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.

14. Livin' the Dream

December 20^th 2010  Didn't get much done over the past weekend. No cruise-in friday nite and saturday was our company Christmas party, held at the boss's house this year. On sunday morning, Deerslayer and I headed down to the sunday morning cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale. A few new guys showed up including this Task Force Chebby. On sunday nite we went to the Lighthouse Point cruise-in at Wahoo's. Weather was rainy and cold all weekend.

December 27^th 2010  Didn't go to any cruise-ins this past week 'cept the morning breakfast cruise-in yesterday. Six guys showed up but, due to bad weather, only Rich Martin and myself drove our hot rods. On Christmas, I drove the crippled Deerslayer up to Stuart for Christmas Dinner with my friends, Bill and Fay Clark. The truck made it up and back without incident. I'm having a cold misfire problem with Deerslayer again and it's close to tune-up time. I replaced number five plug but the cold misfire remained and is getting worse. It might be another cylinder causing the problem or the replacement plug is defective . . . or something else entirely.

December 30^th 2010  Went to the tuesday nite Delray cruise-in but not many cars showed because it was cold. The misfire problem is getting worse. I ordered tuneup parts from RockAuto but, because of the blizzard in the midwest and northeast, the order won't get here until next week. A RockAuto rep even called me to apologize about the delay. I've been warming Deerslayer up for five minutes before drivin' off and that worked to get rid of the misfire until the ride to the BillyBob Shop from the Krash Lab last nite. I could detect little popcorn fart misses during the entire ten mile ride.

When I got to the shop, I rummaged around in the BillyBob roadtrip supplies and found a set of unmolested AC Delco R45 plugs. I put them in Deerslayer's engine until the RockAuto order gets here. Deerslayer ran like new on the way to the Krash Lab this morning. Tony had remarked on the plugs' condition in the last Deerslayer log entry about low rpm driving habbits and I plead guilty. 'Tho I accelerate hard when there is no traffic in front of me, most of my driving is between 1,000 and 2,000 rpm. The racing sparkplugs I pulled look okay but they aren't working okay.

This wasn't a problem when I first got Deerslayer but you could still get gas without corn squezzins back then too. I don't know if that is a factor or mere coincidence. There were also more cross-country trips in that first year so the miles between tuneups were probably easier on the plugs. I don't know if racing plugs are engineered with the longevity of standard plugs either.

February 16^th 2011  Have been going to about half the cruise-ins and shows this year that I attended the same time last year. Haven't been taking too many pics either. I caught this Deuce coupe with a hemi mill at the Davie Tower Shoppes friday nite cruise-in a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I'd been there since november.

I finally stopped mulling over the alternatives to fix Deerslayer's broken spring problem and ordered new front leaf springs and hardware from Eaton. I picked their Rod Ride springs with a three inch drop. They are being made as I write this and should ship by next monday.

February 28^th 2011  Went to a car show with car club buddies Rod and Kelly on saturday. It was one of those hot and brutal asphalt parking lot deals without shade. I managed not to get burned too badly. Afterwards, we helped some other pals load up a 1950 Desoto two-door on a trailer for transport up to Johan's shop.

March 9^th 2011  Jean Lopane, who puts on the Delray tuesday nite cruise-in, called me monday so see if I was attending this week. She had live entertainment scheduled and was trying to get a large turnout. I've missed the last two cruise-ins and so, I told her I would be there, weather permitting. The weather permitted and more than a hundred rides showed up. Here is my friend, Paul O'Keefe with the "live entertainment".

I got there early because parking is haphazard, interspersed with outback patrons who are not car people. In fact, later on, Paul O'Keefe had to chase two of these people out of his '47 Ford custom convertible who thought they could just get in any stranger's car and make "varoom, varoom" noises. When I arrived, I followed this Willys truck in. Had to snap a pic for Tony Pascarella, Deerslayer's builder, as he is now messin' around with one of these trucks.

March 15^th 2011  When I ordered new "rod ride", three inch drop, custom springs for Deerslayer from Eaton, I got an e-mail back from Kim Mitchell at Eaton saying I could also get the hardware installation kit from them. I e-mailed her back to throw that into the order. I noticed after the order had shipped that Kim had written "rear" installation kit in the e-mail. Damnation! When the order arrived, the parts list said "Rear Installation Kit" but some unsung good person who put the order together, saw that I had ordered front springs and substituted the proper hardware for front springs!

On saturday, I jacked up Deerslayer in anticipation of installing the new springs. Didn't get far before I came to a hardware problem. The new spring pack is an inch thicker than the old one. The new, stock, u-bolts will work for the rear side of the axle but not the front because there are custom fabbed brackets for the gas shocks and the anti-sway bar that hang off the u-bolt ends. Both the new and old u-bolts are too short to be used in that location now. I have to get a pair of longer u-bolts fabricated. At first, I thought of using union nuts and threaded rod to get the needed length. Then, I smacked myself upside the head and gave up on that half-baked idea.

On sunday, I got up early for the breakfast cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale. Several of the breakfast crew were going to a car show in north Palm Beach and we were going to convoy up there after coffee. At eight-thirty, we lined up and headed for I-95. We had about fifteen rides in the convoy.

We managed to stay together pretty much on I-95 and it took us about forty-five minutes to get to the show site. They were already filled up but managed to find us a block of parking in the field on the side. This charity event for Hospice of Palm Beach is held at John Staluppi's Cars of Dreams Museum (He's the guy you see at the Barrett-Jackson Auctions with the little dog helping him with his bids). There were between 600 and 800 cars in this show.

Besides John's museum, there is a Model A museum on the backside of this building with mostly odd-ball Model A's like paddy wagons, hearses, buses and tow trucks. My favorite is the Model A "semi" truck. We all had a good time and were out of there by four. I went straight to the Lighthouse point sunday nite cruise-in to wind down.

April 13^th 2011  Just finished my tax return. Damnation! The only good thing about the dwindling of my earnings is that the ~!@#$% political class gets less from me to redistribute to their favorites.

I've been getting caught up with maintenance on Deerslayer but I'm not quite ready for the spring job yet. That will have to wait for the next Deerslayer episode. Been going to some local shows and cruise-ins but I missed Billetproof this year.

I hadn't heard from JR for sometime. Then I got a long email from him. Most of it was about the challenge of raising my neice and nephew, both teenagers. I don't have children but those of you who do know that it's the hardest job in the world and that your life revolves around the task. Even if you do everything correctly, there are no guarantees that things will turn out all good. At the end of his email, JR signed off with the phrase "Livin' the Dream", which can be uttered in jubilation or as a curse depending upon the occasion.

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Issued Friday April 15, 2011

Updated Wednesday May 16, 2018

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