The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk War Stories from poor work from a PO. What are yours, heres mine

Everything touched by human hands somehow gets screwed up. Oddly enough, everything else 60 years old and going not messed with is working like a champ. The PO loved this old truck but I sure wish he would of bought a repair manual. He sold me this truck and I knew I would have to go through it but I hate replacing parts destroyed by incorrect installation. Good thing I decided to take this old girl apart bolt by bolt. The top end had a couple bent push rods from an incorrect valve adjustment causing all kinds of noise. I get it quieted down and hear something down in the bell housing I do not like, went looking and found this:
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/2692/medium/P1180642.JPG
seems, the PO installed the clutch disc in backwards causing the clutch disc springs to grind the heads off the flywheel bolts. How loud could that of been when he first fired it up after the clutch R&R?? Almost had to take a cutting torch to the heads of the flywheel bolts because there wasn't enough meat to grab to remove.
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/2692/medium/P1180641.JPG
Try working through the bell housing on that one. I decided I had to go through everything though when the brake job he did wasn't stopping the truck. You have replace the leaky axle seal before putting the new brake shoes on, and then when you do put the shoes on don't mix the secondary and primary shoes up. Rant off. I feel better now. I could go on and on, but wont.
Anyone want to share some of their ill fated experiences with poor workmanship?

Sounds familiar.... the PO put new front brake shoes on my truck. Grease seal was installed incorrectly, but lotsa grease was packed in..... grease all over the new shoes. There is a primary and secondary shoe?? He put both big ones on one side and the shorter ones on the other! And to top it off, spindle was galled where outer race rides and he just cranked on the nut till it was tight, but race never contacted ball bearing, just a little slop....

I bought a 1959 3800 flatbed to haul construction materials when I remodeled a Grade B dairy barn into a house. The PO was proud of the fact that he had just "rebuilt" the engine. On the way home with my new purchase, I discovered a couple of thousand fleas his big shaggy dog had contributed to the deal- - - -had to stop and buy a couple of cans of insecticide and a change of clothes before completing the 50-mile trip!

A week later the clutch started slipping! What to do when you cross-thread a flywheel attaching bolt? Leave it out, obviously! Anyone who has installed a 235 flywheel knows that the flywheel bolt holes go completely through the rear flange, and a missing one leaks engine oil right into the bellhousing! I drove that truck for several years until the door hinge pockets rusted out and the doors threatened to fall off every time I opened them, then I parted it out. Good rig- - - -just "interesting" to get all the gremlins tamed down before I could use it!
Jerry

My PO had somehow managed to get a coarse thread nut on the end of the spindle.

A good cross thread is better'n Locktite anyday! (borrowed from somebody here, Sorry!) Couldn't resist...

I purchased my 51 one ton from an uncle whose entire tool chest consisted of a Crescent wrench, a Vise Grip, a pliers a large screwdriver and a 1/2" drive socket set and whose mechanical skills were excellent at using old rusty baling wire and pieces of old inner tube. I took off an 2 x 3 inch rear mirror wired to the original round mirror arm, and on rear brakes, found a compression coupling splicing rear brake line and also found the E-Brake hardware had been discarded long ago because the cables seized up long ago. I am quite surprised that the 216 engine did run after a great deal of undoing and redoing "home fixes.Then he had the nerve to state, After I had it running and fixed up that he sold it to me too cheaply. Jerry

Ah, this is just good therapy, I feel so much better now.

My truck had been hot rodded by at least 3 PO's, and I knew that going into it. Nonetheless the journey has been interesting.

The truck originally had a column shifted 3 speed manual trans. When I got it the trans. was a M-21 Muncie 4-speed. Here's a photo of the PO's floor modification for the shifter

And a photo of the 5lb. custom shifter

To fix these opportunities I welded in a 2nd gen Camaro floor shifter patch panel and installed a '57 Chevy passenger car Hurst shifter

My 53 had sheet metal attached with sheet metal screws. Inner fenders, shield under rad etc. Don't ask how he did it!! The headlight electrical sockets were reversed. Hi beam was low and low was no.
Speaking of entire tool chests I had a lady friend and she had a plastic box with a MasterCard in it.

