BillyBob Work-in-Progress Log

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

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 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.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

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

You will need the Adobe Acrobat browser plugin to view these wiring diagrams which are in the PDF file format. This format allows zooming and panning. If you don't have this plugin, it can be downloaded and installed (free) from the Adobe site. The button below will take you there.

BILLYBOB WIRING DIAGRAM Here's the wiring diagram updated with BillyBob's current state 'cepting the third-party strap-on turn-signal director.

STRAP-ON TURN-SIGNAL DIRECTOR/BRAKE LIGHT CIRCUIT This turn signal and brake light circuit diagram shows the current state of the third-party turn-signal director wiring, which will remain in place until I figure out the problems with the OEM turn-signal director. It also shows the OEM headlight switch.

52. Busy, Busy

March 31^st 2007  Got an early start this morning. Keeping it light today. The boss will be calling by mid-morning sometime to meet up for the Barrett-Jackson auction in West Palm Beach. He's registered as a bidder this year and if he didn't buy something last night, he'll probably be bidding today.

In the previous log entry I posted on monday, I documented that the eleven inch windshield wiper blades for BillyBob were too long and getting caught under the gasket at the top of the windshield. I jerry-rigged the wiper blades by cutting 1/4" off the offending ends and crimping the other ends so that they would not fall apart as a temporary solution. One of BillyBob's fans at American Classic Truck Parts read the log entry and sent a pair of ten inch blades that fit perfectly! For those of you '54 - '55 1st Series Chevy and GMC truck owners who have run into the same problem of the eleven inch blades being too long, the American Classic Truck part number is "WW129" and the description is "47-53 WIPER BLADE TRICO MODERN NORMAL LENGTH 10 INCHES".

Some other BillyBob fans, Bill Miles and Rob English at OldGMCtrucks.com and Nate Hall from the Old-chevy-truck maillist, all told me the 20a radio fuse wuz way too big. I replaced it with a 10a fuse and updated the wiring diagram. Then it was off to the auction.

April 1^st 2007  'Nother fine morning but I won't be taking advantage of it under the shade tree. There is more auction bidness to take care of. My boss, Derek, got two classics at the auction yesterday. We got one home with some difficulty yesterday and today we have to try to get the other one home. Derek sez that my job description has just expanded to include minor maintenance, parts chasing and research for his new aquisitions. An expansion I welcome, by the way. The BillyBob shadetree is in the path of progress and its days are numbered. Downtown redevelopment progress, that is. We knew this was coming. That's why we moved to this location in 1991. Now that the boss is more involved in the car hobby, I can count on his assistance in finding a new place to work when the time comes.

A little about the classics before we get back to BillyBob. The first one is an immaculate 1941 Ford Super Deluxe Convertible that was the AACA national award winner in 1978. It has some issues now of which fuel system problems are the most immediate. We stalled out half way on the 25 mile trip back from the auction and it ran badly the rest of the trip when we were finally able to get it started again and coax it home. We suspect old gas. I'll let ya'll know. Work on the ferd will be documented on it's own pages titled Code name Henry.

Today, we went back to get the Caddy. It has electrical issues and the Barrett-Jackson people put a new battery in it last night. There is a electrical fuel pump (non-stock, I'm sure) that has to be manually turned on and off. There is a Sony radio tucked under the dash. The horn doesn't work. The new battery wuz so low by Sunday nite, we couldn't get it started to get into the garage. I'll get it figured out if my boss has enuf patience with me. Man! This thing is Harley Earl at the top of his game! Like the ferd, the caddy will have it's own pages titled Code name Frankie.

April 7^th 2007  It's a chilly Easter weekend. If there are any global warming conferences in the Northeast today, they'll have to wear coats because it's snowing. Started out with some travel inventory work including a complete 10" clutch kit (disk, pressure plate, pilot bushing, throwout bearing and alignment tool) from LMC Truck Parts. This is too big for any of the ammo boxes so it was stored under the front seat. Arranged some parts in the ammo boxes after that, then went on to perform routine detailing on Bettylou and planning for work on Renegade.

Later in the day I got back to BillyBob. I am still having a vibration problem in the 35/40 mph speed range. Decided to investigate that a bit further. Jacked up the rear end and ran the engine in third gear up to sixty mph. No vibration. Put a clothespin on the throttle cable that held it at thirty mph (I should nebber have lubricated this cable) and looked underneath. It looks like the driveshaft is runnin' straight. The wheels got a little out-of-round tendency but they don't seem unreasonably wobbley. I took all the wheels off and static balanced them again, rotated them when I put them back on BillyBob in a "X" pattern (right rear to left front, left rear to right front). I put all the wheel weights on the front and each wheel took a substantial amount of weight. I used three weights on each wheel and spread it out along the rim. We will see how that works for a week.

