I was over visiting my buddy Hawkeye last weekend. He's a seldom seen HAMBer, and student at UW-Plattville. He managed to land himself a job as a lab assistant, conveniently giving us access to the school's woods and transportation labs. With permission, we spent Saterday putting brakes on his '53 210 in one of the labs. Talked his supervisor Sunday morning, and he wasn't wild about all the greasy rags left in the garbage cans, so we drove the '53 over to empty the cans into the dumpster, and that's when it started... Hawk's front seat isn't bolted to anything, so it tended to slide if you hit the gas to hard. It doesn't help any that Plattville has alot of steep uphill stop signs. We decide we should probably do something about it. The front brackets are missing, and the rear is patched so the factory holes aren't there. Since we have access to a welder, and we're already late for that day's car show, I first suggest just tacking the seat to the floor. Hawk didn't like that idea, theres still alot of taking the seat in and out before we're done with it. He suggested drilling some holes and running some bolts through it, afterall, thats how it was originally done. Now, if there's one machining process I hate, it's drilling. It seems like every time I have to drill something without my own tools, I firsr have to find a pilot sized bit. Then a drill, punch and hammer. Start dilling, get through a hole and a half, and have to resharpen the bit. Proceed with snapping it off. Rummage around for 15 minutes and ind another bit about the right size. Then find the rite size bit when the pilot's drilled. Repeat the hole and a half, and shapen procedure. Then we're left with finding enough bolts close enough in length to use. Suffice to say, I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of drilling, given our already lateness. In the intrest of time, we decided we'd just quick weld some tabs to the floor behind the seat to keep it from sliding back. We scrounge for a few minutes finding some angle iron to use as stops. Drag the welder over and try a weld on some scrap to get it adjusted where I want it. I pull the trigger, get a short "ZZT" and nothing. The mig wire burned back into the tip, to many amps or not enough speed. I grab the pliers and try to unstick it. No dice. There are spare tips with the welder, so I decide i'll unscrew the tip, feed some wire, and just put a new tip on. I unscrew it, and hit the trigger. The solenoid clicks, the feed roller spins, bit no more wire comes out. Fudge. I try every trick in the book to get the wire to feed(and being a former shop teacher myself, I know them all). Nothing's working. I'm playing with the feed rollers, Hawk's got the cable stretched straight out squeezing the trigger and pulling the tip with a pliers. We got a half inch of wire out, and things are starting to look up. Then, without warning...SNAP. The feed rollers wore the wire and it snapped right there. Of all the ways I've had high school kids screw up welders, I've never had that happen before So, now we're already late, we're the only ones there, and we have a broken welder that doesn't belong to us. Did I mention Hawk's only had this lab assistant job for a week? No choice but to pull the whole cable off and try to get the wire out. First, I've got to get teh trigger wire plug disconnected. It's the armored type that screws together so you can't accidently pull the wires out. I unscrew the fitting and give it a slight pull...and the wires pull out. &$#@ I get the whole plug assembly apart, and i can see that it's been repaired before. Well, we can't just leave it broken and half torn apart, so the quest for a soldering iron commences. I carry just about everything I could ever need in my '55 Ply, but this weekend, I left my soldering gear at home. Fortunatly, it only took FIFTEEN MINUTES to find a soldering iron. 'Course the solder isn't stored in the same place, why would it be? Onward with the quest for solder. Suppose the flux is stored with the solder? Yeah, I thought it would be too, but it wasn't. In fact, it's not stored anywhere, they didn't have any. The resin core solder is nice, but these wires were pretty dirty from the previous repair. I get the wires fixed and the plug back together. But, I still have to deal with the busted wire. So I pull the whole cable off the machine, to find the wire seriously bunched up on the machine side. Easy enough to fix, snip the gun and and pull it out. Put everything back together, and get the new wire feeding. Fiinally, after nearly 2 hours, our quick 10 minute tack some brackets on job it back on track. On some scrap, I get the welder adjusted to where I want it, and move over to the car. I get three tacks down and ZZT...the wire is welded to the tip again. Son of a...Repeat the above story. Apperently "close enough" isn't close enough for this machine. Spend time more carefully adjusting the machine this time. It doesn't help that it wasn't really made to go down low enough for comfortable sheetmetal welding. So, I get the passengers side bracket welded on nicely and move over to the drivers side. I lay down a tack, then another, and we're in the home stretch. That is until I start blowing holes in the floor. the patch on the drivers floor must be made out of some pretty thin stuff. I can't hardly put a spot down without blowing a hole. Now I'm chasing holes around the bracket trying to get them plugged. Finally I get the holes plugged and the brackets welded on to my satisfaction. Nearly four hours after we got there, we're wrapping things up on our simple little job The sad thing is, this isn't the first time something simple hase snowballed into a task much bigger than it needed to be. I know it's happened to all of us. What's your best Snowball story?
