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.

26. A Needed Lift

November 26^th 2012  I was pretty dormant for most of the Thanksgiving Day four-day weekend, only rising from my sloth on sunday morning for the breakfast cruise-in in Fort Lauderdale. When I got to the BillyBob Shop after that, I cleaned off the workbench and placed the nailhead intake manifold and carburetor on it for disassembly. I believe the carby to be a Carter WCFB #2053S 'tho I won't be able to confirm that until I get it cleaned up enuf to find some numbers on it.

Deerslayer and I then saddled up and headed down to the Hog BBQ joint in Pompano Beach for the third annual "Turkey Soup Rod Run". Eugene Reidy started this show for those that couldn't make the trip to the massive "Turkey Rod Run" in Daytona every year. The weather was beautiful and I was in my element as Spanky and his family, proprietors of the Hog, serve my old favorite poison, Iron City Beer. I got myself a bucket of Iron and settled down in the shade.

After the Turkey Soup show was over, several of us retired to the sunday nite cruise-in at the bowling alley. I was still assimilating the Iron City and didn't buy any more brews. At nine, when the cruise-in ended, Eugene and I went over to Rich Shumacher's house a few blocks away. Rich had been at the Turkey Soup run earlier in the day with his '66 Studie Commander pro street car, equipped with a big block chebby 572. The hit of the show, however, was his son, Snapper's '28 Studie Cat.

This thing is well engineered and was a hit at the Daytona Turkey Run this year as well as the Woodward Ave Dream Cruise last year. I don't know my diesels. This thing is a massive C-12 caterpillar inline six in a heavy modified International twin-screw truck tractor frame. The '28 Stude body is fairly stock, including the interior. Rear seat is "stadium seating" to clear the massive pumpkin it is sitting over. Front seat is on electric tracks. Snapper brought this thing down from Pittsburgh, where he lives, and will be here awhile to show the "buggy" at the local cruise-ins. He can do burn-outs but doesn't very often because those rear tires cost about fifteen hundred, new. When he does do one, he starts in seventh gear.

After a few minutes at the Shumacher's, five of us jumped in the buggy and took a cruise up U.S.#1 in Pompano Beach. It was a hoot, listening to Snapper going thru the gears and occasionally applying the jake brake. I was riding shotgun. When we got a thumbs up at a light, he would hit the antique steam whistle he has mounted on the front "bumper" and plumbed into the air brake system. It is not very loud but loud enuf.

December 3^rd 2012  On tuesday, the Caterpiller Studie Buggy attended the cruise-in in Delray Beach at the Grand Tavern. Wednesday at the Citi Pub in Deerfield Beach and Thursday at the Hog BBQ in Pompano Beach again. Deerslayer and I were already at these events when they arrived. On Friday, they went to the Tower Shoppes cruise but I didn't attend that one. On Saturday, We all cruised to ABACOA in North Palm Beach. I haven't been there for over a year. I'm about cruised out this week.

On saturday before departing for ABACOA, Weekly maintenance, quarterly maintenance and a oil and filter change were performed on Deerslayer. Steering has tightened up on Deerslayer and I don't know why yet. A new "quality" taillight bulb that I got from Ron Francis Wiring lasted about a week before burning out. I purchased three of them so we will see if the burnout was a one-time anomaly.

On sunday afternoon, the boss and I worked on Frankie to get it ready for the Boca Raton Christmas Parade. I don't think the '39 Caddy has run since last year's parade. The battery is in a difficult to reach location in the passenger side front fender "pontoon". Somebody put a pair of "charging terminals" on the upper firewall but I don't think they are very functional. I took a voltage reading and got a little over two volts from them. I then did the contortions to do a reading at the battery and got around six volts. I managed to get the battery tender connected directly to the battery and we let it charge for a couple of hours. It wasn't enuf but cranking was a little stronger. We left the battery tender on and were gonna work on the Caddy again tonite but the boss just stuck his head in my office door and told me he made other arrangements to cart the mayor around in the parade and we'll play around with the Caddy again this upcoming weekend.

December 4^th 2012  After the election, I took out what little money I had in the stock market. I decided to invest some of that money in a lift for the BillyBob Shop. I had been eyeing a Bear single-post lift for some time for its low cost and portability. Alas, when I ordered it, I was told that I would be responsible for getting it off the "common carrier" truck when it arrived at the BillyBob Shop. I don't have access to a forklift and while I wuz tring to figure logistics, I told my new neighbor, Gato, about the problem.

Gato moved in a couple of months ago with two lifts. He installed one and stacked the other dissembled lift in a corner. It is an old 9,000 lb assymetrical two-post lift. It works but the motor should be re-wired or, at least, cleaned up. While we were talking, he offered it to me for $700 and said he would help me get it in position and anchor the posts. That deal was too hard to pass up. I ordered ten 3/4" x 5-1/2" wedge anchor studs from McMaster-Carr this morning when I got to the Krash Lab. I also ordered a couple of pounds of Rockite Fast Setting Cement thru Amazon, 'tho I'm not sure that I need it.

December 5^th 2012  Frankie, the Caddy, rides again! The boss arrived at the office this morning in the Caddy. It was a big surprise for me. He didn't get the air cleaner back on 'tho and I spent about twenty minutes making things right. It's a two-piece unit and the back piece was in the back seat but missing its wingnut. Meanwhile, the front piece, no longer secure on the engine, had fallen down on the generator on the trip from the house to the office. I was rummaging for a replacement nut for the missing wingnut when the boss found the wingnut in his pocket. He needs to wash the Caddy but it looks like the boss will be able to carry the Boca Raton Mayor in the parade tonite after all.