April 14^th 2007  Well, rotating the tires and re-balancing them helped a lot. There is still a vibration at forty mph sometimes but not all the time and, it's very slight. I'll continue to monitor this and move on to other tasks for the time being.

During the week, I received a couple of "Blitz Jerry Can Mounting Bases" I'd ordered from OffRoadRecovery Warehouse several weeks ago. These will be used to mount Five Gallon Gas and Water Cans to the running boards for roadtrips. I've already gotten the plastic jerry cans from Quadratec. My intention is to bolt these things to the running boards and remove them again after the roadtrip is over. They come with a flimsy strap for securing the jerry can but no mounting hardware. Dug thru my collections of nuts and bolts until I came up with eight each 3/8"-16 x 3/4" cap screws, 3/8" lock washers and 3/8"-16 hex nuts.

Drilled the holes and bolted the mounting base on the passenger side running board. This will hold the gas jerry can for two reasons. It's the same side as BillyBob's gas cap and it's theoretically the safer side, accident-wise. Threaded the strap thru the slots provided and mounted the jerry can. Realized I'd made a misteak. The strap can't be made tight wrapped around the bottom of the can. It must wrap around the bottom of the base. Just damn! Unbolted the base again and ran the strap under it. This thing didn't come with any instructions but that's OK. It's a man thing. Real men don't read instructions (not at first, anyway). As John Wayne's character, Captain Nathan Brittles would say, "It's a sign of weakness!"

Went on to the driver side and installed the base for the water can there. Spent some time updating my roadtrip inventory and then moved on to BillyBob's exhaust header bolt problem next. I've been hiting the rusted hex nuts with Kroil penetrating oil every week for a month now. Fired up the air compressor and got out the impact wrench. Decided to concentrate on the rear stud hex nut. Impact wrench had no impact on it. Fired the hex nut and stud up to cherry red with the MAPP torch and hit it with a cup of water. It was still tight but the impact wrench was now successful at backing it off a couple of turns. I stopped and hit it with the penetrating oil again. After a few minutes, I reversed the impact wrench and tightened it up. The wrench spun it like a normal nut now and the tightening eliminated most of the exhaust leak.

The boss and his son arrived about that time in Henry (in perfect James Dean tribute mode) and we started messin' around with that. Put some Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas tank and they went for a beach run. They were back in short order 'tho with engine problems and we started to sort thru that. At the end of the day, I got in BettyLou to go home and found her with a completely dead battery . . . Damnation! I now know what tomorrow's first task will be.

April 15^th 2007  Tax day and there's a chill wind blowing. Actually it's not chilly in South Florida, just very windy. Elsewhere along the eastern seaboard, they're experiencing a Nor'easter. I gave BettyLou a zap with the portable battery jumper when I got to the Krash Lab and got her running. Left her run for over a hour while I smoked a cigar. I think a map reading light ran the battery down. I was messing with it when I was dealing with the rear courtesy light last week and I must'uv toggled it on by mistake. Performed monthly maintenance on BettyLou and BillyBob then. It's a little ahead of schedule but I'm drivin' BillyBob up the YeeHaw Junction next weekend to meet up with some truck buddies and I wanted to know that the vital fluids were topped off for that jaunt. Not long after that the wind picked up even more and the rains started so I ceased operations for this weekend.

April 22^nd 2007  OK! The run to Yeehaw Junction yesterday was successful. The chassis vibration was not evident at the higher speeds of 55-60 mph. "Mother", the GPS navigator, took me doorstep to doorstep and back perfectly. I enjoyed the scenery rather than using my time to constantly seek out road signs and figure out where the heck I was. I did have some second gear clutch slippage after a lot of stop-n-go traffic near the end of the run. That bothers me since the Macungie roadtrip route will take us up the Blue Ridge Parkway (lotta hills). I'm thinking of pulling the tranny and clutch over the Memorial Day weekend if it isn't just a matter of adjustment. Spent the rest of the day cleaning up from yesterday's daytrip and adjusting roadtrip supplies inventory.

April 29^th 2007  Last week's little roadtrip moved quarterly maintenance up so that was done first this morning. While BillyBob's front end was up on jackstands, I went about adjusting the clutch. After reading the roadtrip episode, Nate Hall e-mailed to ask what kind of free clutch pedal travel I had when the slippage occured. I didn't know and when I checked it with BillyBob cold, it didn't appear as if I had any. The shop manual sez you're 'sposed to have 3/4" to 1".

