Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

Fuzzy,

Yes, but maybe not enough with this latest oil change. A little research says Castrol 20w50 GTX has 900 to 1000 p.m., but the recommend amount for a flat tappet engine is 1200 ppm minimum. It has been run strictly on Valvoline VR-1 50w racing oil up to now, which depending on who you talk too, may or may not have a higher zinc content. It's supposed to be 1200-1300 ppm, but it's also supposed to be SM rated which is lower in zinc levels. So now I'm really confused. My buddies an Amsoil dealer, May try it if I have to rebuild this thing.



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I have been using Lucas hot rod and custom oil in all my flat tappet cars, three of them, because it is oil 2100ppm zink and comes in 10/30,10/40 , and 20/50. Do have to special order it where i live.

 

I run Valvoline 20/50 Racing oil. It is a bit more than 20/50 as I use 4 quarts 20/50 and one quart straight 50 with an added 1/2 quart of Lucas Oil Stabilizer.
Your problem sounds like the cam bearings are getting loose. You can try going back to straight 50 and see if that helps but a blown motor is hard on bearings.
Good Luck.

 

Thanks, Fuzzy. I suspected I going to have to go into the engine since it first started acting up. I've been meaning to ask you if your first name is Bob, your car looks familiar? Seems like we would have crossed paths at some point adound here.....

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Thanks jmikee,

Although I am aware of Lucas products (and have used some), I wasn't aware of their Hot Rod oil. Will have to look into that.

 

BF Nope real first name is Dave. Since I live in Santee I am quite sure we have bumped into each but just did not know who we were.

 

Ahhh, hard to tell from your profile pic, but your roadster looks very similar to Bob the glass guy's (so many people call him that I don't know his last name ) that lives in Eucaliptis Hills. I've got hot rod buddies in Santee as well, they all live up off the end of Magnolia on Woodglen Vista and Burrock (Gene, Bob, Julian, and Mark) and Bob Harrington over on Shenendoa (sp) off El Nopal.

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Yup Yup Yup they are my buddies also. Just about 5 blocks from my house. See Gene and Bob about twice a week. Free beer don't ya know!!!

 

Well, Damn....small world then. I'm sure we'll cross paths sooner or later!

Kurt

 

Damn guys... sorry I've been kinda quite for the last coupla days or so. Believe it or not, I think I have worked out the last coupla bugs from the 'Bucket! Since I started this deal, I've had a small but highly annoying laundry list of stuff that was making me nuts. The carb, no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get close to where I wanted things to run.... FIXED! Just in time to rip it off and do the triples, DOH... The right front wheel has defied literally 8 attempts to balance it... I WIN!!! The low speed wobble that just hit for a second at exactly 26.5 MPH.... After the approximately 273 recorded and logged toe in changes... BIG WIN!!! Most of this stuff hasn't been earth shaking, just annoying. So I have put up with it. 'Till now!

I can't explain what a late July night in this town feels like. There's a touch of humidity in the air, which none of us is used to. Right now at approximately 10:40, it's still about 103 out. I hopped the I-10 at the 7th Street West entrance, and ran it up to the 80 or so that everybody else was running. The front end no longer bounced and carried on from the imbalance situation. Peeled off at 19th Ave and headed south down Grand to see if anybody of note was at the Bikni... Nope. Then The Red Room.... Nope! Quite night out there... Past the Rainbow bread bakery and it's heavenly scent filling the neighborhood, and back across Monroe past our only remaining Railroad hotel from the turn of the last century, The Windsor. A flop house today, but the neon still shines brightly. There used to be row after row of them... Down Jefferson, left on Central and back up to uptown, and little Hoover street - and my humble abode. God, it's so nice when you really have it figured out, when you aren't just "putting up" with a car's bad behavior.

But, it's almost time to take stuff apart and do some of it again! How stupid am I? The bodies for the 97s are soaking as we speak, I blasted the bases today, and the arms for the linkage arrived yesterday, and got smoothed and polished today. The finned aluminum front drums and drilled backing plates are all but ready to bolt on, And I started making a new pair of rear radius rods that will look a bit more graceful from the side view. I need to get a pan gasket kit and put my polished aluminum oil pan under this thing, and I was damn near shamed by good friends last week into doing SOMETHING about the long pump and high alternator mount.

In the mean time, I've installed and hooked up the fuel gauge and re-combobulated the somewhat Picasso-eque dash into something that appeals to my sense of symmetry. I re-made an early sixties vintage after market motorcycle mirror into some thing that looks bitchin' and works many times better than the other wierd aftermarket thing that was there. I got bored the other night and spent an hour engine turning the master cylinder cover on the floor. I got out this morning before punching louvers and made a cardboard pattern for the front roll pan that will cover the negative space in front of the grill shell.

Sure doesn't look like much is happening 'round here, but all this small stuff is adding up to something damned nice!

 

Oh, two more little development to talk about quickly...

Had to run over to Home Depot earlier this evening and when I came out there was an older guy taking pictures of my car. We talked for a minute or two, and he mentioned that he has the remains of his grandfather's "T" C-cab, but he was going to have to get rid of it, along with the frame he had built and the 327, too. A little more talk and he mentioned that he needs a floor made and welded in to his '63 Chevy truck and sure wished he could find some sucker to trade this whole thing for.... Well, this sucker is going over to look at what he has tomorrow night! We'll see what comes of it. Got my special light bulb for the front bathroom though...

