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.

13. Spiffin' up

October 18^th 2010  I made some progress this past weekend and went to four events. Friday nite's cruise-in at the Tower Shoppes was a good one. The weather was great and rides came out that you don't see very often. I sat with my friends Anthony and Gunsey most of the time. Saints and Sinners member "Boneyard" showed up with mutual friend of the club, Matt, and I hung with them after Anthony and Gunsey went home. Tattoo Dave and Model A Dave also showed up.

On saturday, I made a warehouse run and performed monthly maintenance on Deerslayer. Went to the Monterey Club on saturday nite to see the Koffin Kats from Detroit. I like some psychobilly bands. The Koffin Kats were too psycho and not enuf billy fer me. There was a lot of mosh pit action. I wish I could be here in fifty years to watch these guys slamin' walkers and wheelchairs into each other at the old age homes' saturday nite dances. We had a lot of hotrods out front for a change and I hung out by the rides with several other SnS members. I made it home around 2:30 am.

Was on the road again by 6:30 am to make the sunday morning coffee cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale. Event organizers Bill Carroll and Rich Martin are still out-of-town but there was a fairly good showing. A few new faces were there as well as Gunsey and Jack Douglas from the previous sunday.

In the afternoon, went up to the boss's house to work on his cars for awhile. From there, I headed down to the sunday nite cruise-in at Wahoo's in Lighthouse point. Home by ten and dead tired.

October 20^th 2010  Last nite was the opening cruise-in of the season for the Delray Classic Diamonds. It was a bittersweet start. At the last show in may, none of us realized that the group's founder, the robust Joe Garofalo, wouldn't be with us this year. Joe was brought low by leukemia shortly after that last show. He fought the cancer for three and a half months before it finally got him. It was a big shock to the rest of us as he kept it quiet and most of us didn't know about it until it was all over. We had forty cars at the cruise-in last nite which was a memorial to Joe. His wife Pam was there and his partner in the show events, Jean Lopane, is working hard to keep the show going in his absence. We all miss Joe's enthusiasm which included headlocks and tinny doowop music. My friend, Anthony, attended for the first time and I reconnected with old truck buddies, John Ray and Morgan Brown.

October 21^st 2010  Deerslayer is tellin' me that I ain't movin' fast enuf in the spiffin' up process. He has developed a tire leak in the driver side front tire. I topped it off at 35 psi on saturday and last nite, four days later, it was down to 15 psi. I topped off again. I haven't removed the tire from the truck and, so far, I can't see, feel or hear the problem. The remanufactured starter from Jim Carter arrived today. Maybe if I install that on saturday, Deerslayer will ease up on me a bit.

October 26^th 2010  It was a lost weekend 'cept for the friday nite cruise and the sunday morning cruise. I didn't get the new starter installed and the front tire is still losing air at about 10 psi per day. The evil spell of the dead starter parking space was broken yesterday. It took two tries to start last nite in the space across the lot from the demon space.

October 27^th 2010  The starter dead zone has spread. It happened last nite when I left the Krash Lab and at the Outback in Delray Beach when I left the tuesday nite cruise-in. Also happened this morning when I left the BillyBob shop.

November 8^th 2010  It's been a quiet week. I missed the friday nite cruise-in because I felt that Deerslayer wasn't up to it due to the starter and tire leak problems. I made it to the sunday morning cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale and the sunday nite cruise-in in Lighthouse Point but missed the tuesday nite Delray cruise-in. Haven't had a beer all week.

Last saturday morning, I put Deerslayer up on jackstands so I could get at the bottom starter motor bolt. I'm gonna have to improve the task lighting in the BillyBob Shop. That's about the only thing I miss from working outside. I can't see worth spit most of the time.

Deerslayer's starter has been hittin' the flat spot about half the time now and the weird "only happens in one location" phenom is history. Still, the odds of it happening that way must be in the "winning the lotto" or "being struck by lightning" category. I'm gonna keep the old starter and see if I can get around to re-building it for a roadtrip spare.