My '56 had a fresh Resale Red paint job on it. It looked pretty but I'd hate to see what's under it. The left front fender bottom was rusted away and he bondoed the bottom of the fender on. It broke loose last year and I put another farmer fix on it. I cut an oak block to fill the gap between the fender and cab and installed it with sheetmetal screws.

Another prize winner was the under dash wiring. At least half a dozen things had been rewired with yellow wire and no attempt was made to cut to length or route it pretty. It was all wadded up there with the original wires, which were just unhooked and left hanging. I jerked it all out and installed a Hot Rod Wires harness. I highly recommend them.

One thing I never figured out on it. The fuel gauge worked backward. It showed empty when full and slowly climbed to full as it emptied. When I pulled the wires I found an aftermarket fuel gauge wired in series with the dash gauge. Weird.

Fresh resale paint over rust.

Inch thick bondo (which from the outside LOOKED really good) on both cab corners, underneath that, there was the thinnest metal screwed to good metal to act as the base for the bondo to stick on.

the 3OTT sifter collar (the top support on the column... can't think of the name) had been stripped, so the PO decided to put a screw through it to tighten it against the shifter column

He put new brakes on the rear, probably because he noticed it wasn't braking well. Well he never bled them or checked them cause the brakes are still brand new... The rear flex-brake line from the frame to the axle lines was 100% clogged so no pressure ever activated the rear brakes (good for me I suppose!).

And lets not talk about the wiring... I'm still working on that.


Its been quite the project, and this was my first one... so inexperience missed some of this stuff that would have been used to negotiate a better price... but oh well.

This all sounds familiar. I am doing the same. Going through everything and rebuilding what was either done incorrectly or in a "just didn't care mood" by the P.O. Luckily, the body and paint was done correctly with very little bondo "used a magnet" to check. Found a lot of bolts and nuts that were just not tight, some stripped and other cross threaded. Good thing I has a cobalt drill bit set and a good tap and die set on hand.

ss,

Glad you started this topic. I had always wondered about this since I usually get the "good stories" when I do the Gallery. Never want to slam anybody but I know some stuff must really make you want to

Good topic. And probably good therapy, too.

Peg

Mickey Mouse was my PO. He did all his own work too. One thing in particular. I got new weatherstripping and was trying to figure out how to install it by looking at the old stuff that I took off.It didn't make sense until I read some stuff on the subject here. It seems that Mickey put the door strip on the body instead of on the door itself.---Jack

PO used copper tubing and brass compression fittings for two brake line repairs...yikes!

His favorite tool had to have been the blue wrench

I had a parts truck that finding the hillbilly PO repairs was rather easy as nothing he used was automovive related. Some fixes were house building materials, and some were kitchen items. I should have taken pictures.

This is a great thread. I think all of us can relate to the process of going thru our trucks and fixing all the horsed up repair jobs, not to mention the normal wear and tear items that these trucks need after 50 or more years on the road! I bought mine in August '13, and worked on it every day for 3 mos, some days it had me almost in tears, some things seemed insurmountable. I felt like the one legged guy in that butt kickin' contest! At least now, I find that others have been down that same road.

Thanks Peggy, I had to start this thread out of therapeutic necessity. Hearing other bolter's experiences is a big pick-me-up, knowing I'm not the Lone Ranger, not that I would enjoy any others suffering through any of these issues. I have to say, some of these war stories are quite comical. Keep em coming.
Steve

Steve,

I know what you mean. Maybe the "empathy" is part of the "therapy." If you can giggle a little at what some others have gone through, you may be able to giggle a little at what you ARE / HAVE gone through, too.

Yes, keep 'em coming.