Could let you HEAR mine but I won't>>>>>??????........ _____________________________________________________________ Like I told the kid, "Your music's not too loud, it just sucks and so does OKC!"
Nothing like the first story, but I do have one self-induced snowball-effect story. One time I pulled the Poly out of my Belvedere to replace the freeze plugs. A few of them were rusted badly and starting to leak coolant. It's a huge pain in the ass to get to them with the engine in the car, so I figured it would be a whole lot quicker and easier to just pull the engine and do it. A couple of days of work, I thought, but a lot less frustration....... While disconnecting everything, I decided to pull the engine and trans together so I could clean everything up, repaint the block, etc. Then, I decided to have the heads redone to fix some loose valve guides. I also had access to media blaster at work, so all the brackets got removed, cleaned up, and repainted. Also replaced timing chain, water pump, and oil pump since everything was easy to get to. Which turned into a ring and bearing job on the block. Since everything was apart....... While the engine was out, I pulled the steering box and sent it off to get rebuilt. Also swapped the front drums over to disc and bent up new hard lines for the front. Started cleaning up the trans and decided to get a full on pro rebuild. It had been rebuilt once but not very well. Also wanted to convert it to a slip yoke output since I had lucked into some '65 only parts while all this was going on. And the slip yoke setup required a new driveshaft, which was good since the old ball-n-trunnion one had a vibe. Six months later, it was back on the road...... Oh, and I replaced the freeze plugs with brass ones. So I wouldn't have to worry about pulling the engine to replace freeze plugs again anytime soon.......
My Mini oughta be renamed Snowball I bought it cheap intending to do a front hub replacement and get it on the the road. Did the hubs. . . . . . . . . and the balljoints,and the million and one rustholes,and the seats,all the gauges,the timing cover gasket, crank oil seal, diff oilseal, rear crank oilseal, clutch, clutch slave, all wheel cylinders, and flexibles hoses, rear window, stereo and speakers ,inner drivers side CV joint,suspension job on driver side,electrics all round. Gave myself a month to finish it.That was last december.It still isn't finished.
Heard this from Brian Regan, the comedian, on TV. "As a young man, Hitler can't get into art school, yada, yada, yada. We drop two big ones on Japan." Talk about snowball !
my 59 caddy started as a clean it up, get it running and drive it to a complete ground up resto....i was really hoping for the first part but shit happens
Mines a sad snowball effect story.......grab a tissue Told many times before but here goes again... Memorial Day 2000 and I'm cruzn to California from Detroit in my '47 Chevy convertible....... I've just pulled into the first lookout point at the Grand Canyon when I noticed that my power steering was acting funny. I pop the hood and unscrew the cap on the top of the power steering pump. Full and everything looks normal. I drive about 20 more miles further into "The Village" and the pump is still acting funny....making noises and kinda jerky. There is no gas station in the Village area so I pulled into the parking area of the Ranger repair area and pop the hood again. This time when I checked the fluid it was brownish and foamy. I walk the dipstick inside the garage and ask one of the "mechanics" his opinion. He looks at the dipstick with a questionable look on his face, looks at the car, and tells me to go ahead and bring it in. He takes the power steering pump outta the car and just about then the lunch bell rings. I'm told they close for lunch and go ahead and take the shuttle to site-see the Canyon and come back in a couple of hours. I return to find the mechanic putting the pump back in my Chevy and he tells me the spring looked funny, not correct for my GM pump so he changed it out. I was not thinking anything strange at this point. He starts filling the pump with fluid...one pint....then another pint....then another pint....then another pint and continues to fill till I can't remember how many pints....did I mention the car is running??? As soon as I start to think to myself...boy that seems like ALOT of fluid....BOOM! and fluid is all over the floor! He just blew out the boot on my brand new MUSTANG rack....that I just had installed days before I left for the trip. Yep, too much pressure on the Ford rack from the GM pump. What he changed out was the porporting value?? I don't know cuz I started crying. I couldn't believe this crap and I just wanted my car outta there. Ok, I said, tow me to Flagstaff, the nearest town, (which was 88 miles and over $200 in tow fees) so I could get it fixed by a professional. The flatbed backs up to the overhead door and after an hour of struggling my very low Chevy is loaded backwards on the flatbed and we take off. Nice cruzn down a two lane highway chatting to the tow truck driver till this car flys up on our left to pass us and is screaming and pointing back at my car. I glance in the large side mirror on my right and spot my drivers door flapping in the wind and smashing againt the front fender. I guess when we hit a bump the door sprang open and since I was on backwards the wind got he door and sprung it. The