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 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.

21. Nailhead Roadtrip

January 18^th 2012  Attended the tuesday nite cruise-in in north Boca Raton last nite. Many of my sunday morning buddies were there. Met a few new people and saw this hot rod (for the first time, I think). Music was not loud but the dipsticks who live behind the restaurant still called the cops on us again. I think the police are getting as tired of them as we are.

January 23^rd 2012  On sunday morning, I met the usual suspects for the breakfast cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale. Several of them were convoying afterwards to a free show at the Fort Lauderdale convention center. Because the convention center is inside Port Everglades, there are homeland security issues and the second amendment is null and void there. For that reason, I was passing this one up. I went back to the BillyBob Shop and started overdue maintenance on Deerslayer.

Monthly maintenance was performed. Then I started quarterly maintenance. After two zerk fittings, I ran out of grease. I didn't have another cartridge so quarterly maintence will have to wait. While the truck was up on the jackstands, I discovered that the cord was showing through in a few places on the driver side front tire. Damnation! A new set of tires will have to go to the top of the list for Deerslayer. This means that I will also miss the River Ranch Rod Run in Lake Wales this upcoming weekend and that the Nailhead roadtrip will be postponed.

Next, I started swapping out Deerslayer's points distributor with the troublesome condenser problem for the HEI distributor that Tony built from a Chevy 2.8 v6 distributor. Tasks sometimes get easier the more times they are repeated and this is the second time I've installed this distributor. It was going smoothly when I got a call from my friend, Sam Gagliano. Sam lives in New England and I hadn't heard from him in a while. He was a few blocks away from the BillyBob Shop and in a bit of a pinch. He had just pulled in with a trailer of furniture. He had arranged a 24/7/365 access storage unit for it but the office of the place wasn't open on sunday for him to complete the paperwork and get his keys.

Sam had been to the BillyBob shop last year and I refreshed his memory on how to get there. When he arrived, he helped me with the rest of the distributor swap and we figured out how to get his trailer into the shop with BillyBob and Deerslayer for a few days until his closing. We succeeded and Sam offered to help me go get the nailhead with his truck and trailer when he gets the furniture unloaded. Sounds like a plan.

January 25^th 2012  Took half a day off this morning to hang around the BillyBob Shop. Just before ten, Sam and our mutual friend, Paul O'Keefe, showed up to pickup the trailer. They got it hooked up in a few minutes and were off to unload furniture at Sam's new place. Next week, Sam will bring the trailer back and we will head up to Palm City to pickup the nailhead.

January 30^th 2012  I picked up a cartridge of Green Grease during the week and finished off quarterly maintenance on saturday. I've had enuf fun getting my hair caught in my creeper's wheels so, when I went to the Boca Warehouse bay on sunday to pick up an old tire for transporting the nailhead this week, I grabbed some cardboard to lay on the next time I have to go under the truck. In one of my past organizing efforts, I lost track of my dial caliper. I've been searching for it a long time now. I just happened to see the caliper out of the corner of my eye at the warehouse and brought it back to the BillyBob Shop.

February 2^nd 2012  I took yesterday afternoon off from the Krash Lab to go get the nailhead. My friends, Sam Gagliano and Paul O'Keefe showed up at the BillyBob Shop a little after two with Sam's truck and trailer. The 150 mile round trip was uneventful and we were back before dark with the engine. Several quarts of old oil managed to escape the nailhead during the trip and we spent a little time cleaning that up. Okay, the first order of business with the nailhead will be to get it up on the engine stand and cleaned up.

February 6^th 2012  Made a run on saturday morning for oil and filter for a Deerslayer oil change at Advance Auto Parts. They've reduced shelf space for the Valvolene racing oil in favor of synthetics and I guess the writing is on the wall. Next time, maybe they won't have it at all. I picked up a couple of six-packs of Iron City on the way to the BillyBob Shop.

Took the intake manifold and carb off the nailhead as a unit in order to get attachment locations for the engine leveler hoist apparatus. I was able to lift the engine with the four furthermost manifold bolts. Unfortunately, after going thru all my spare connector boxes, I could not find any 7/16"-14 bolts for fastening the engine to the engine stand so that will have to wait.