Peg

Anybody else ever seen body metal holes repaired with cardboard and sheetrock mud? The guy who did this bought rust-bucket cars and trucks in Detroit and Chicago and towed them to Tennessee to rebuild. He said Bondo was too expensive! The cars he sold looked pretty good until the new owners experienced a few rainstorms.
Jerry

That's just plain bad Jerry. Brings new meaning to word "Mickey Mouse".

Jerry,

The drywall mud trick sounds extreme. I hope that crook was run out of the country...or force fed a 5 gallon bucket of mud.


Paul

Let's keep this about our Chevy and GMC trucks, please.

If you have a good story about an 'off' brand it would be more than welcome in the greasy spoon.

I posted this not too long ago in the "Things you found in your Stovebolt" thread but it really belongs here, I think.

The PO of my '58 Jimmy must have found a stash of free lag bolts, sheet metal screws and wire nuts. They were holding just about everything together.

The PO had installed some buckets seats and carpet. I drove the truck like that for a year or two until the day when I decided to pull out the whole interior and install an original bench seat. When I removed the carpet I discovered the PO had made a pedestal for the seats out of 2x4 lumber which he lag bolted to the floor. The seats were then lag bolted to the pedestal. Oh yeah, then I discovered the seat belts were lag bolted to the same wooden frame! A minor safety issue.

The wiring was a conglomeration of original wiring, AC electrical cords, house wiring, and speaker wire, all spliced together with wire nuts.

Yep, I've had the "lamp cord" or "hair dryer cord" wiring under the dash too. Had one w/floorpans so bad the guy had put in a sheet of OSB to keep you in the truck, naturally, it was all swelled up and soft and held the water to promote further rust. Had one w/chevelle bucket seats held in w/packing crate lumber NAILED to the floorpans (how in the heck did he do that?). BUT, the all time favorite, a PO had put electrical tape around cracked metal fuel line to carb and then wire around that (and seeing that didn't work), he made a little "catch can" out of an old cat food tin and suspended it with wire to catch the leaky gas. The catch can sat DIRECTLY on the intake manifold. Genius at work.

The mental image of the fuel line fix is hilarious.

It reminded me of another one I had, a big ball of electrical friction tape wrapped around a leak in the rear brake hose (on a single reservoir master cylinder). It looked like they added more tape as it continued to leak.

One of my parts trucks has a 6 ft width of 5 inch steel well casing welded to the front to serve as the front bumper, Do NOT Get in its way!. It also has a pair of unidentified bucket seats attached to an old wooden door as its base. It also had an old Case combine gas tank mounted on the running board as its gas tank. Another parts truck must have had heating problems as it had via plastic and rubber hose an extra supply of coolant and a gallon plastic jug or maybe it was a farmer's idea of coolant recovery. I never really did figure that one out!. The one that Lefty talks about above could have been my uncle as he was a huge fan of fixing leaking pipe with old fashion friction tape, a wrap of inner tube rubber, some baling wire , then more tape, rubber tube and wire. You get the idea, when it started leaking add another layer. Jerry

When I got my 53 Chevy 3100 it had 68/69 Chevelle bucket seats bolted to a 2x4. Yep, sheet metal screwed to the floor.Even had a wood box between the seats. Oh, the 55/57 235 front motor mount flange was never drilled so no attaching bolts. Both rear mounts were broke. Gravity was all that held the engine.

The upper radiator hose that was on mine was too big to tighten around the neck of the radiator. So someone put a short piece of hose on the neck, then put the regular hose on OVER THE TOP of the other one. It did work-it never leaked, and I didn't discover it till a couple years later when I went to replace the hose.

My 49 has a 235 which was over heating like crazy... found out the PO had installed a radiator from an early 40's car....way undersized. Also the steering box was hanging by a few threads on ONE bolt...!! Only one bolt..

