Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Those springs definitely keep you on your toes. I had a very similar mark from my 64 when I did the clutch and tranny.

it seems the trick is to allow the pedal to come all the way forward, but to do that I had to remove that long pivot bolt, so who knows what gives in that contraption

[Gregski]

so I picked up some [ahem] "Direct Replacement" (yeah right) bushings from NAPA for $10 bucks. I think I know where I went wrong with these last time. It appears this is one of 'em variety assortment packs where you get one good fit pair of bushings and the other two pairs don't fit right, but it's late at night and you need your project done so you put the good pair on the brake pedal and the junk on the clutch pedal, ha ha

well this time we will put the good fit on the clutch pedal

You know what they say: "If you ain't doing it over, you ain't Hot Roddin'" OK, maybe I just made that up

[Gregski]

alright now let's get back to the fun stuff, it was time to fab the Digital Gauge Mounting Plate, aka the DGMP

so we start off with some cardboard like they do on TV

[Gregski]

then we transfer that template to our carefully selected piece of scrap metal, (ie the first one we saw from the corner of our eye) cause we run what we brong

then over to our organic outdoor metal brake station facility

[Gregski]

then we remember Rule #1. Don't Get Dead

... so we bust out our precision instrument the protractor like thingie and decide to round the corners

and we give it some sandy paper love

[Gregski]

a quick test fit, that should work

[Schroedum]

Man I found this thread a few weeks ago and have been chipping away at it a little every day. Mr. The-Greg you motivated me to rev up my work on my truck and I went to my local pick and pull, got a tailgate, some trim, and had all sorts of :not: fun with spray can aircraft stripper.

I fully blame you. Haha

Thanks for your years of sharing here, it makes a difference out there it really does.

Rock on brother

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Schroedum

Man I found this thread a few weeks ago and have been chipping away at it a little every day. Mr. The-Greg you motivated me to rev up my work on my truck and I went to my local pick and pull, got a tailgate, some trim, and had all sorts of :not: fun with spray can aircraft stripper.

I fully blame you. Haha

Thanks for your years of sharing here, it makes a difference out there it really does.

Rock on brother

Awesum, everyone needs a little motivation, what got me off the couch five years ago or so was a little amateur video (at the time) called ROADKILL on Motortrend a channel of YouTube later on Velocity, the boys have sold out since then but I still recommend you give them a looksie

thanks for the great feedback and enjoy yourself, you will have set backs, you will strip a few bolts and not all your cuts will be straight, but chics love a guy with grease under his fingers, that or a really big bank account, one of the two

peace n chicken grease
The Greg

[Palf70Step]

Liking how the gauge fit is going. Looking to see the rest.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Liking how the gauge fit is going. Looking to see the rest.

thanks, well let's do it

at first I drilled two small holes just large enuff for the screws and one big one to feed the wires through...

[Gregski]

then I realized them gauges have nipples and if I wanted them to sit flush with the backing plate I would have to open up them holes sum

we adjust and overcome people!

[Gregski]

alright, but how you is going to afix it to the plastic bazel?

aha

looks like the General has a sick sense of humor, he gave us two holes, asymmetrical at that, this will drive The Greg mad

[Gregski]

ok with those blind holes opened up it was time to trasfereatize them to the shinny custom backing plate

for that we use the blue tape, it's not just for painting your wife's bathroom you know

I'm sure there's like 7 better ways to do this, but I think it worked, I used a pick I stole from my old dentist's office, jk he's not that old

these screws came from the junk drawer just for testing, I plan on using black torx head jobbies in the end for the aesthetic factor

[Gregski]

not too crazy about the bolt heads not being flush with the front of the bazel, the angle seems all wrong but it will do for now

thinking about adding two more holes one on top and one on the other side on the bottom to settle my OCD

[Gregski]

my buddy Pontiac Mike gave me these dashboard warning indicator custom LED lights a while back, it's really the catalyst for this entire custom gauge panel project, so let's blame him if it goes wrong, ha ha

anyway, love these for two reasons:

1. they have blade connectors in the back, it's going to be so easy to connect!

2. they are threaded and screw in tight to the panel

man just wish I had some green ones for the turn signal indicators

[Gregski]

so I jumped in the 7 fo' and decided to hit the parts sto'

picked these babies up (at the only Speed Shop in town) for about $8.00 bucks a piece not cheap, not a huge fan of the chrome, cause you know what they say, chrome won't get you home but black will get you back, ha ha

also wish they were the threaded type, but it turns out the slide ins will work out just fine too

[Gregski]

yup, this is where they're going

stepped it up to the 1/2" drill bit to open up those holes proper and they slid right in nice and snug

[Gregski]

SUNDAY... time for church...

[Gregski]

Today I worked on the warning lights, high beam and brake. I have the '78 cluster on my '74 truck and I lost the red plastic display thingie that goes behind the speedo so I forgot what those two warning lights were, the two on the Tach are Fasten Belts (don't have that feature on my '74) and Brake

we is gonna shove them into where the letters of the Alphabet go on an Automatic

first we make da template - roughly a 1 3/8" x 3 1/2"

[Gregski]

then we cut it out of metal

I think this little doinker took as long to make as the entire big panel, ha ha

[Gregski]

I specialize in asymmetrical pieces, so I learned to label them, since they only fit one way, (translation I ain't that good)

like i said this piece took sum doin'

grind a little test fit a little, sand a little more off

[Gregski]

I think this part took two takes, as I didn't bend back far enough on the first take...

nice thing about metal is that it is very bendy

[Gregski]

holding the two pieces in place so I could weld them proved to be a challenge as magnets would not do the trick

but somehow I managed, to tac them in place on one side and weld the entire length on the other

keep in mind this is a backing plate so it's out of sight and out of mind, all it needs to do is hold

and I did clean these welds up with a grinder later

[Gregski]

alright lets mount it up and drill some more holes

we're going to mount these two warning lights as far wide apart as possible so in case we decide to add some more lights we got the room for them (genius I tell you, genius)

stepped up to a 1/2" hole propper

[Gregski]

alright let's mount it up for the 70th time and see how it looks