The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Stovebolt blunders

BIG CHEVY 3600 recently discovered he needs to remove his freshly installed wing windows. That reminded me of one of my blunders. I think a thread about them would be entertaining and it might keep someone else from making the same mistake.

Let's keep it about Stovebolt trucks, please.

I'll start it off with this one.

Last summer I decided to put a 3 speed OD in my 'burb. Of course that involves changing the rear end among a whole bunch of little detail work. I won't go through all that but my truck ended up being down for 6 months.

I had just put the finishing touches on it and really feeling good about it. That day I had installed the 3rd member, driveshaft, new wheel bearings, put the brakes back together and filled the case. Now it's sitting on the ground.

I started cleaning up the work table, gathering empty boxes and trash to throw away. Wait! There's something in that box. Oh crap, it's the axle seals.

I had to drain the rear end and pull the axles to install them. Luckily there was no oil on the brakes.

I've never made any blunders working on my truck Charlie, that's why it takes me so long to get anything done on it and to explain how I did it!

However, I guess you could say that I made a blunder when I pulled the front clip off my truck two years ago and had it chemically stripped. The bare clip is still hanging from my garage ceiling waiting to be straightened and painted so that left me without a truck to drive. Then I bought another one to drive while I was finishing up the '50 and like a dummy, I pulled it down also so I've now got twice the problem I had before.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Since i did not do the work on my truck the only blunder i made was to not leave it original and spend way to much that i limit my drive time. i do drive it on errands but fear the distracted drive and the people who think they have to park right up next to it even though there are plenty of parking spaces.

Was prepping to pull the head to do a quicky valve job on my '38. Just as the temp sending unit bulb came free I remembered I had forgotten to drain the coolant. Can you say geyser? How about mess all over the floor?

I can't remember all the blunders I have made in the last 50 something years. I haven't made any lately because its too hot to work on anything.

I'm not even going to tell anyone about some of my "blunders". It's embarrassing. Suffice it to say, I have done almost everything on my truck twice, somethings three times before I got it right. And it has taken only 32 years!!

I'll embarrass myself then. I spent a lot of time and effort rebuilding the heater. I changed the heater motor to 12v, repainted the entire unit with hammer-tone paint I got from 'bolter truckernix. Had the decals from Carter's, which didn't seem to be correct. All this was done as the truck was in another shop being sanded and painted, replacing rotted sections. We even replaced the firewall. After the truck was mostly back together, I wanted to install the heater but the two heater hose holes in the firewall were quite different than the heater required. Turns out my heater that was in my truck was incorrect, from a '48 car.

Okay, I'll 'fess up. I was sooo excited to get started on my first carb rebuild that I turned the cover head screw the wrong way. As I was thinking to myself "man, they put these on tight" it snapped! broke off half way down the hole! yikes... good beginning. LOL Yeah, I know... righty tighty lefty loosy. From there on I slowed down, thought about things, and proceeded with more caution.

Missed drilled the fuel hole on my bed wood and had to buy another board ($85.00),
drill a new hole after measuring twice, and then begin the finishing process.

I swapped 4 speed transmissions on my 52 1 ton (for another SM420).
No problem removing the old one, and somehow managed to sit on the seat and get the second one in place by myself.
... then found out I couldn't install the clutch fork with the transmission in place....
Removed transmission, install clutch fork, and got some help putting the transmission back in.
That was no fun but all it cost was a little time.

Grigg

Rebuilt my '62 3 sp+od transmission, installed it ran down the road eager to experience overdrive for the first time. Well, no od for me that day. Took it all down repeated the process with the same results. Third time was a charm, I had the blocker ring in backwards and she couldn't go into od. This all occurred while my wife and I were living in a townhouse and my 'garage' was a parking space in front. My 'shop' was in the back of the house thankfully it was an end unit as I carried that 75 lb. transmission back and forth from all those trials to work on it in that little shop.

That od now has 60 k miles in a dd only vehicle '49.

Cletis, do you want me to write a book?.... oh well,most of you know I drilled a hole for my driver side mirror in the wrong place!

I think it was "Down2sea" that said he did things twice so he learned twice as much...or something like that! So do I.

The way I always seem to bleed brakes....Bleed bleed bleed, stop and fill master cylinder. Repeat this process over and over until right before it's done. Then, get carried away with the bleed part, and neglect the fill part, so that the master cylinder goes dry and I put a big shot of air in the lines and have to start all over. It makes feel soooo cool.