driver stopped, I hopped out and was so pissed I grabbed the door and smashed it closed. It never opened up again for 2 full months. Anyway, I'm back in the tow truck crying again of course. Get to Flagstaff, spend three days there getting the rack and the power steering pump fixed. Drive to California with a smashed, door, fender, fender extension and hood, entering and exiting outta my car thru the passenger door. Then drive from California to Florida and back to Detroit...over 6,000 miles in three weeks. Once back in Detroit Hagerty tells me to take it whereever and they will pay to fix it. Car goes to the top hot rod body and paint shop in the area. Car is fixed and completely repainted. I'm suppose to pick the car up on a Monday after the owner of said shop personally rubs out the car over the weekend. On that Friday night lighting hits the building and burns to the ground with my Chevy and 10 other hot rods inside. Because of a changed spring in a power steering pump I lost my 47 Chevy to a fire.....now THATS a snowball effect. Before After
The truck i'm currently working on could be considered a snowball project. Bought as a running driving truck so i could concentrate on my 32...... Turned out to be a major undertaking which has consisted a complete rebuild from the frame rails up...literally...There has been nothing that didn't need work, nothing.... The 63 Impala i had prior was similar, but that one i had been sitting for many year's so even though it snowballed into a major project it was for themost part understood why...it was just old and needed tlc. The truck was described a bit different so i didn't expect any of what i encountered. Oh well....that's how we learn. and i'm sure it won't be my last snowball project Denise, everytime i see that my heart just sinks.....I can't imagine how that felt and hope i never have to.....as well as the rest of us..
bought a 65 Mustang for cheap figuring I could get it running , replace a door and fix some dents and turn it for a few bucks. got it running then blew a headgasket, so I figured I'd pull the motor and paint the engine compartment while I was in there. somehow it ended up completely disassembled and on my rotissirie in bare metal inside.. outside and underneath. $7500.00 in parts and 200 or so hours of my labor later (rebuilt motor plus new everything else) it was drivable again needing some finish body work, interior and reassembly. got laid off and sold it for $4500.00.
LOLOLOL.... I sold one of my projects to get married then another to get divorced...so much for clean breaks but still paying for both!
Denise, that snowball came out for the best in the long run.. How else would you have gotten into Big Olds! jerry
Ditto this for my 55 wagon. Got it running, driving, inspected, licensed in a week due to the home owners association. 1.5 years later, I started primer work on it last weekend. Paint in October (humidity problem here in TX in Aug/Sept) and finally back on the road.
I went to swap 1.6 rocker arms onto the SBC in the '57 Chevy street car I was building. All the magazines always said this was a simple, quick and easy swap. The car was about 3 weeks from driving. It's now 5 years later, The car now has a 12-point cage, leaf link rear suspensions, it grew fiberglass doors, front fenders and hood, but somehow lost the inner fenders and bumper, the bench seat is being replaced with A100 van seats, and that small block never had the heads put back on it and is sitting on the ground collecting dust while a stroker 409 is in machine-shop hell. Three weeks...it would have been on the road...stupid 1.6 rockers... -Brad
My story is over a year old and it's still not over. Too much weird shit that never happens to anyone else. I really don't want to relive it. It would take way too much 2 finger typing for me to tell the whole story. I must have pissed off the hot rod gods! Just pull and replace the engine and while I'm at it I'll change the trans... simple shit right? Not if the gods are watching every single move and constantly screwing with you. Modifying the frame, new cross member, clutch, trans and driveshaft...piece of cake. Everything else has conspired against me and it just won't quit. Ain't hot roddin' fun?
The pain involved was horrific and did take years to get over. I don't wish anyone to have to go thru something like that and one of the main reasons I'm so adamant about folks having the proper insurance coverage on their cars. I did and it was the saving grace in getting the full agreed value replacement cost for the car.
Good times Bugman. But you forgot another part of the story. After we spent hours just trying to fix everything we finally get going. The car show is just across town, and this is a small town, 5 min drive. Well anyways, Im driving and the car starts chugging. So I pull over and gasoline is pouring out of the carburetor. So Bugman and I took of the carb, he took it apart. And there was some junk stuck in the needle and seat. Cleaned it out. Put it back together. Drove to the show. Parked in a random spot. And walked around. Little did I know there was supposedly categories for the cars somehow I parked next to the 51-58 cars (or something like that) and the Special interest. Now this is a bare metal 53 chevy, and there was nothing else at the show that resembled it. Everyone was looking at it like that thing runs!? Good times in old cars.
The Jalopy Journal