December 26^th 2012  Made it thru another Christmas celebration safe and sound. On Christmas eve, nine am, Gato dragged the first post of the two-post lift from his shop to mine on an engine hoist. He has done this operation three times before with this two-post lift, knows how he wants to do it and, wouldn't let me help him much. I wasn't much help anyway 'cause this thing is heavier than a dead baptist preacher. Gato got both posts up and walked them roughly into position then installed the cross-over beam, holding it with one hand, near one end, on a ricketty stepladder and trying to thread a holding bolt with the other hand. Then he secured the other side before stringing the hydraulic line across the top. Gato is a big man in his thirties but he was flagging by this point.

The installation is about thirty percent complete by my guess and I have to get some more stuff before we proceed further. Since I got the lift for less than a third of what I anticipated spending, I splurged on some quality tools to finish the job: a good hammer-drill and masonry bit. I'll also need the 240v electrical connector and hydraulic fluid for the lift and maybe some lift parts like cradle pads at the end of the lift arms but that is for another day after more research. The lift is a Ben Pearson commercial model LAS09 and it has double ratchet locks on each lift shoe. The chain pulleys on each hydraulic ram have real bearings, not bushings.

Christmas Day started at a fellow car buddy's house at eleven. At one, eight of us, including Gato in his '87 Chevy pickup, cruised Ft Lauderdale beach. Gato was sore all over due to Christmas eve's exertion with the lift. We stopped for gas and had a beer. The talk was of overheating engines in traffic. I remarked that the Dearslayer will run without a radiator cap. After the cruise, I headed for Stuart for Christmas with the Clarks. Cruisin' at 70, my earlier remark about the radiator cap made me think about adding coolant in the morning before I left the shop. I could not remember putting the cap back on but I did remember a metal sound like running over a trim piece shortly after leaving the shop. Sure enough, when I got to the Clark's, I lifted the hood and the cap was not there. Engine temp on the road had stayed at 180 to 190 the whole day, including the stop and go traffic on Fort Lauderdale Beach. No coolant was lost in Stuart and I traveled back to the barn with my eye on the temp guage which stayed in the same 180-190 degree range. This morning, I topped off the coolant and looked around the engine compartment with a flashlight. I got a mulligan. When the falling radator cap hit the fan, it was deflected into a concave area of the front cross-member. We are good to go again.

December 30^th 2012  The brake lights stopped working again a couple of weeks ago so, yesterday I put Deerslayer's rear up in the air and adjusted the shoes. No joy. Got good brakes but the lights are still not working. It's time to pull up the floor again and mess around with the switch.

January 1^st 2013  It's a new year and my fifth year of underfunding.

Washington, D.C. – September 17, 2012 – Since the beginning of the recession in early 2008, architecture firms have collectively seen their revenue drop by 40 percent and have had to cut personnel by nearly a third. Despite a national recovery from the recession in 2009, construction activity continued to spiral downward, according to the recently release 2012 AIA Firm Survey.

I'm thankful to even have a job in the era of obamanomics. The government continues to make the wrong decisions at every opportunity and I'm in for 'nother round of personal belt tightening.

January 7^th 2013  It's dark in the BillyBob Shop. Most of the high up tube lights are burned out. My ladder that gets me up to the loft area is too short to get to them. When Gato helps me set up the lift, it will be connected to a convenient 240v lead that a previous tenant coiled up and secured to the bottom of a bar joist with wire. I can't reach that either. I bit the bullet and ordered a 14' Aluminium stepladder thru Amazon Prime. It arrived at the Krash Lab on friday afternoon.

Saturday was the "13th Full Throttle Show of Shows" in Lighthouse Point, benefitting the Darrell Gwynn Foundation and put on by my friend, Eugene Reidy. It's the third time that Deerslayer and I have attended and I got there early enuf to get right in the middle of the 200 plus car showfield surrounded by several of my local buddies. I was lined up across from several of the race cars that come to this event. I had a good time and several people hung out with me around Deerslayer's tailgate.

On sunday, after the breakfast cruise-in, I headed up to the Krash Lab to pick up the 14' aluminium step ladder. Timing is everything and my co-worker, Jack, arrived just as I was dragging the ladder out the back door. He helped me secure the ladder in the back of Deerslayer in what I thought was the best way to carry the ladder back to the BillyBob shop. I would discover, in short order, that I was woefully wrong in that thought.

I hadn't gone very far down the beach road when the ladder started shifting around on Deerslayer's cab roof. I started slowing down to stop but it was too late. The ladder came off the driver's side of the roof, twisted around, hanging by the ratchet strap and dragged along the asphalt in the oncoming traffic lane. The great Mechanic in the sky gave me a mulligan in that there were no other vehicles near me in either lane of traffic and that I was able to get off the road and, with the help of a cyclist couple from Pittsburgh, I was able to get the ladder off of the road.

After thanking the Lord for my good fortune, we loaded up the ladder again, this time with the ladder hanging out over the tailgate. I put Deerslayer's spare tire on top of the ladder at the cab end. I didn't like this arrangement and I didn't have a red safety flag to hang on the end of it but it turned out to be much more stable than the previous arrangement. I motored the rest of the way carefully, paying special attention to turns and bumps in the road and arrived back at the BillyBob Shop without further incident.

January 14^th 2013  Didn't get anything done last week save for cruise-in and car show attendance. I'm biding my time until my credit card cycles to make any more tool or parts purchases. Any purchases I do make will be covered in the next installment.

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Issued Tuesday January 15, 2013

Updated Monday June 4, 2018

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