Tinkering with Deerslayer

DEERSLAYER LINKS including vendor sites for parts and tools as well as sites for old truck and hot rod organizations

TINKERING WITH DEERSLAYER chronicles the day-by-day maintenance and improvements episodes for Deerslayer, a '37 Chevy farm truck hot rod.

CRUISIN' WITH DEERSLAYER Roadtrips, cruise-in's and truck show stories and tall tales.

TONY'S DUNGEON Tony Pascarella's forum entries at OldGMCtrucks.com and H.A.M.B. regarding Deerslayer, particularly the 302 GMC engine build in his farmhouse basement.

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

PROJECT NAILHEAD Chronicles the rebuild of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster 322 nailhead engine as a future replacement for Deerslayer's Jimmy 302.

11. No. 5 Cylinder

June 19^th 2010  Now that the "Revenge of the Tiki" show is over, I'm back to moving stuff from the Krash Pad to the BillyBob Shop. No shows or cruise-ins in the past week but I did go to the Monterey Club last nite to watch a hot rod documentary movie "The Devil at your feet". On the way home, the headlights went out for a second on two occasions close to home. This morning, they won't come on at all. I'll have to start checking things out between moving runs.

July 8^th 2010  The move from the Krash Pad to the new BillyBob Shop is finished for the most part 'cept for tidy'g up the shop floor and getting stuff hoisted up into the loft. I can start turning my attention to the trucks again. The headlight problem turned out to be the switch which I think might be original. Messin' around with it a bit got the headlights operational again.

I've been neglecting maintenance during the move and, since Deerslayer was used to haul the majority of the stuff, a lot of mileage was put on. I started with monthly maintenance last nite. Deerslayer wuz thirsty for brake fluid, battery water, engine oil and coolant. Deerslayer does not overheat but always looses coolant soon after it is introduced. It's as if the overflow tank isn't even there. I put a new Moroso seven lb cap on some time back but it didn't change anything. BillyBob's overflow system works and it is the same as Deerslayer's. Last nite, I put BillyBob's four pound cap on Deerslayer after topping off the radiator to see if that will make a difference.

Back before the Revenge of the Tiki show when Wyotech trained, fellow Saints n Sinners club member Johan was riding with me and noticed some pinging when I got on it, I turned the AFB carby's mixture screws counter clockwise a half turn to richen up the mix a bit. I think I can still detect a rattle at times and when I checked last month's fuel economy, I find I'm getting 18.27 mpg around town. Still too lean, I bet. I turned the mix screws another half turn richer.

July 10^th 2010  Went to the friday nite cruise-in at the Tower Shoppes in Davie. I hadn't been there for about a month. Anthony was there but Lou was busy with family. Afterwards, I stopped off at the Monterey Club. Mugsey (Saints n Sinners club member Bryan and barkeep) said some clubmembers were out of town and some were helping Johan move into his new shop in Deerfield. The band setting up were good but not my cup of tea so I had one PBR and headed up to Johan's shop. I had seen it tuesday nite so I knew where it was. It was locked up when I got there so I gave Johan a call. They were finished and at a pizza place. I decided to call it a nite.

This morning, I cleaner-waxed Deerslayer's fenders and pulled number five spark plug. That cold start miss is starting to come back. The plug is black and sooty again. I gapped a new plug and installed it. Looking at the plug chart, indicates an overrich air/fuel mix but I think I'm running too lean so I'm konfused. I'll be starting an overdue tuneup next week. Maybe I can glean some more clues during that process.

I've also been suffering an annoying buzzing from the voltage regulator relays at idle. I've been playing with the idea of swapping out the regulator for the solid state regulator in BillyBob to solve this but for the time being, I'm just gonna adjust the idle up to 600 rpm from 500 rpm for a few days.

July 12^th 2010  I got the idle a little too high at first. A few more adjustments found the sweet spot where the voltage regulator does not buzz and the engine does not diesel when I turn off the ignition key.

The cold engine miss was more pronounced over the weekend so that is my major area of concentration until I find out what's wrong or it goes away. I'll be starting the tuneup procedures tonite but probably not in the order I usually do them.

Went to a cruise-in in Lighthouse Point saturday nite at Wahoo's. There used to be sunday nite cruise-ins here but they ceased when the restaurant went out of business. Wahoo's has opened again under new ownership and the cruise-ins have started up again. This one drew over eighty rides and was a lot of fun. I ran into a lot of people I haven't seen for awhile including Rhett Roy, one of the participants of the Billetproof run.

Also ran into a guy I met sometime back who drove a '55 Chevy gasser to a Fort Lauderdale cruise-in with open pipes from Palm Beach. This thing had looked like it came directly out of the movie "Two-lane Blacktop" and had the Pro Street trailer queen guys going bonkers. Tonite he drove his '40 Jimmy hotrod. It's another pretty sweet ride. I talked to him for a minute but he was gone again before I could get back to him.