On sunday morning, I was almost t-boned by a little econobox on the way to the breakfast cruise-in. Stop signs must be optional in this fella's country. I was in the right hand lane doing between thirty and thirty-five when I saw he was going to pull into the same lane from a side street without slowin' down. I was only about sixty feet away. Even if the Deerslayer's brakes were "good, the tires fair", getting stopped was not an option. I got a horn blast off before I veered into the center lane. I was only about three-quarters there when I passed him. In that split-second, I held my breath, waiting for the impact from the shitbox on the right or the ford exploder one car length back in the center lane I was tryin' to get into, or both. Didn't happen and I got back into the right lane before lookin' into the rear view mirror. The shitbox was stopped halfway into my lane behind me and the exploder had moved to the far left lane. I waved my thanks at the ford's driver before making my right turn onto the street that would take me on to the breakfast group. At no time were the brakes touched during this incident.

After breakfast, I stopped at the Home Depot a few blocks from the BillyBob Shop. Only three of the sixteen eight foot tube lights at the shop are still working and it is a bit dismal in there. I've never bought fluorescents before and I had no idea of prices. When I saw an average of fifteen bucks each, I knew I only had enuf cash for two and unless I could get a whole box (padded), they would have a hard time surviving the ride to the shop in the Deerslayer's bed. No lights today. On to the hardware section. No 7/16" bolts to be found of any length. Okay, on to the shop emptyhanded.

When I got to the shop, I remembered that a previous tenant had left some of the eight foot tubes stored in the trusses above the loft. They could be burnt tubes awaiting disposal or maybe not. I went up there and located three dust covered tubes. Managed to get them down and cleaned off. I installed two of 'em in one of the two fixtures I can reach, below the loft. They are good and I have enough light to work with for the time being.

Later in the day, I found that my fifty inch plasma tv is burnt out. Thought about it all day and remembered that Yogi Berra said "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!" In the twenty months I've had the shop, I'm still spending too much time laying like a slug on the couch. I've decided I'm going cold turkey on the vids. I'm not getting a new tv and I'm canceling my Netflix account. We'll see if I can do it. The sunday nite cruise-in was canceled due to the superbowl and I stayed home with a book.

February 8^th 2012  On monday morning, I ordered 7/16"-14 x 3" grade 8 bolts online from McMaster-Carr and on tuesday afternoon they arrived at the Krash Lab. Hard to beat service like that. At the BillyBob Shop, I put the nailhead on the engine stand. This was a first time for me so it took a couple of tries. The vertical spacing on the engine stand support arms was only about five inches on the first try but I thought those were the only bellhousing holes I gould reach. The engine sag was outside my comfort zone. Had a ceegar and looked at it fer awhile and came to the conclusion, I could reach at least one lower hole and maybe two to spread out the load if I raised the engine a bit higher. The hoist was unfolded again and I succeeded in reaching one of the lower holes but the other was still 1/16" too far. At least the engine didn't sag anymore.

February 10^th 2012  Last nite, on the way to the BillyBob Shop, I stopped at my friend Johan's shop. I hadn't been there for maybe five months. Johan is in his early twenties and yet, he's started his own hot rod shop in the middle of this great recession. The last time I was there, he was working well into the nite on most days and sleeping late. Now, he has nine to six shop hours because he has hired a full time helper. More power to him. Running your own business in these times isn't for the feint of heart.

When I got to the BillyBob Shop, I started pulling parts off the nailhead. Went for the easy stuff. Pulled the dizzy and plug wiring. Rounded off the second hexnut I tried to loosen on the exhaust crossover pipe, so, I took both exhaust manifolds and the crossover pipe off as one unit. Tried to take the valley pan off but couldn't get it past the intake runners. Looks like one of the heads will have to come off first, 'tho there was a photo of a mech taking it off with the heads in place in the '59 Chilton's I inherited from the old man.

February 14^th 2012  Didn't get anything done over the weekend. It was cold on the Gold Coast and I was a little off my game too. Besides the nailhead stuff in this log entry, I've added info to the Project Nailhead "Research" page as well as start a start a "Cleanup and Investigation" page. I haven't had the scratch to travel out of south Florida for over a year now but, I signed up for Billetproof in March. If I'm going to make that roadtrip, Deerslayer will need some refurbishing with brakes, tires and waterpump and some other smaller items. The next log entry will cover that.

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Issued Wednesday February 15, 2012

Updated Friday May 25, 2018

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