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.

7. Putzin' around

December 31^st 2009  Half day here at the Krash Lab. Traditionally, we start popping the wine bottles at noon. With our reduced staff that means a bottle for each of us. Deerslayer won a bottle of chardenay at a cruise-in sometime back and I brought that with me today to add to the festivities. I'm not a wine drinker and it's been sitting on the kitchen counter at the Krash Pad for the better part of a year.

I've got two resolutions fer myself this year. The first one is to answer my e-mail in a timely manner. I make this same resolution every year and maybe this is the year I make good on it. The other resolution is to have all four rides running. As the daily driver, Deerslayer only requires detailing and routine maintenance. BillyBob runs okay but is slowly returning to the elements due to neglect and I need to administer a lot of TLC. Renegade is in pretty good shape but needs some maintenance and more exercise. BettyLou has been sitting behind the Krash Lab for two years now and needs extensive chassis work. Some punks walked on her hood and roof so she needs some bodywork too. She is by far, the biggest challenge at this juncture. Tomorrow we begin.

January 2^nd 2010  Okay, one more resolution - Moderation. I went out on New Year's Eve for the first time since 1991. There was a hotrodder's party at the Monterey Club, next to Orange County Choppers in Fort Lauderdale. These are mostly young guys who take the traditional hot rod and custom car culture seriously. I told myself I would only stay a few hours and get home before midnight . . . when I next checked the time, it was after two!

The temp was 47 when I arrived at the Krash Lab this morning. I don't know how much work I'm gonna get done today, if any.

January 3^rd 2010  Colder today than yesterday. Temp is 'bout the same but the wind is up. I'll probably wimp n wuss inside the Krash Lab until it warms up. I noticed when gassing up on the way home yesterday that Deerslayer's odometer had rolled over on the way home from the Monterey Club (named after the Merc, not the land mass). We're back to a lot of leading zeros. My best guess of the odo reading when I picked Deerslayer up was 82,750 miles so that's over 17,000 miles under the wheels in the sixteen months since then.

I did some minor Deerslayer maintenance when noon rolled around. Cleaned the cab. I stopped on Fort Lauderdale beach on the way home on New Year's and I believe I brought half the beach sand home with me. Recharged the air cleaner element with oil and topped off the master cylinder fluid. That's about all I did before heading off to the sunday nite cruise-in.

January 4^th 2010  Damn cold at the cruise-in last nite (by Florida standards) but I got the chance to take a couple of shots of this radical ferd shoebox in the fading light. It's well engineered despite the ratty look. Surface rust only and a lot of new steel with good welds. The four lawn chair seats are a little scary. It is sitting on the ground here and all the hydraulics are pretty well hidden. Suspension components like a-frames are old school. Doors are suicide. I think the mill is early small block chebby with two edelbrocks on a tunnel ram manifold. He must have some baffles in the headers that dump out of the fenders because it is not overly loud. The chassis work and engine are not rusty and there is a little more work done on it everytime I see it. He brings it up about five inches off the ground when it's underway.

January 9^th 2010  Okay, the nation is in a prolonged cold snap that extends clear down to south Florida. It will get up to fifty if we're lucky today and the chance of rain is high. Tuesday nite's cruise-in with the Classic Diamonds was darn cold and I spent most of my time in the bar. I'm tempted to wimp out again this weekend but I was following a thread on the H.A.M.B. yesterday about guys working on their rides with cancer, diabetes, chronic pain and other disabilities that really shamed me. All I have presently is Lazy ass syndrome.

When I woke up this morning, The temp was 55F and rain was pending. By daylight, the temp had gone down to 45F and it was raining. The temp kept going down all day. I decided to stay home in the Krash Pad and clean house . . . It has to be done sooner or later.

January 10^th 2010  The power went out at the Krash Pad last nite for 'bout an hour and when it returned I had lost half my cable stations, including the weather channel and all local stations. This condition persisted when I woke up this morning.

Deerslayer doesn't like the cold weather any more than I do and was slow to start. I stopped for gas on the way to the Krash Lab and wondered how cold it was while pumping gas and listening to the chattering of my remaining teeth. When I got to the Krash Lab and brought up the local weather on the Intarweb, I found it to be 35F with a wind chill factor of 26F in sunny downtown Boca Raton. Damnation! This building has no heat so I didn't bother to take my coat off as I type this. It is 'sposed to get up into the low fifties but I have my doubts since it's almost 10AM and the temp is still in the mid-thirties.

By twelve-thirty, the temp was up to 42F with a 36F wind chill. If I work under the shadetree today I might get hit by a falling iguana. The boss said he might want to go to the Rupp Collector Car Auction in Fort Lauderdale. A month or so back, one of the guys in the local Merc club asked me if I wanted to move cars around at the auction. Today, I'm damn glad that I said no. I'm gonna wait a little while longer for the boss to call then I'm gonna pack it in for the day. No cruise-in fer me tonite.

January 15^th 2010  Well, south Florida has been thru the coldest twelve day cold snap since 1940 and we're finally back to normal temps for this time of year. We didn't make the auction but Deerslayer and I attended tuesday nite's cruise-in. Like the week before, I spent my time in the bar. Today, it's in the seventies for the first time since new year's. I got up to the warehouse to exercise Renegade and pick up tools for this weekend's work under the shadetree. Forgot the jackstands again. Damnation!

