So in slightly build related news, the reason I haven't been spending more time working on the truck is my wife and I have bought a new (to us) house. We've both changed jobs within the last year or two, and now we both work within a block of each other, but in a small city 110km/70miles from where we presently live, on different work schedules, so we can't car pool. That translates into 160bucks a week just to get the two of us to work and back. We bought a property in the country less than half as far from the place we work, and it's more money in mortgage payments than the place we have presently, but I'd rather put the money into property than into gas, if you know what I mean. We both miss the country anyway; both of us grew up in the country.
It's at least 90 years old, and hasn't been updated since likely the 60's at best. It's not insulated either. We've basically signed up for 20 years of renovations, but I couldn't be happier. Best part yet is:


There's an attached garage/workshop. Its not as awesome as my father in law's that you've seen in all the pics so far, but it'll be my own, and I'll be able to tinker after supper, and sit down for a beer in front of the woodstove, and it'll be my first real man cave. I'll be taking out that centre counter thing with the tool box to make room for my 4runner. I can't wait. We take possession April 18.

 

If anyone has any thoughts as to why my one drum is so tight on the shoes, let me know. The adjuster is as short as it'll go, but I had to beat the thing into place with rubber mallots, it was that tight. Any input/brainstorming is appreciated.

 

Nice house. Well done bro.

 

Thanks Jumper, its going to be a ton of work, but it's exactly what I'm looking for in a home. Can't wait to make that garage/shop my own.

 

Woot! X2, NIIIIICE PAD! Missed hearin from u and reading on ur awesome updates. But HECK yeah, this is WAY better and more important news!!! Tell the wife congrats as well!

Far as the drum... I just read on This subject. Dang... Where was that? Grr... I think Terry would know. I had this problem and it ended up being the adjuster was beyond the limit and could not thread back in to relax the tension. It was on my daughter's Rodeo. She had let the pads go soooooo far gone that it had adjusted past the last thread and went Cockeyedville! I have pics. Trust me, I wanted to bring her in the cage for 15 min., lol, but I was far more GRATEFUL, than angry, that she didn't kill someone else or herself or even her SON! Sorry, don't mean to go on, Hahahahaha..... O ended up having to shave the spring pins off and then they came off.

 

Thanks for the reply, Chef, I'll look at the adjuster again next time I'm at the farm, but I'm pretty sure the thing is right closed. I did get the drum on, but it's so tight i may as well have the brakes on full force when I'm trying to move it. I might have to get it back off, and doublecheck I have everything in it's proper place, shoes springs etc.

 

Ahhhhh, I remember this happening to me.... Get in the FSM again or Haynes and check the right/Left set up. .. I think I had one of the parts improperly installed and it wouldn't work til I tore it down and reinstalled it properly. .. , what was that drum part? Iwill try 2 find it, but I'm sure uwill see it if u look closely again

 

Hello Dutchbelly.. Great looking place you got. Looks like a nice little shop. You will find that is a project in itself as well, but is so nice when (if ever) you get it done and stocked with all of the tools you need or should say WANT.lol

As far as the brakes, when I get into a situation like that. Strip it all back down and start over. Most likely you have something incorrect. Take the adjusters all the way back down and make sure yo have your primary and secondary pads in the correct location. It is hard to do, but read step by step and dont try to go off of memory. I find some of the biggest problems I have ran into is on something I may have done a thousand times from memory. Sometimes just got to go back to the basics. Been there and done that, probably will be doing it again in the near future, hasnt happened to me in awhile so I am due one.lol

Great to see you back. After buying a house, your life will be upside down for awhile. No matter how prepared you think you are, you get hit with all kinds of things you never thought of. I have owned two different houses and each move I thought I was prepared for each one. It took me 6 months to a year each time to recover from a move. Both times I was about ready to just go back to renting, but it is worth it in the long run. Just hang in there.

I see one thing I am jealous about in your shop. A wood stove. The heat from wood makes such a nice difference. The whole place just looks great. Congratulations. Always enjoy seeing you back when you can but understand.

 

Hi Dutch:
Glad to see you back at it.
Your new house looks great ....20 years of renovating, you need to be patient, because a house that old once you get into it,you will find that there is nothing square, round or oval! Believe me this is experience talking!
You will be happy with the end result.
On your brakes... The shoes may not be centered on your backing plate and the drum may be dragging on one shoe or if you didn't replace the wheel cylinders did you check that they are fully compressed? If they aren't then that would cause the drum to hang up on a shoe.

 

Thanks guys, all good advise here, Looks like I'll be pulling them all back apart again. I'm pretty sure now that I've read your posts that I've mixed up some shoes. The left side went on but just barely, which was expected, the right side was waaay too tight to be correct.

