BillyBob Work-in-Progress Log

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

32. Windshield Epic - Almost Good

April 17^th 2004  Breezy and cloudy but a good weather day otherwise. Got the tax return trama over with . . . on time, got my anger management squared away over a system that punishes the productive, then rubs salt in the wounds with an impossibly complex system of forms that no one truly understands. I rewarded myself on the return of my sunny disposition by adding a Smith & Wesson Magnum 500 to my firearms collection. I named this hand cannon "Burt" after the Michael Gross character in Tremors, Burt Gummer.

Dragged the tools out. As long as I was changing the wire on the MIG welder from .025 to .023, I decided this was as good a time as any to clean the welder and re-organize my welding accessories. Cleaned the welder and cart with Simple Green and a shop rag. Dug thru my tool documentation for the welder manual, then installed the .023 wire, a new .023 contact tip and a new gas nozzle.

April 24^th 2004  Good weather day but not much shade under BillyBob's tree. Deciduous trees behave differently in the semi-tropics than they do in the temperate zones. I don't even know what species BillyBob's tree is but it's a dirty tree during flowering and for the last three weeks it's been losing all it's leaves. New growth is beginning to bud but it will be a few weeks before it gets it's canopy back. In the meantime, BillyBob and I will be in the Florida sun all day long.

After setting up the tools, I began to shape and weld the first patch panel piece to the driver side. I'm right-handed and the fender and hood are in my way on this side. I didn't realize until now what a pain in the keester this situation is. Going slow and messing around with wire speed and voltage settings for the new .023 wire. Summer is finally coming and I have to stop and take water breaks often. Finally settled on a wire speed a bit over 3 and an arc voltage setting of D. The piece on this side doesn't fit as well as I'd like and I did a little shaping with MAPP torch and pick hammer after it was tacked in place. This activity began to melt out the body seam lead. Eastwood has leading kits and I have a video on the subject but, right now, it's one more thing I don't have time to learn.

May 1^st 2004  It was a tuff week. Jerry Powell, a retired big rigger a few years older than me and well known among the old truck community as "Bullfoot" passed away on Tuesday morning. Many of us got to know Jerry and his family at Stovebolt.com. Altho' Jerry could write clear prose when he wanted to, most of his postings were in a Bullfoot personalized "fun with phonics" format. His style could soften hard points of debate. By the time you ciphered his message, you were too tired to stomp off angry if you disagreed. I am much distressed at the loss of a friend I will now never get the chance to meet. Maybe someday, we'll meet up at the Celestial Truckstop. That would be . . . "Coolamundo!"

Dragged the tools out, then waited for the morning storm clouds to pass . . .

May 2^nd 2004  OK. I got lazy again yesterday and ended up watching TRUCK reruns on Spike TV all day while waitin' for "perfect" weather. The spirit of my Dad is pacing on my shoulder and shouting in my ear "Quit pussyfootin' around!!"

After Jeep maintenance this morning, I went back at the pinchweld curve patch panel with welder and grinder and I welded in another small filler sliver where the gaps between pieces were too big. Also melted out more body lead from the A-post where there is rust damage underneath. The lead here was over 1/8" thick so there is plenty of room for me to lap weld a small patch panel over this area for reinforcement.

I formed a little patch to cover the rust-thru holes, trimed and contoured it to fit snug, then got the nitrile gloves on and PRE paint prepped the patch area and the patch. Mixed a small batch of JB Weld epoxy and applied it to the patch area and the back of the patch, then slapped the patch into position and took off the gloves . . . Then, I screwed up! I placed a C-clamp type vise-grip to clamp the patch to the A-piller for setting. Problem wuz, I had the clamp a little too tight and I placed the pressure point smack-dab in the middle of the patch. This was like putting your thumb down hard on a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich - the corners fly up and the jelly squirts out! Curses! I cut my thumb removing the clamp in haste, then got JB Weld on my hands as I tried to get the patch back to its convex shape ~!@#$%^ The patch was re-applied, this time with two clamps on the edges. Then hands and patch area were purged of excess JB Weld with lacquer thinner. All's well that ends well.

May 8^th 2004  Great weather day. My alarm didn't function and I got to the Krash Lab 'bout an hour late. Started back in on the weld and grind operations. Ran out of MIG shielding gas by noon. Curses!