Rich, sleeving down the radiator hose was a trick I learned from an oldtime radiator shop owner back in the late 1950's- - - - -it works like a champ as long as NO sealer or other lubricant is used, just one dry-fit hose over a short sleeve of a smaller one.
Jerry

So when I purchased my 1953 3100 which is somewhere in the queue for resto, a friend and I were cleaning out the leaves, walnut shells, crud out from under the seat. It was a nice day and we were outside. We did what anyone would do. Put a trash can out there, and start scooping up the crud.

The resident RAT wasn't so sure about our plan to renovate his space. It wasn't me who got the crap scared out of me, so it made for a hilarious scene to see my friend scream like a little girl and the associated dancing that went with it. Glad it wasn't me, but I sure felt for him. His whole manly-man demeanor went out the window in about a jet second!

Jerry, thanks for the heads up. That was a new one on me!

Just thought/found another one...
The inner to outer cowl panel (kickboard?) on the passenger side... turns out after investigation, that the PO cut/formed an old bomb shelter sign to replace the rusted out original...

The kick panel is usually called the inner cowl panel. The inner-to-outer cowl panel (I call it the %$#@*&! panel) is the curved, U-channel piece located between the inner cowl panel and the outer cowl panel. I, as a PO, once replaced a rusted out floor board on a VW bug with a DO NOT PASS sign. It went to the scrape yard when I could no longer open the door on un-level ground.
Carl

Not on my current rig but a previous one had a yellow "water over roadway" sign screwed to the floor under the drivers feet. Wasn't exactly a watertight seal..

Well, don't think I can match any of these gems, but my 53 came with a split manifold with the exhaust pipes sticking up vertically thru very crude holes cut into otherwise nice running boards. Everything in the interior painted flat black.. not sanded first of course. Twenty holes in the sides and tailgate for a lot of hold downs. Big rusty mirrors..more holes. And to top it all off, three really bad paint jobs of different colors. To be fair most of the weird things are just cosmetic. I'm still gonna keep her around awhile. Steve

One of the things I feel good about in the end is, the previous owner, a teenager, decided the radio hole in an AD is far too small to put a decent music machine in there, so he took a tin snips and just made the hole bigger to fit the monster tune player he had. I am sure it worked great and he was very very happy. What comes to mind here is those V8 Juice commercials. You do the math! So, torching out a salvage yard dash piece, measuring and welding it back in properly... no big deal right?

That isn't even the most amazing thing I have encountered in doing this over the years. The explanation came out this week. 53% of all high school students in 12th grade cant read at the 12th grade level. We have come full circle. If you see something you don't like, you can stare at it, until you decide you DO like it, or fix it at your own expense. Not money mind you.. usually PAIN! LOL!

My 52 1ton Had a 261 put in in some former life and to shoe horn it in the shade tree guy,s just took a hacksaw to the rad support crossbar.
Don,t take off the hood
Can see it now(thrown over shoulder)thats out of the way.
Hacksaw and tinsnips and water pump pliers(channelocks for you youngins)to gouge rip and destroy the upper and lower radiator valances.
Then we drop the Rad back in INSIDE the rad support channels,and whittle 2 wedges and drive them in to hold the rad.
No bolts,just the 2 hoses.
Right front foward spring pin must have departed this life sometime in the Eisenhower Administration,so we,ll just slam in a 3/8-16 Galvanized carriage bolt and then peen over the threads for safety.
At one time there was a heater as evidenced by the existance of the blower ring and 3 screws on the firewall.
Musta leaked,Rip that out then patch over the blower motor and hose holes with about a third of The FLOORMAT,and a few screws.
We dont need no Stinkin Heater.
Mind you that this was a Killington Vt. area truck
Just getting warmed up.
regards
steve sr.

steve sr,

Bob Adler has a large field museum of A-D trucks ("Field of Dreams"[/i]). Almost every truck in the yard had that radiator support adaptation ([i]"butchery").

cutting the rad support was a common "short cut" for pulling the engine/trans together on trucks and cars into the 60's, I've seen lots that way

Bill