 

Thanks Terry, really looking forward to making the shop my own. It's going to take a while to get it set up, likely years, but it'll all be worth it. The woodstove and pipes are all not to code, so I'll have to search kijiji, etc. for a replacement. I really do love wood heat as well.

Nothing but truth there, Hadmatt. It's likely optimistic to hope for "squarish" in a house this age. The only plus to buying a house that hasn't been updated is there will be less slapdash/quickfix style reno's done by previous owners to fix. I come from a family that loves to buy old homes and fix them up. I grew up helping my dad with different reno projects around the house, and two of my sisters own houses my town, so pretty much every year there's a project at one of our houses. The house my wife and I presently live in has been a long string of reno projects ever since we bought it. My wife is an electrician, and very handy, so that helps immensely. I'm really hoping this will be the last house we buy, I'd like to make it our own and then get to enjoy it.

 

Can anyone help me out by explaining how to post a youtube video on my thread?

 

Hey buddy! Sorry I haven't been by enough. .... Been really busy. ....

Upload the video to YouTube, obviously. .... lol. ... Then, when on the video, copy the URL/BROWSER LINK to the Page here, and it should be posted. IUsed to have to click on the"insert image" icon above the text box, put in the link and click enter, but they seem to post now without using the insert image icon.

 

Trying to get that to post as a video, not just a link, its a short video of a project my Father in Law has been working on, I helped a bit, but not much. It's a pontiac sunrunner on mattracks, pretty cool. We were booting along all over the area around his farm, the thing goes through anything. It's hard to tell from the video, it looks pretty flat where he's going through, but its likely a 2 foot difference in height from the road from the field, so it's going through a lot of snow there.

 

Looks like that worked ok. Thanks Chef!

 

So some progress made on the truck tonight, but also some pretty crap news as well. I got the rear brakes freed up, not sure what the culprit was, all I did was take the drum off (which was tight as heck) and fiddle with things, made sure the adjuster was right tight, got maybe a half turn out of it, made sure everything was tight, and seemingly centred, and didn't find any problems. So I tried to put the drum back on, and wouldn't you know it, it slid right into place. I swapped then swapped out the plugs with new ones, and the thermostat for a new one as well. Looks like rusty crap under the thermostat, the system is in bad need of a flush, think it sat for a lot of years without any coolant in it. I then cleaned out the diagnostic terminals, double checked vacuum lines, found two that needed hooking up, and then fired up the truck for another shot at the timing. I did the timing a little while ago, but I was pretty sure it wasn't on, due to vacuum leaks and I wasn't sure I got a good connection wiith my jumper in the diagnostic terminals. I had it running really smoothly, was pretty stoked about it, but then it started to put out white smoke from the exhaust. After that it started to run really rough. I'm pretty sure I have a bad headgasket. I'm assuming I didn't notice the symptoms at first because the thermostat hadn't opened up yet, and there was still air in the system, but when coolant started pumping through, it started seeping past the headgasket. Not for sure yet, but it's the most likely thing I can think of. Thoughts?

 

Happened to me on my first start of this last motor I built myself. Used a Nippon HG, and it failed immediately. Tore it down, flushed with ATF, slapped a Permatorque in there, then ran through 1/2 QT. ATF, 4quart oil, drained again after 1min, refilled, .....10k later I'm still smooth as butter! Never figured out for sure wut happened, so I guess it was likely just a bad HG, or one of the head bolts bound up and gave me a faulty torque value on the first shot.... But it happens, ya know?

 

PS> SORRY MAN! I know how ticked I was. Ur certain it's not a cracked waste jacket or something like that, right?

 

No, I'm not certain of anything at this point. Im just going off the symptoms. It ran so smooth after I set the timing, and then I let it run for a bit longer, and it started to put out increasing amounts of white smoke from the exhaust, and at first I thought it smelled like corn burning, only sorta sweet, and thought there was corn in the exhaust from mice during the trucks extended time in storage, but I hopped behind the wheel to move it to another shed for storage, and it started to run more and more rough, until it stalled out. At that point I could hear bubbling at the rad. It wasn't hot enough to be boiling, I don't think, because we put a jug of straight coolant into the rad to mix with the water in the system. I'm thinking headgasket. The sweet corn smell and white smoke would be coolant leaking past the headgasket, and the bubbling after it stalled would be the compression of the engine leaking into the coolant channels. It really sucks because now I'll have to wait till I move into the new place to pull it apart. I was excited about it running, but now it's back to not running at all again. Life is good though, and I"m really looking forward to having my own space to work on the truck, even if it means I have to wait a bit longer.

Oh, and waste jacket? I don't even know what that is, Mark

 

Definitely sounds like a HG issue Dutch. That sucks buddy but at least you will have the chance to investigate the engine a little more.