May 14^th 2004  Went to American Welding Supply in Renegade to trade in my empty tank for a replacement bottle of shielding gas. Walking across the parking lot in the fenced in compound, a fella told me that American went out of business in October. Darn! He told me about another place nearby called Prax Air. I went looking for it but his directions were sketchy and I didn't ask him for more detailed directions (it's a man thing, ya know). Came back to the Krash Lab and found a "Praxair Distribution Southeast" address and a map to the place on the Internet. Back in the jeep and this time I got my replacement tank of Argon (75%), CO2 (25%) shielding gas. The tank looked a bit small and when I got back to the Krash Lab and looked at the receipt, it said 15 cf. I'm pretty sure the tank I turned in was a 20 cf bottle. Rats, but I've wasted enuf time on this today. I owe my boss some work time. The good news this week is that a replacement grille nose came from Chevy Duty. I'd ordered this a year ago. Scuttlebutt had it that the guy who made these things had passed on. All the vendors were out but there was a chance somebody else would take over the business and they would become available again. I let the back order ride since Chevy Duty doesn't charge your credit card until they ship. I'm glad I did. It's a quality piece welded up from three smaller stampings and with four captured nuts welded in place.

May 15^th 2004  Good weather day. I spent most of it welding and grinding with the obligatory burning holes and filling holes, etc. By four in the afternoon, I was finally satisfied enuf with the first pinch weld patch piece to move on to the second piece (the inside pinch weld curve).

May 22^nd 2004  Good weather day again and time to start on the inner pinch weld / defroster trench patch panel. Measured, scribed and cut a 1-1/2" by 18" piece of sheet steel with the mini nibbler. Made the piece into a 1/2" by 1" by 18" "L" shape with the Mini Bending Brake next. Finished the bend with anvil and body hammer. Got out the metal shrinker and formed the curve to the card stock template I made when I first started this job back in November. Donnie, the lawn guy showed up and I went inside and watched the car shows on Spike TV until he was finished in the shadetree garage. After I got BillyBob's garage back to myself, I trimmed and shaped the new patch panel and cut out old rusted metal until I had a rough fit by late afternoon.

May 23^rd 2004  When the lawn guy was here yesterday, he asked me to relocate BillyBob a couple of feet so he could get his mower past on the side and the front. Billybob hasn't been started in almost two months and since Donnie hasn't plagued me with his clueless helper since the powdercoating incident, I decided to accommodate him today. Reinstalled the instrument pod, ignition switch, headlight switch and steering wheel. Checked to make shure I didn't have any open ground short circuits with all the other dangling wires. BillyBob started with about ninety seconds of intermittant cranking and the battery was still strong when he sputtered to life. After thirty minutes, I moved him over a few feet and shut down again. After panzerwagon and Renegade maintenance, instruments and switches were disconnected again and replaced with the welding blanket. Then, the inner pinch weld piece was welded in place. Fit is good. I luv it when a plan comes together.

May 29^th 2004  Three days of good weather are forecast. I hope to make good progress. Back when I started stripping paint from the driver side cowl, two perfect holes filled with bondo and backed by tin foil were uncovered. I assumed these to be the original mirror mounting holes so I ordered a chrome reproduction in the original style from American Classic Truck Parts. Got the gasket and stainless steel fasteners too. They arrived earlier this week. I fitted the mirror arm first thing this morning. It matches the holes perfectly. Continued to form the inner pinch weld patch panel with MAPP torch and pick hammer.

Went on to cut out rotted dashboard area for the next patch panel with the air powered cut-off wheel and air powered saber saw. Then, I went about forming a card stock template to be the guide for the shape of the next piece. Stopped for awhile to watch the WWII War Memorial dedication live on the History Channel. Cut a piece of sheet metal with mini nibbler and aviation snips and began to form it into the dash curve using the old cut out pieces as forming templates. Continued to trim the piece with snips until they were causing more harm than good (awkward cuts and jagged edges). Clamped my angle grinder into my shop vise to turn it into a mini bench grinder and finished trimming via grinding. Got a good fit but it's too late in the day to drag the welder out so I'll leave that for tomorrow.

May 30^th 2004  Performed routine maintenance on Renegade and the Panzerwagon, then started dragging the air compressor and welder out of the shed. My particle board ramp broke again. Now it's in three pieces and it will require more heavy lifting to get the wheeled equipment in and out. Spot welded the new piece in place, then went about bumping both the new dash piece and the inner pinch weld piece with MAPP torch and pick hammer.