The other is that I have been talking to a younger guy that is a photographer and doing a project photographing people and their cars that drive vintage stuff every day. We are getting together on Thursday night to do a shoot, rough edges and all! He asked me to scout some locations, so that was the part of the ride described above. Gritty, downtown, that's what I am all about! Can't wait!!!

 

That'd be a cool score! I for one would love to see some pictures.


.

 

Rockstar!

hope you can post a couple up here

 

A C cab would be awesome! Has anyone on here ever done one before? Seems like all of the fun of a bucket with a luxurious enclosed storage space? I have thought many times about a C cab in my future. Hope you get it!

 

Kool stuff. Post pictures as soon as you can.

Sounds like the same photographer Trent Shrerrill that photographed my roadster for Rod Kulture. If so kool guy. Way sharp.

 

Back in 1957-'58, Santa Clara: All my high school buds were building or just finished getting hot rods running. I had a large part in many (most) of them.
There were 5 channeled 'A' coupes, a '32 4 dr sedan, my channeled 'A' Cabrio, 2 '31 roadsters, and a '29 Hiboy.
But Tony Pombo (little older than us, we were 16-19, Tony was 25 and married. Really great guy, a farmer; he did most of the guys' welding for them that couldn't.
Tony got a '22 T 'C' cab truck from his Grandpa, it was in the barn since WWll.
He modified the frame, channeled the cab 4", with a 3 foot flat bed, no fenders...The height of the top, with an overall 'Kookie Kar' stance, ala SteelRebelGary, was 'shocking'.
He brought it to an outdoor impromptu car show, parked it a little ways out of our 'circle of hot rods'...
People young and old, straight or otherwise...stopped and said, "Wow, lookit that!"
The 'C' cab was wild. Everything in the 'right place'. Flathead with 4 Stromberg 'firepots', Evans heads, Belond headers...'39 box, with a 'zany' 48" stick. I reversed the rear wheels, '49 Merc centers with buick outer rims...Tony had the outers chromed before we welded them back together, painted the centers.
Funny addendum with the wheels: Tony lined the centers up with the rims, spun 'em for straightness, then set them under water in a large galvanized tub. He then hooked up his arc welder (Lincoln buzz box) and welded them under 10" of water! (he said so it "wouldn't blue the chrome"!)
It worked...(I welded a few dozen back together that were chromed, but never dipped 'em....just skipped around, took my time)
But that 'C' cab was cooler than you'd think!

 

Gary, which issue of Rod & Kulture was your car featured in? I dont have it.

 

Oh man, THAT sounds COOL! Edelbrock XC-8, dual small-neck afb's BIG sleeks on polished 16" big window halibrands, lotsa cobwebs and freek drops! YEA BABY!!

 

Man, I have wanted a C-Cab since '82 when I went to work for walkin' valley legend, Don Marks. He at the time that I worked for him had a customer's semi stalled project in his shop that was a short wheel base, T-Bucket style C-cab with a blown 215 aluminum Buick mill, a Halibrand V8 quick change, and George's afore mentioned 16X11 Halibrands and dirt tracks on the back, with a pair of 15"12 spokes out front. That thing has ruined me ever since. Funny thing though, Don has done so many cool things over the years, that when I mention the car he doesn't recall it being there or who it belonged to... No pictures, either.

 

Chip the issue that just came out a couple of weeks ago. On the newsstands now. Great coverage. Trent's photographs and Lou's text. Both right on.

 

I need to go out to the suburbs and grab one soon. Suddenly, since we talked at LARS the grocery stores in my downtown area have stopped stocking their magazine shelves... What in hell is wrong with people?

 

Yeah their is only one place up here that stocks it too and it got here about a week after my friends got theirs in the Bay Area. I was tearing my hair our.

 

Cool! I was a little worried it was some early back issue I'd missed and I was SOL!

 

Funny, I was seeing 12 spoke spindle mounts in my mind, but didnt want to alarm the HAMB safety inspectors... I was also visualising a chromed Olds/Pontiac rear on corvair coils, but a quickie would work too.

 

Damn! Well, not a C-Cab in sight. Has a '26 or '27 Chevy frame, cowl, rough front fenders and such, and a questionable '65ish 327, a '40 front axle & wishbone, some F-1 spindles, etc. Not enough for the amount of work it would take to patch together his beloved but rough '62 Chevy truck...

 

Bummer. Is it a roadster/touring cowl?

 

Yes it is, actually, and the frame is in really good shape. That was a popular frame for early track roadster's when the rules stated that you had to start with a stamped frame. It made me think about it for a few minutes, for sure. I have a buddy that is a H.A.M.B.er that lives down here part time in the winter, and about 30 miles from you in the summer that wants to do a modified of some sort, so I might grab it on his behalf. not much there though...

 

If he doesnt, let me know. My '39 comes with a flatty, and I have a fetish for the Dick Ford chevy roadster. Probably just end up sitting under my deck till I die and my wife sells it in a yard sale, but what the hell...

 

I just talked to sir Bodi, looks like when he hits town in a couple of months it will become his project! That and his damn neat '36 five window that was built in the early sixties he picked up a couple of months ago before leaving.

 

Okay! I had to write this one! 3000, replies gang. The official "thread about nothing" !!!! Thank you all for contributing!