Took a look at the two adjusting nuts I had to deal with and gave them a shot of Kroil penetrating oil. Got underneath with some 3/4" wrenches to make the adjustment. A deep six point socket on a short extension got the locking nut loose without problems. The adjustment nut has to be worked with a open end wrench . . . Damnation! Who put that exhaust pipe in the way! I eventually got at it from above but I don't know what I would have done if it had been too tight to turn with what little leverage I had on it. OK. I've got some freeplay in the pedal now. We'll see how that works out in the coming weeks.

I've been picking up static on the radio that varies with engine speed. Was I hallucinating when I did not have any static when I first installed the radio? Will I have to start putting condensers on the various ignition and charging components now? Some research led me to bad antenna grounding being the most common suspect and that would also explain why I didn't have the noise before but I do now. Fiddling around under the dashboard with the antenna wire cleared the problem back up.

I'm still not all that comfortable with three big weights in close proximity on each wheel. Vibration is very slight now but it's still there sometimes in the 35-40 mph range. I decided to experiment a bit. I pried off the middle weight on each wheel, labeled it and put it aside. In the coming week, I'll see what difference that makes in the ride, if any. If the vibration worsens, I can put the weights back in a few minutes without taking the tires off and dragging out the balancer.

May 6^th 2007  Hot and muggy yesterday. A little bit better today. I was looking for a 5/16" fully threaded capscrew for the radio bracket because I'd figured out a way to make it work, I think. It had to be long. About three inches. I wanted to make shure I didn't already have something that would work before ordering new hardware. Took me all day to go thru the inventory I had in the shed. Did a good cleaning while I wuz at it and disposed of junk like paint and body filler containers that had dried up. Ended up placing an order with McMaster-Carr at the end of the day anyway. The good news is that I found more than a few items for my roadtrip inventory that I won't have to purchase now.

May 12^th 2007  Smoke haze from the Florida and Georgia wildfires is keeping the sunlight diffused and working conditions under BillyBob's shadetree are fairly nice. I received my package of 5/16"-18 x 2-3/4" tap bolts from McMaster-Carr earlier in the week and so I turned to the radio bracket first thing after I got the tools out of the shed. Pulled the radio out of the dash again and removed a couple of big spacer washers off the right side knob shaft that weren't letting the radio set squarely in its opening.

Re-installed the radio with the bracket this time and it feels pretty solid. Without the bracket, it was bouncin' around quite a bit during the Yeehaw Junction trip at the higher speeds. I don't think it will bounce now and I still have full use of the cowl vent. Secured the loose wires with cable ties since I don't think I'll be taking the radio out again anytime soon. Lit up a cigar and turned on the radio . . . Sounds good. Started the engine. If anything, the static, varying with engine speed, is worse! ARRRUUUGH! Looks like I got more sleuthin' ahead of me.

May 26^th 2007  I had the best of intentions last weekend but didn't get much done. I'm having operating system problems with a few of the computers in the Krash Lab and I have to get everything running smoothly for my absence in June. By mid-afternoon I was frustrated enuf with my lack of progress to break out the latest offering of the "Beer of the Month Club". One of the four samples was a nice little brew labeled "Peg Leg Heavy Seas Imperial Stout" and it is 8% by volume. I imbibed all three bottles within the hour and it knocked my johnson rod into my watchpocket for the rest of the day!

June 2^nd 2007  OK, I've frittered away another weekend without doing anything on BillyBob. Last weekend I worked some on Renegade but that was it. Today, we're under the influence of tropical storm Barry and there's no work under the shadetree until that's past us. BillyBob's clutch seems to be working better and I don't know if the slippage is impending doom or, just normal wear or, my overactive imagination. I may be too sensitive since I've been driving around so long without a bed and spare tire and now I've got both and the bed is getting filled up with roadtrip supplies. The truck is heavier! I've noticed that the braking is solid but takes more pedal effort too. The wheel weights I removed a few weeks back improved the balance situation to a point that the occasional vibration is no longer noticeable unless I'm looking for it.

We're about ready to shove off for Macungie. BillyBob is running good and I'm just a bit superstitous about messin' with a good thing. Think I'm just gonna perform monthly and quarterly maintenance and change the oil tomorrow and let it go at that. I've got my laptop "Firefly" loaded up with editing and file transfer software and I plan to update the Macungie log entries whenever I get a connection. Time fer the rubber to meet the road. Start hummin' Robert Earl Keen's "The road goes on forever" and hit the traffic.

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Issued Saturday June 2, 2007

Updated Wednesday March 28, 2018

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