January 16^th 2010  Wuz gonna take it easy last nite but my friend Lou called at 3:30 PM and said that he and Anthony were down at the Tower Shoppes cruise-in. I grabbed some gas and beer and made it down there by 5:45 thru rush hour traffic. We packed it in at 8:30 and, since it was on the way home (yeah, right), I stopped off at the Monterey Club. It was a quiet nite with a local band and I spent most of my time out in the parking lot with the gearheads. I still got home after midnite but it was a few hours earlier than the first two times I was there. Gonna keep working on that.

One of the young guys had a '54 Chebby sedan with a tired 235 stovebolt in it and the car sounded terrible and wouldn't go over forty-five. They started messin' around with it in the parking lot. They pulled the first three spark plug wires off it with the engine running and it kept running with no noticable change in sound on three cylinders! I didn't think that was possible! Spit, I still don't know what to think. The dizzy wiring wasn't right either. I gave Joe, the guy trying to make it run better, the stovebolt firing order, and, after checking it against Deerslayer and 'nother chebby stovebolt, he corrected it. After that, it wouldn't run at all 'cept for a misfire here and there while cranking. I offered that the dizzy might be 180 degrees out but these guys were working with a flashlight and a leatherman. I was surprised that Joe was able to get the plugs out with the tools he had. The plugs were okay. They pushed it into a corner of the lot and they are probably working on it again, with real tools, as I write this. I might go back tonite for a little while to see what they came up with.

It's been two weeks of inaction due to the cold snap and maintenace items are backed up. I started out with monthly maintence. Deerslayer needed a quart of oil, some brake fluid and some air and that was it. Followed up with quarterly maintenance where I topped off the steering gearbox. While I had Deerslayer up in the air (I stopped at the warehouse on the way in this morning to get the forgotten jackstands), I got the grimeblaster powerwasher out and degreased the front of the chassis. Also took the grimeblaster over the top of the tranny and other areas exposed when I removed the floorboard this morning.

January 17^th 2010  I wuz a good boy yesterday and went home to the Krash Pad. We have 50% chance of rain today and it's breezy but at least it's warm. Deerslayer's fenders are starting to flatten out again, paintwise, so I gave them the Mequiar's Cleaner Wax treatment first off. Got three of the four fenders done when it started sprinkling on me. Came inside the Krash Lab to wait it out.

Ninety minutes later and it's raining harder. I usually smoke a ceegar or drink a beer, or do both at times like this. Sadly, I'm outta both. Damnation! Grabbed a fresh cuppa java and sat in BillyBob's cab while I exercised the engine for a half hour. The hand throttle comes in handy for this task since you can use it to get the engine up to operating temp and recharge the battery. Idle speed isn't so good for that.

The rain stopped around one o'clock. I warmed up Deerslayer in anticipation of messin' around with the valve lash adjustment. Took my new Actron remote starter switch out of its plastic and hooked it up . . . no go. Went in the Krash Lab and checked continuity with my multi-meter. Nothing. Tore it apart to see if the wires were loose. Nope. It's a good solder job. Problem is inside the switch. POS. At least I found out before I took the valve cover off. I waxed the last fender and packed it in for the day. Time to pick up some beer and head out for the sunday nite cruise-in if the weather holds.

January 22^nd 2010  Made it to cruise-in nites on sunday, tuesday and wednesday. I'm battling a problem with the laroke mail server today and won't make it up to the warehouse but I'm still plannin' on getting out of here early enuf to make it to the Tower Shoppes friday nite cruise-in to meet up with my buddies Anthony and Lou.

January 26^th 2010  Well, I didn't make it to the cruise-in friday nite but I did get down to the Monterey Club for a few hours. After that, the weather was "uneasy" the whole weekend and I didn't get anything done out under the shadetree. I did get another Actron remote starter switch and this one was good. It wasn't worth sending the other one back under the warranty terms as the shipping costs (one way) are more than the item is worth. Just mark it up to another lesson in the school of hard knocks and move on.

January 28^th 2010  Sunday nite and wednesday nite cruise-ins in Coral Springs were canceled. These are held at a Mexican restaurant in a shopping mall (private property) and the sunday nite one is highly successful with sixty to eighty cars on average. The city has noticed this success and smells a revenue stream. All of a sudden, we need a permit to assemble. No more cruise-ins until it is worked out.

January 31^st 2010  I made it down to the friday nite cruise-in and sat with Anthony for a few hours. Lou was off doin' security duty. Afterwards, I went to the Monterey Club for a few hours. Nothing got done on saturday. I was scheduled for the River Ranch Rod Run in Lake Wales, Florida but it had a wind and rain forecast of seventy percent probability and that was too high for a 175 mile run each way so we didn't go.

Today, we have uneasy skys again and I just know that if I start anything out under the shadetree, it will be tempting to the rain gods. I'm gonna post this episode, even though I haven't really done anything worthwhile this month. The sunday nite cruise-in is back on and I'm gonna head out there in a few hours. I think I'm gonna take BillyBob. He needs the run and the attention.

< Back to IntroMore Putzin' Around >

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Sunday January 31, 2010

Updated Tuesday May 8, 2018

copyright © 2008-2018 Larry R. Kephart all rights reserved