Well, I have definitely been negligent in my engine detailing tasks with Deerslayer. Need to get back to that. I don't know what paint Tony used for the engine. I'm gonna take a guess and pick up a rattlecan of Duplicolor Chevy Red. That should be close enuf. It's got some orange in it. I'll test it on a piece of scrap metal.

The Jim Carter 12v I6 replacement starter is slightly different than the one that Tony pulled from "a rusted 56 Chevy car that was sinking into the earth". The mechanical linkage is enclosed and the solenoid is a bit different on the replacement starter but the business end that meshes with the flywheel eyeballs okay. I hope it fits.

Okay, it's in. The top hex nut has very limited access. The only wrench I have that will fit is open end with very little movement. Can't get that as tight as I would like and, if I did, there would be the fear of not being able to get it loose again. I left Deerslayer on the jackstands, made shure he was in neutral, and applied juice to the starter without the ignition on. It works! Okay. On to the tire leak issue.

November 22^nd 2010  I was not planning to attend the big Festival Fleamarket Fall Car Show this year but events conspired against me. My friend Anthony Messuri had pre-registered for the event and, because of emergency surgery, he was not attending. He called the promoters and had the pre-registration transfered to my name. It would put me in a bad light to refuse this $25 gift so, I was committed to attending.

I put out a shotgun email to the Saints and Sinners Car Club members to see if any were going and if we could caravan to the show in order to park together. This email set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to a Saints and Sinners presence at the show. At Tattoo Dave's request, I made a series of calls to members and friends of the club who had running cars. Late saturday afternoon, I called club member (and promoter) Russ Galiagano and he was able to set aside ten spaces for us. On sunday morning, I met friends of the club, Joel and Model A Dave at the morning breakfast cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale and we convoyed to the show together. Tattoo Dave was already there with a tent and club banner. I had brought chairs and a full cooler of Iron City Beer. It was a good day, Not too hot and no rain.

November 26^th 2010  Back to the tire leak. The other front tire has started to lose air too. At first, I wondered if someone was playing a prank on me. I had Deerslayer's front end up on jackstands yesterday for monthly maintenance, quarterly maintenance and a oil change. I discovered a wood screw embedded in each front tire. Damnation!

I also discovered the main leaf of the passenger side front spring to be snapped in half! Double Damnation! I suspect that this happened last sunday morning. On the way to the sunday morning breakfast cruise-in, I heard a big bang when I hit a dip in the road at an intersection in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Startled, I attributed it to the three folding chairs in the pickup bed. Now, I'm pretty sure that this was when the spring snapped. The steering has been pulling slightly to the right this past week and that side of the truck is slightly lower, if you look close. Looks like BillyBob will become the daily driver for awhile, oil leaks be damned.

November 29^th 2010  Well, I didn't make it to the friday cruise-in at the Tower Shoppes. I didn't feel comfortable driving either truck that far. Saturday was spent puttering around the BillyBob Shop getting BillyBob ready to be a daily driver again. My friend, Paul O'Keefe, is back in town and he stopped by for the BillyBob Shop "nickle tour". Sunday morning, I took Deerslayer down to the sunday morning breakfast cruise-in but noone was there. Most of the regulars were up at the Turkey Rod Run in Daytona and the rest were deterred by morning showers, I suppose. About ten o'clock, Deerslayer and I went to the "I didn't go to Daytona" Turkey Soup Rod Run in Lighthouse Point, only a few miles from the BillyBob Shop.

Despite a couple of passing showers, It turned out to be a nice show with about fifty rides showing up to be judged. Two trucks I hadn't seen before were an old Willy's drag truck and a mid-thirties Chevy tall cab hot rod. Deerslayer got an award and I managed not to drink too much beer. Deerslayer and I were back home by eight in the evening.