May 31^st 2004 Memorial Day  and I'm reminded of my Uncle Dutch again. He's the one in the middle in the pic below. Dutch was killed in the battle of Leyte Gulf shooting the wing off the Japanese Kamikaze plane that sunk his ship. My Dad is on the right. He was a Army Air Corps ground crew Staff Sgt. in a Combat Cargo outfit in the CBI theatre. On the left is Walt Shipley, a life long family friend who served as a B-17 ball turret gunner based in England. This photo was taken before they went to war in the early forties. Dad and Walt survived to start families after the war. All are gone now.

This is a good place to repeat a story about Walt Shipley that I told over at Stovebolt.com sometime back. About 1970, I was making a Sunday night run from my hometown of Clearfield, PA to Johnstown, PA where our family lived at that time, a distance of 80 miles. Gassed up my Javelin SST and got two miles down the road before water in the gas stopped me cold. It was February and the temp was in the twenties. I called Dad in Johnstown. He called Walt Shipley who drove twenty-five miles to help me. I could see that he had the flu and a high fever (which he failed to tell dad about). I asked him to drop me off at my grandmother's house and I would worry about the car the next day. Walt wouldn't hear of it. We worked on that car getting the water out for two hours until it ran good enough for me to coax it to my grandmother's house. Never have forgotten the distance Walt Shipley went to get his friend's kid out of trouble.

June 5^th 2004  The weather forcast is 60% rain. When I got to the Krash Lab about eight am, I called up the local doppler radar over the Internet. No cells in sight yet and outside the sky is blue with a squadron of hot air balloons on the western horizon. Time to start dragging out the tools. Memorial day was a hot and humid day in the shadetree garage. Grinding and welding, filling holes an' cursin' 'em. I had to take more and longer water breaks. I don't have the skill to make pretty welds but I'm persistant and making slow progress. By ten-thirty, dark clouds had formed. When the first thunderclap sounded, I pulled the compressor and welder under cover and pulled the plastic and car cover over BillyBob. I am not happy with my "Evolution 4" car cover. The material has fatigued to the point that you can pinch a hole in it with your thumb and forefinger! I don't think it will last until the windshield project is finished.

I contented myself to organize my tools in the Krash Lab including a craftsman toolbox full of electrical stuff someone had thrown into the dumpster enclosure at the Krash Pad sometime back. I'm gonna keep the usable stuff and re-finish the toolbox which has a rusted bottom. I also watched powerblock on Spike TV.

June 12^th 2004  Last sunday was more of the same. Only got a couple of hours of welding and grinding done before thunderstorms chased me inside again. And . . . I'm gettin' a late start this morning. Last night was a bachelor party for a co-worker, George. We saddled up and went south to a strip club, Tootsies Cabaret, in north Miami (Aventura). My boss and I sat in the back and he kept supplying crisp currency and drinks to "his guys" and proceeded to get toasted himself. I wasn't drinking and the drivers were taking it easy too. These places have changed somewhat since I dated a dancer, Dash, in the eighties and was a regular. There's not much dancing anymore. It's gymnastics and no mystery. One of the guys got too close and went blind with a pap smear on his glasses. This being Miami, there were about fifty beautiful girls from all over the Western Hemisphere. Lots of tattoos, piercings and friction dances. I'm a little old-fashioned, I guess, and like the old clubs better. The Frengi's are right 'tho. You can never have enuf nekid wimmin.

The late start and neverending length of this project made me decide that the welding portion of this job is done. The new metal/old metal integration is structurally sound so I'm moving on to the JB Weld stage. Kevin Tetz of Paintucation would assign a "high cheese factor" to my work I think, but I'm anxious to get BillyBob back on the road before I lose any more momentum. Wire-brushed the exposed metal one more time with the wire wheel in the air-powered angle grinder. Covered the welding blanket under the dash with a plastic trash bag to catch any drippings and then applied Eastwood's OxiSolve rust converter with a spray bottle. Applied paper towels on top of that and saturated them with OxiSolve in turn. Covered the whole wet mess with plastic food wrap to slow down evaporation. Kept applying more OxiSolve on fifteen minute intervals. Repeated this process for two hours before cleanup.

June 13^th 2004  I let the OxiSolve treatment cure overnite. First task this morning is another wire wheel brushing to remove any excess OxiSolve residue before JB Weld application. Next, gaps and holes were taped from the back with duct tape to keep the JB Weld from dripping thru. PRE Paint prepped the area and began to apply JB Weld. Mixed and applied several batches until I ran out of JB. It was enuf.