Sunday was an all day show for the AmVets. It was arranged by my friend JR (above) and 'tho I avoid all day events in the summer if I can, I went to this one because JR was one of the first in the local car community to befriend me. Also, because it was to support a veteran's group. I got there early (car number 3) and setup with Anthony and Gunsey under the biggest tree in the parking lot. Lou couldn't make this one as he had to work.

This beautiful traditional T-bucket was at both this show and Wahoo's the nite before. I had never seen it before this weekend. We had a good day and Deerslayer got an award. I was playing with the idea of going to the sunday nite cruise-in but high heat index exhustion combined with the cold engine miss problem convinced me to go home and rest up instead.

July 13^th 2010  Adjusted valve lash last nite. The adjustments were minor. Most of my time was spent wiping my sweat off the fenders. The cold engine miss was not as bad yesterday as it was on saturday and sunday. I have no idea why.

July 14^th 2010  When I got to the BillyBob Shop last nite, I added a half can of Seafoam to Deerslayer's just filled gas tank. While the engine was hot, I did a compression test. This is the first compression test for Deerslayer. I'm not overjoyed by the results.

Cylinder 1: 195 psi
Cylinder 2: 195 psi
Cylinder 3: 190 psi
Cylinder 4: 180 psi
Cylinder 5: 170 psi
Cylinder 6: 195 psi

I took a look at the plugs before gapping and installing a new set. Plug 1 was slightly sooty; plug 2 was tan as was plug 3; the insulator was broke on plug 4; plug 5 (pulled a couple of days ago) was sooty as was plug 6 to a lesser degree. I'm starting to get the bad feeling that I might have a head gasket problem . . . or worse. At this point, I wiped the sweat drops off the fender and went into the air conditioning for some comfort food.

There was no miss on the way to work this morning.

July 15^th 2010  The misfire is gone for the moment. I want to be absolutely sure that I have to do it before I tear into Deerslayer's engine so I splurged and got myself a birthday present a month early. Purchased a Rigid brand video bore scope to take a look see at the combustion chambers thru the spark plug holes. I plan on doing that on saturday morning after Deerslayer sits overnite so that if any water is getting in, I can see it.

July 16^th 2010  I just got to the BillyBob Shop last nite about seven when I got a call from Rob, president of the Saints n Sinners Car Club. A bunch of the guys were in a carport in south Fort Lauderdale, working on Jarle's old lime green Chebby. Jarle was short on tools and they needed a grinder. I found mine and headed south with an extension cord and face shield for good measure. The boys were replacing Jarle's powerglide tranny. They had the torque tube and rear axle disconnected and backed away from the tranny and were working on the engine bolts. Had to cut a hole in the floor to get at some of them. I grabbed a PBR and pizza slice and joined the supervisory and wellwishers group. The old tranny was bone dry! Jarle is the guy who earlier in the year had a rough running engine with three dead cylinders. Investigation of the old stovebolt revealed that valve lash was over 0.5" and the pushrods weren't hitting the rockers at all on those cylinders! Tonite's session came to an end when darkness fell. The boys still have to figure out how to get at the torque converter connectors since the dry tranny appears to be locked up tight. We retired to the Monterey Club to ponder the problem.

July 17^th 2010  Got up this morning and used the new video bore scope to have a looksee in the cylinders of the 302. Spent considerable time installing and configuring video capture RCA to USB hardware and software on "Firefly", my laptop, before pulling plugs and looking into the cylinders. The views are straight in from the spark plug hole so what you're seeing is mostly cylinder wall and a little of the combustion chamber and, on some of the cylinders, some of the piston top. You can't see the valves. There is an angled mirror attachment for the bore scope but it didn't give me a decent pic.

Cylinder #1

Cylinder #2

Cylinder #3

Cylinder #4

Cylinder #5

Cylinder #6

I don't really know how to interpret these 'cept to make the simpleton observation that cylinder number five doesn't look as good as the others. I do think I have some time to plan before I have to pull the head and will continue my research. The cold engine miss has not come back since I installed new plugs on tuesday.

July 21^st 2010  On sunday, there was a fashion photoshoot at Fort Lauderdale Beach for which The Saints n Sinners Car Club and the Salvagers Car Club provided the prop vehicles. It lasted all day and I didn't make it out to the sunday nite cruise-in. There was a SnS club meeting at the Monterey Club after the show. After the meeting, a few of the club members were going on a roadtrip to Lodi, New Jersey (near Staten Island) to pick up a chopped '49 Mercury project car. By their departure time of midnite, I had had one too many PBR's and made an error of judgement . . . I decided to go with them. For the 2-1/2 days we were on the road, no further work was done on Deerslayer. The story of the roadtrip will be told in the next BillyBob log entry.