December 6^th 2010  Haven't decided on which way I'm goin' on the front spring problem yet. BillyBob was the daily driver last week. I'm tryin' to cut down on my show attendence with limited success. Went to the Delray tuesday nite cruise-in with BillyBob. Didn't go to the friday nite Tower Shoppes cruise-in. Saints and Sinners club president, Rob, called me to let me know we were putting in a club appearance at the mega "Christmas Toys in the Sun Run" show on sunday. With that in mind, I took Deerslayer down to the Monterey Club on saturday afternoon for a car wash.

The Kreepy Kittens pinup gals were having a car wash to make some costume money. I had them give Deerslayer the treatment. He gets more action than I do. One of the gals (not in the pic) in a white top brushed up against the truck while doing the roof and ended up with a strategically placed red dot on her top. After Deerslayer dried off, I headed back up to the BillyBob Shop.

On sunday morning, I drove BillyBob down to the breakfast cruise-in. Many of the regulars were back and Paul O'Keefe made his first appearance with his chopped and channeled '47 ferd ragtop. After that, went back to the BillyBob Shop to exchange trucks. We were to take a toy with us to donate at the toy run and I was running late so I grabbed one I had lyin' around the shop and cleaned it up. Met up with Saints and Sinners and friends of the club down at the Monterey Club at eleven.

Took us an hour to get squared away and underway. Traffic was heavy due to the fact that I-95 is shut down for this show so that thousands of harleys can parade to the event. We weren't entering the car show with our rides, just walkin' the show with VIP passes Rob had obtained for us from one of the radio station sponsors. We got in and they gave us a place to park where we could get all our rides together with the motorcycles in the background.

At this point, my choice of toy, a musket cap pistol, didn't seem like a good idea. I didn't have a bag so it was stickin' out of my back pocket. This would have been a non-issue back in the fifties when I grew up, but not today. I credit the professionalism of the Broward County Sheriff's Department who were manning the two checkpoints we had to go thru. They gave the cap pistol a glance but nothing more. If it was the TSA, I could have gotten a warning shot thru my liver.

Our VIP passes afforded us free beer and food and the highlight of the day which was a set by the Charlie Daniels Band. It was a great show and, as many know, Charlie is patriotic and injects that feeling into his performances. He had us all reciting the pledge to the flag, loudly and proudly. After Charlie's set, we headed back to the rides and raided the cooler until traffic died away. Went back to the Monterey Club and split up. I was home again, tired, by eight in the evening.

December 10^th 2010  I took the day off yesterday to try to determine who parked a semi-trailer in front of the BillyBob Shop. While I was waiting for somebody to do something with the trailer, I pulled Deerslayer's front passenger side tire to remove the screw and repair it. I got a better view of the current state of the broken leaf suspension.

I found the screw and marked it with tape so I wouldn't lose track of the hole. Unscrewed the screw and let the air out of the tire. Followed the simple pictogram instructions that came with the repair kit, trimmed the plug and re-filled the tire with air up to 40 lbs. Stuck tire in the leak tester tub for a couple of hours. This step wasn't necessary but I bought the tub before I found the screw and, having bought it, was damn shure gonna use it. This was the first time I had a wheel off Deerslayer and the chrome lugnuts are too big for the 3/4" socket I use on BillyBob. It took a 21mm socket. I had a 21mm, 6pt socket from doin' work on Renegade a while back. Damn few times I get to re-use a tool I buy for that Jeep.

December 14^th 2010  Went to the sunday morning cruise-in and that's about it for this week. Cold weather is rolling thru in waves and I've not been doin' much more than tinkering around the BillyBob Shop. Got BillyBob up on jackstands dealing with the rear main seal and Deerslayer is waiting for his new springs to arrive. It's a lull and it's time to post an episode. Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year, everyone.

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Issued Wednesday December 15, 2010

Updated Tuesday May 15, 2018

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