiss in the suspension. It did feel like one bushing was clunking so I decided to articulate the suspension a bit by crossing Brooks' mother in laws ditch.
A few things about that... First off, I forgot that we were only a 2wd right now since the front drive shaft is out. Secondly, they sure do make some soft ground in South Texas! I was sure to be razzed about this the entire trip home but Brooks saved me:
Remember kids, always depress the clutch when starting your manual transmission vehicle particularly when its a very easy to start little truck inside your garage. It did not make it all the way into the dining room at least.
