Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » [GMCnet] Things I should not have said in Mansfield
| [GMCnet] Things I should not have said in Mansfield [message #308583] |
Tue, 11 October 2016 16:43  |
Richard Denney
Messages: 920
Registered: April 2010
Karma:
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1. "The paint is ugly but I've kept up with the mechanics."
Uh, yeah. We went visiting on Thursday afternoon in Cleveland, and when
leaving after the visit, we started the engine and within five seconds
heard many thumps and whacks from under the hatch. Not too bad: The
alternator belt had let go, and the shards of it caused the other two belts
to jump their sheaves and end up in a big knot around the fan shaft. It
wasn't too bad because I had spares. What I had left at home was my large
pry bar. But full range of motion in my right hand is almost all the way
back after the 1" long-pattern wrench I was using slipped causing me to try
to punch a hole in the edge of the hatch opening.
2. "That big leak in the steering gearbox is no big deal--I'll just grab a
rebuilt from Dave Lenzi."
Until Dave told me that he would not sell it to me unless my core was the
proper core for the GMC. I understood completely--rebuilders MUST maintain
their stock of usable cores. That required wrestling the greased pig--the
center steering shaft--to expose the input shaft on the old box. After
determining that it was indeed original, then came the task of removing it.
I'm tempted to let Henderson tell this story, because he loves it so.
I have a 24" 3/4"-drive breaker bar, and I leaned on that pitman-arm
remover for all I was worth. I felt this point of elasticity in the system
at which things break and send shrapnel in all directions and gave up.
Then, the Old Man got under there and, simply, leaned on it a bit harder.
Don't mess with those colonels from Georgia. When the arm turned loose of
that tapered spline, it became apparent that we had forgotten to leave the
nut in place. The pitman arm, it's remover, the wrench, and whatever else
headed for the front tire, which contained it. Ken went in a different
direction.
But there was good news, too. Not only did I have the help of guys like
Ken, but also benefitted from Alex Ferrara's willingness to help me
reinstall the Greased Pig with proper alignment. He didn't need the
29/64ths drill bit for correct alignment of the lower clamp. He just knew
how it went together. He also helped me line up all the steering parts
with the correct center of the gear box, the way it's supposed to be done.
3. "No, that's not a miss"
With the engine idling after testing the new steering gear box, a fellow I
met for the first time at this rally suggest my engine was missing. How
could that be? When I returned the pitman-arm puller to Autozone in the
coach, I thought, well, maybe that engine really is missing--the idle
vibration was causing the exhaust pipe to back against the frame, which is
my sign that something is amiss. I glanced down at the vacuum gauge: Zero.
At Autozone, I reinstalled the vacuum hose that I must have pulled loose
while filling the power steering fluid, and then it wasn't missing any
more. Sheesh.
4. "Redhead, we will not spend a lot of money at the rally."
Then an announcement from Kim: "Folks, we've had a cancellation for
windshields." So, that afternoon, I watched Ken Burton's buddies install
new windshields. Afterwards, I met Elton Smith, who was slated for one of
those windshields and arrived late but hadn't actually thought he had
cancelled. I (and Ken and Kim) had to come clean with him that his
intentions had gotten confused and I actually had his windshields installed
in my coach, He accepted the situation with grace and humor, and then we
had a nice dinner with other old and new friends. He flew P-38's in the
Pacific Theater. He's 92 and drove his coach to the rally by himself, with
one brake circuit not working. It was worth forcing him to wait until
Shawnee for windshields just to get to meet him. He might not agree with
that. :)
5. "The brakes are fine."
No failures for me and the brakes did work fine, but Dave Lenzi asked the
simple question: How long has it been since you changed your brake fluid?
Well, let me think. Okay, how about 2003? Now, I'm worried that the
bleeders will be frozen in place, holding back what is mostly just water..
The main issue there was that the Redhead was curious about the brakes, and
made moreso by my general admiration for all things Lenzi, which motivated
her to sit in on that presentation. On the way home, she started to
complain if I left a gap less than half a mile to the vehicle in front of
us.
This was my first International rally since Harrington, Delaware, and once
again I leave it with a strange mixture of motivation to finish those
projects and utter intimidation from those who have already done so to a
higher standard than I will attain to. It's been almost as long since I was
able to be active on GMCnet, and I thought I would correct both those
lapses, at least for the moment.
It was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Gotta do this
more often.
Now, I need to fix the leak in the oil pressure gauge tubing that was
damaged by those flying belts. But first I winterized--it got down to 36
last night.
Rick "back to work" Denney
--
'73 230 "Jaws"
Northern Virginia
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