Bought me a shiny new Chrome plated Alternator. Wife says " shouldn't you disconnect battery first ? " " No " I say...thats just for new cars with computers. So, wire slips out of my hand and arcs across my new chrome ! Every time I pop the hood she looks at the 1" mark, and shakes her head.

Don't let the helpers see the beer until the cab is on the chassis.

Found some rust outs in the lower cowl. Pretty typical.
Decided to attempt my first ever weld repair. On the lower cowl and inner kick panel

Took me forever because basically I didn’t know what I was doing and was learning as I went.

Got all the new metal in and was pretty happy with the results. .pic. (for a rookie)

Later when reassembling the truck I realized the contour on the repair panel was off

You can see the misalignment here and here

Lesson I Learned....ALWAY FIT YOUR PANELS i.e. doors and fenders BEFORE YOU FINAL WELD

Installing the Mar-K wood bed in my '48.

Spent all day Saturday painting with POR-15. One side, let it dry, another side, let it dry, repeat, rip out the plywood that was in it in between coats. Worked on a couple of other projects in between. On Sunday we start with exterior paint over the POR-15, same thing. Paint. Dry. Flip. Paint. Dry. Flip. Blah, blah, blah.
Go to install the boards, put the outside boards under the angle pieces attached to the bed already... gotta drill some mounting holes, no probl....wait. Drill holes!??! You gotta be kidding me! I just applied multiple coats of very expensive paint and we forgot to drill the holes first!!!!!!

When my dad was rebuilding my '51 GMC I talked him into putting a wood flat bed with racks on instead of the stock bed...boy did he grumble about it. I regretted that decision ever since because I lost count of the coats of spar varnish I had to apply and also lost anything I didn't tie down (and some that I did) out the back without a tail gate. 35 years later I found a stock bed to put back on.

It was only recently I started my 216 without the oil pressure line attached, or the temp sender attached.

The resulting "fountain" of coolant amused me. The steady pouring of oil onto my driveway, not so much!

Probably did all the work on my truck "twice". Usually the second time it turned out ok.
Installing a firewall mount power brake unit this week. It's going ok but now I have 4 metric studs on my bolt :mad: !!!!

About every job I ever did on my '65... the first time, I did 'em all 2-3 times.

Especially if the side window door glass was involved in any way at all.

One time I messed up one of the springs in the rear brakes... that cost me a new set of shoes. whoops.

-W

This was several years ago so I consider the statute of limitations regarding my stupidity to be in effect.

I hope I have the specifics right about this after all this time; In my '34 I believe I had a '34 block with a '35 head. I had the whole engine gone through and machined, new babbit bearings poured, etc.

I reassembled the engine, set her between the rails, bolted it to the trans, and connected everything. It was beautiful!

I filled it with oil, prelubed everything and proceeded to fill the radiator with water. I couldn't believe the capacity of that radiator! I filled and filled and filled. Suddenly water started running out the tail pipe. I had filled the cylinders and crankcase of my brand new motor completely full of water!

Turns out I had the wrong head gasket for a '35 head and a '34 block (or maybe it was the other way around.) Anyway, the '35 had extra water passages, I believe.

I had to tear the motor completely apart. What an idiot!

A couple of days ago I was taking the "almost new" tires off the '61 truck to put on the '84 as snow tires. It was snowing, and as I was ready to let the jack down on the front I set the star wrench up on the hood. (I was tired, and didn't feel bending over to pick it up off the ground.) I went around to the front, bent over to release the jack, and the movement of the truck made the wrench slide, and yes, you guessed it! I still have a very healthy knot on the side of my skull where it hit me.

Well, it wasn't the most brilliant thing I've done for sure.

You would think after 60 years a guy would have it down pat. I put my new V-8 in my 56. I tried to start it & it turned real slow. I looked at the engine & the oil gauge tube was glowing red hot. I found that i hadn't hooked the ground strap from the engine to the frame.

So you think YOU'RE stoopid, do you?
I'm one up on you!

Once I rebuilt a stovebolt 6, and when I started it up it smoked out the whole neighborhood.

Some IDIOT forgot to install a certain ring on ONE piston!

Maybe I need to use a plastic tube.

Maybe, but I'll bet my air turned "blue-er" than yours.

PS - the wife never did like my language when I work on trucks or cars.

If we were perfect.we would not be walking on this earth!!

Wrenchbender,

earlier this year, I cranked my engine with the oil PSI line to the back of the dash un-hooked in my '65 c10...