June 19^th 2004  Muggy in the shadetree garage. During the week, I picked up some more JB Weld and 1/4" x 1-1/4" flat washers at Discount Auto Parts (more about the washers later). Removed the duct tape backing the JB Weld gaps from the back of the dashboard and began to setup for sanding. OK, the washer is for the ignition switch opening. I haven't located a good original switch and am using a generic replacement. Problem is that the replacement is a good deal smaller than the dashboard hole it fits into.

Sanded around the ignition switch hole to bare metal and touched it up with hammer and dolly where it was deformed a little. Used the grinder to grind a flat on one side of the washer to make it fit better, then dragged out the MIG welder. Placed the washer behind the ignition switch opening, then fixed it in place with three spot welds. Sanded the welds down flush. Then . . . the wheels fell off. When I started to drill the 5/8" hole, the torque from the big drill bit in a slow electric drill broke the spot welds loose. Then when I put the washer in a vice to finish the job, the drill bit bent the washer all out of shape when it started to break thru ~!@#$%^. The general idea is sound but the execution is lacking. I'll take a different run at this next week.

Moved on to sanding down the JB Weld from last week's operation so I can make some progress before I go home to the Krash Pad today. I used the Norton Speedlock system and tight spot sanding cones in the air powered angle grinder again. Afterwards, the area was PRE Paint Prepped and given three coats of Eastwood's Self-Etching Primer. It was mid-afternoon by this time and the northwestern sky was getting dark and starting to rumble. I decided to put the tools away and call it a day.

June 20^th 2004  The primer cured overnite. Now is the time for the first batch of the Evercoat Metal-to-Metal Filler. The primed area was roughed up with a scotch pad then PRE Paint Prepped. Mixed up a small batch of filler and managed to get most of it on BillyBob before it started to set up.

June 26^th 2004  Good weather but hot and humid so I'm taking it slow with many breaks. Started out with some under the dashboard work. Got the shop vac out to clean the cab, then took the welding blanket out from behind the dash. Removed the vacuum wiper motor and control next.

During the past week, I picked up a big 5/8" flat washer at Home Depot along with a spool of mason's twine to help with the installation of the windshield gasket down the road. The 5/8" washer hole is just a bit too small for the ignition switch so I went after it with a rat tail file until the switch would fit. One side of the washer was ground down flat to fit behind the dash like last week's failed first attempt. I found out that I could position and tighten up the switch mounting nuts now without welding the modified washer in place so I'm done with this. If I find an original switch, it won't be too difficult to install.

Then I applied more of Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator behind the dash at the new metalwork. It's kinda checkerboard right now but I'll eventually fill in the gaps and get the whole area covered under there before I put the dashboard back together. Murphy made an appearance at this point to punish me for not wearing goggles. Got a big drop of Rust Encapsulator in my left eye. The eyelid closed just before it hit and minimized the damage. I rinsed the eye with cold water in the Krash Lab washroom for about ten minutes before I could see again without discomfort. Then . . . I hunted up my goggles and went back at it.

Sanded down the first batch of filler with the Norton Speedlock system and block sanding with 80 grit paper by hand. The Boss arrived with the family dog, Toby, in tow (the real boss, SWMBO, is out of town and he is in charge of the dog). Then our janitorial service, Patrick and his son, arrived to clean the place . . . Too much traffic in my work area and critters underfoot to get anything done for awhile. I wonder where Donnie, the lawn guy is?

After Patrick and son left, the animals calmed down (neither Toby or Wingnut like vacuum cleaners), and I went back to work on BillyBob. There was just enuf time, before calling it a day, to PRE Paint Prep the driver's side repair area and apply the second coat of Metal-to-Metal filler.

June 27^th 2004  OK. The end of this task is in sight. I've still got some fill and primer work on the repair areas ahead of me, but I'm close to the actual windshield installation. Got to prep and paint the upper half of the interior and dashboard, clean and polish the stainless steel windshield trim and decide what I'm gonna do about the windshield wipers and, lastly, install the windshield. All that stuff will be covered in the last log entry of this epic. When I post the next log entry, BillyBob will be back on the road! That's the plan an' I'm stickin' to it!

< Back to IntroWindshield Epic - A Gasket too far >

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Sunday June 27, 2004

Updated Monday February 26, 2018

copyright © 1996-2018 Larry Robert Kephart all rights reserved