August 2^nd 2010  Not much happening in the past two weeks as far as Deerslayer is concerned. I think I'm about recovered from my New Jersey adventure and we started tearing down Rob's Merc last monday nite. Last friday, Deerslayer and I made it to the Tower Shoppes cruise-in and I got to see my buddy, Lou, for the first time in over a month. Anthony and Gunsey were there too. Afterwards, I went over to the Monterey Club and met Dave, an old friend of Rob's and of a few other Saints n Sinners, who now lives in Austin.

Saturday, all day was spent performing overdue maintenance on Deerslayer including monthly and quarterly maintenance chores. I tightened up the exhaust system bolts and adjusted the parking brake when I was under the truck too. The engine makes a sound like a playing card against bicycle spokes when accelerating under load (doesn't make the sound when revin' in neutral) and I wuz hopin' that it might be an exhaust leak. No joy, tho'. I still have the annoying sound. My landlord, Jerry, pulled his boat trailer over to the shop and I filled up his tires for him. I also got a little detailing done on Deerslayer for a sunday car show.

On sunday, there was a benefit car and motorcycle show for the "Susan B. Anthony Recovery Center" in Margate, Florida. The Saints and Sinners Car Club were listed as "Sponsors" and club members "Russ G" Gagliano and "Tatoo Dave" Amchir were organizers. Club members "French" (with his lady Adrienne) and Jarle, and friend of the club Gilles (and his nephew) met around eight in the morning at the Monterey Club to convoy to the show site. Club member Rod and gal Kelly met us later in the afternoon at the show.

Jarle's lime green chebby is still down for the count awaiting a new engine and he's got the Jones to drive an old ride again. Gilles let lim drive his '53 Customline that French told me once belonged to SnS member "Sarge". It was a nice ride and a sunny day without rain, which meant it would be brutally hot in the middle of the shopping center parking lot where the show was held. My guess was a heat index of about 105.

Russ and Dave put us to work directing the show cars to our area of the lot. Later, Jarle helped with the trophys. The show went pretty well up to just before the awards presentation when Russ G collapsed. I was the first to reach him. I have no expertise in medicine but he clutched his chest which makes me think heart pain. Russ recovered after a few minutes and brushed off our attempts to get him to seek medical help. After the awards ceremony, he collapsed again and, again, I was the first to see him go down. Again, he wouldn't listen to us and the best we could get him to do was go inside one of the shops where it was cooler and sit for awhile.

At this point, we had some trouble with the event organizer and an angry Dave went off to find her. She showed up at the shop where I was sitting with Russ and read us the riot act. She told us to take our cars and get out. I don't know what this is all about but I think the car show proceeds will go directly to the charity now without going thru her. Russ went outside to take down his tent. I tried to do all the heavy lifting but the old warhorse only let me do a little. Afterwards, we were standing in front of the biker bar when Russ collapsed for the third time. This time, the police on scene called the paramedics and gave Russ no option in the matter. After checking him out for twenty minutes, they took him to the hospital for observation. Dave notified the family and arranged to get Russ's car home. I had a couple of beers in the bar and was home before dark.

August 12^th 2010  It turned out that Russ Gagliano needed a couple of stents. One artery was blocked 70% and one was blocked 30%. He's out of the hospital now and feeling much better.

Last nite I went to a new cruise-in at Duffy's Diner in north Fort Lauderdale. It's only a few miles from the BillyBob Shop. Only one other guy I know showed up with a car. There were about twenty cars total. This '52 Willys custom parked next to me and it's the first time I've seen it. Don't know if I'll be back to this one again. I went this time because the weekend rain wuz giving me cabin fever.

August 16^th 2010  The weekend was rough. On friday nite, I met with my friends Anthony and Lou and Gunsey for an hour at the Tower Shoppes cruise-in before heading for a Saints n Sinners meeting at the Monterey Club. There was a three-day Tattoo Expo going on in Deerfield and and there was a possibility that we were to help out at the car show there on sunday. We went to the Expo on friday nite to get our weekend passes. Got home about two from that one.

On saturday nite, there were five bands scheduled to play at the Monterey Club, most of them Rockibilly. I arrived about eight and got a parking place out front on the walk in front of Kreepy Tiki Tattoo's. Spent most of my time out there talkin' with the other gearheads. This pic was taken about two from the hood of Deerslayer. I got home around four. On sunday, the call never came from the club president to meet up to go to the car show so I spent the day in recovery mode.

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Issued Monday August 16, 2010

Updated Friday May 11, 2018

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