*sigh*

It still smells like oil in the cab.

hehehehe.

What a mess!

I guess we all 'get ahead of ourselves' sometimes when we are in the middle of projects.

-W

Then there was the time I pulled the coolant sending unit without draining the radiator/block first..........

And the time I checked the oil and water... and forgot to put the radiator cap back on and found myself stranded on the side of the road 15 minutes later... on a sunday afternoon. And then I remembered that just two days earlier I took a brand new cap out of the glovebox and stored it away... because "there was not need to carry an extra one"

I was helping my dad check the compression on the engine. We had the carb off and well you pump a little gas and free dangling spark plug wires.....woof luckly the house garden hose was near by. Aren't cars and trucks fun!

We've all made dumb mistakes and it is interesting reading. But let's keep this discussion related to Stovebolt mistakes, please.

Six months previous to last Saturday's fire, I followed the tech tips regarding installing modern tie rod ends and a new drag link on my 51.

I couldn't find anyone with a tapered reamer locally so I used a carbide bur to make the tapers in the steering arm and sector shaft. I really took my time and used prussian blue to get my 'home-made' taper to fit the modern tie rod ends for the drag link. The drag link came out perfectly.

While I was at it I replaced the old ball and socket tie rod ends with replacements from Custom Classic Trucks. I got the old ball ends out of the steering arms with little difficulty. I installed the new ends on my tie rod, set my toe in, and went for a test drive. AHHHH----tight, controlled steering. Life was good. I had previously replaced the king pins and adjusted the steering box to factory specs, and the pickup steers great.

About a month later I was working on something else and dropped a wrench in front of the 51. Naturally the wrench bounced under the pickup, so I had to get down to ground level to retrieve it, and it was at that moment that I noticed that my tie rod was below the front axle. I immediatly flashed back to the hours I spent carefully grinding out the holes for the tapered shafts on modern tie rod ends, and I was NOT looking forward to repeating the procedure.

I put the job off for as long as possible, until one nice Saturday afternoon. I thought I would do the easy side first, so I removed the steering arm from the passenger's side first. I had my die grinder with the correct carbide burr ready to go, and my wire welder was ready to fill the large end of the previous taper. I removed the nut from the CCP tie rod end, preparing to get ready to beat on the steering arm to get the tie rod end out, when the tie rod end came out of the steering arm. It was then that I remembered that the CCP ends were NOT tapered and that all I had to do was remove the tie rod end from the other steering arm and reinstall the tie rod in the correct position (above the steering arm). I was figuring on an 'all afternoon' project, which I completed in 20 minutes. I didn't even have to re-adjust the toe-in.

I used an old radio antenna to find top dead center to adjust my valves. The antenna came from china and the ball on the end fell into my number 5 cylinder. When I started it it hammered like it was going to blow! I thought the problem was a new old stock cam I bought so I pulled the pan, radiator,timing cover, Found that the cam seemed fine. Then I pulled the head and found that little smashed ball in .number 5 After 2 days of working on it ive got it running fine. [censored] off

This weekend the starter on our '51 went kerplooey, so we decided to pull & replace.

Instead of removing the hot cable from the battery, Pat removed it from the starter. Then dropped it back on to the starter body.

Think 4th of July sparks!

So, get this...I finally found a decent 5 window cab and proceeded to lift it off the frame with my FEL and forks. Well, I hit the down lever and the forks and FEL smashed the top of the cab, creased it, broke the front windows and garnish and well...I was off to find another cab - even after a lot of metal bumping, heating and cold water shrinking nothing ever lined up and I had to name the cab Ol' Lumpper.

A friend of mine and I were working on getting the new harness installed. He was in the cab and decided that he was going to just go ahead and cut the bundle that runs through the firewall. After the sparks stopped, he shot me the eat doo doo look and wanted to know if I had unhooked the battery yet.

I smiled and said no. Working on the suspension didn't require me to unhook it

after 2 years of taking my engine apart and putting it back together, AND close to 1000 dollars in the engine, i found the main carburetor jet was plugged with crud, and that was after i took it apart and rebuilt it! it was a shoulda had a v8 moment (not v8 engine )

Removed gas tank in cab. Stuffed a rag around the exposed fuel line now hanging under it. Welded patch panel in rear of cab OVER said rag. Rag catches fire. Luckily I wear welding gloves and could easily pull burning rag from fuel line in time...