BillyBob Work-in-Progress Log

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS was the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I could accomplish without a garage up until the summer of 2010 when I finally got enough warehouse space to work in. Now, it also includes the continuing work on BillyBob in the shop.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

You will need the Adobe Acrobat browser plugin to view these wiring diagrams which are in the PDF file format. This format allows zooming and panning. If you don't have this plugin, it can be downloaded and installed (free) from the Adobe site. The button below will take you there.

BILLYBOB WIRING DIAGRAM Here's the wiring diagram updated with BillyBob's current state 'cepting the third-party strap-on turn-signal director.

STRAP-ON TURN-SIGNAL DIRECTOR/BRAKE LIGHT CIRCUIT This turn signal and brake light circuit diagram shows the current state of the third-party turn-signal director wiring, which will remain in place until I figure out the problems with the OEM turn-signal director. It also shows the OEM headlight switch.

67. Here . . . We . . . Go

March 31^st 2014  Hangin' out in the BillyBob Shop on saturday, I decided it was time to get back on the stick with BillyBob. The truck had developed a gusher of a rear main leak and a few years ago I decided to pull the engine and replenish the seals. Mission creep turned the situation into a bigger job. Now, I'm at the point of a major refurbishing, a transformation from a stock farm truck into a mild custom shop truck / push truck. It's time to get the show back on the road.

March 3^rd 2015  Been almost a year since I last thought of working on BillyBob. Deerslayer continues to be the only ride I have running but that can't last forever and I've got to get BillyBob ready to be the daily driver again when it comes time to rebuild Deerslayer. I've gotten accustomed to riding around in a hot rod truck and I don't want to give that up. The first of many hot rod parts arrived at the Krash Lab yesterday. To quote the Joker, "Here . . . We . . . Go!"

Okay. As you can see, I've been a bad boy. This is the first shipment of a 4-71 blower kit for BillyBob's 235 inline six. James Larrowe of JJ Inlines is responsible for putting this kit together. He is also developing one for the Jimmy 228 - 302. When the rest of the parts get here, I'll mock things up to see if I'll be able to keep BillyBob's original three-on-the-tree shift linkage.  That determined, I'll pull the engine.

April 24^th 2015 The second shipment from James Larrowe arrived today at the Krash Lab I will have to wait until I get to the BillyBob Shop with it to open the wooden box but I believe it to be the double-keyed crankshaft and bearings for BillyBob's 235 engine.

When I got it opened up, it was the crankshaft alone and it looks good. It was well packaged for shipping and I will be able to re-purpose the shop rags that were wrapped around the crankshaft snout and flywheel flange as well as the wood of the shipping box.

May 4^th 2015  A few weeks ago, I snagged a pair of '49 Mercury taillights from eBay. It wasn't a good price but I think it was a fair price. They will have to be restored but the chrome is good and the glass is not scratched. They arrived at the Krash Lab on Friday.

Why '49 Merc taillights? Some unknown, at least to me, hot rodder in the dim mists of time discovered that the '49 Mercury taillights are almost a perfect fit for the contours of the '47 thru '55 fat-fendered chevy and GMC pickup trucks. Damn little fabrication is needed to make them fit. Voila! Mild custom touch.

July 17^th 2015  More blower kit parts arrived at the Krash Lab yesterday afternoon. The cast, two piece blower manifold with 4-71 adapter plate (shown here upside down) was what I've been most anxious to see. Also in the shipment were exhaust manifolds, which James Larrowe had thrown in the deal as freebies, and a heavy, double keyed balancer, along with some fasteners and manifold gaskets. 

October 3^rd 2015  Spent the day uncovering BillyBob for long awaited work on him. Stuff had been piling up around the truck for years. The trick was finding other places to store this plunder out of the way as shop space is getting scarce.

By early afternoon, I had him squared away for work. Aired up the tires to reposition the truck for engine bay access and welding work on the cab. I was grunting and pushing without result when I did a facepalm and released the parking brake.  Gato visited me for a few minutes and a guy named Larry stopped by to talk nailheads. He had gotten my name from Bill Carroll and has a shop nearby.

October 14^th 2015  The time has come to mock up the engine improvements to BillyBob.  I needed to find the manifold bolts and alignment sleeves first. I have two sets of these but figured the easiest to find would be the ones that came off BillyBob when I started disassembly a few years ago. They would be in the pickup bed somewhere. I got lucky and found them before I had to move too much stuff around. They had to be cleaned up via parts washer and tumbler before I could proceed further. I took the 4-71 adapter plate off the new manifold to ease installation. 

I had been concerned about holding the manifolds in place while getting the bolts started but the absence of the adapter plate reduced the weight of the manifold considerably. Additionally, the alignment sleeves held the manifold in place against the head while the rear portion rested on the steering column. This allowed me to hold the exhaust headers in place and start the manifold bolts with their bridges without difficulty.

After tightening up, the manifold has only a half inch clearance with the steering column. At this point, I do not know if that will be enough (due to engine torque). Research is called for. I do know that the three-on-the-tree transmission linkage is history. I had to remove the shift box from the steering column first thing as it and the manifold were trying to occupy the same space.

October 17^th 2015 Continued the blower mock up on Saturday. Pulled the balancer, thermostat housing and water pump. Mounted the 4-71 blower from TBS (The Blower Shop) and installed the new Harmonic balancer. Since this is only a mock up and the balancer is a press fit, I only installed it half way with block of wood and BFH (big frickin' hammer). 

The new water pump / alternator pulley was installed next with the recessed allen head cap screws provided. These cap screws did not want to go in, even after chasing the threads. In the end, I only put two of the three in for the mock up. The blower snout and tensioner arm went on next. I was missing bolts for the blower pulleys and the shaft that the tensioner pulley mounts on so I found temporary bolts in my vast collection for the mock up. All this blower plunder came from James Larrowe in one big box that was stuffed with about a month's worth of crumpled newspaper packing.  I checked it twice but there's a good chance I threw the baby out with the bathwater and the missing parts ended up in the dumpster.

The new modified water pump and pulley went on next along with the new alternator bracket James sent me. The blower belt is too short by one or two inches so it didn't go on at this time. I also installed a Thickstun repop valve cover I got from an eBay vendor. Checking clearances, I have about a foot left under the hood for carburetion and air cleaner. When the hood is in the down position, the blower pulley is about an inch from the hood edge. The bad news is that the blower belt and pulleys sit where the radiator used to be. and, since all the front end bodywork hangs off the radiator support, I have a engineering and fabrication challenge ahead of me.

The old balancer was a task to get off, even with the puller I procured for the job. The old stovebolt doesn't have a bolt in the end of the crankshaft and the balancer has a hand crank socket even tho' the grille no longer has a hole for the hand crank to fit thru. First one of the puller side bolts pulled out because I didn't have them in the balancer deep enuf. After that was rectified, the pull was going fine, the puller bolt getting easier to turn until it started getting more difficult to turn. WTF!  Discovered that the puller had bottomed out and that the puller bolt threads were starting to eat into the hand crank socket. Pulled the puller for the second time and put a small ratchet socket in as a spacer to keep the puller bolt threads away from the hand crank socket. A few turns after that, the balancer was off.

This is the first BillyBob log entry since 2011. It's been a long dry spell and tho I move at a glacial pace, the glacier has been winning the last four years since I have not been moving at all during that time. We're movin' again now.

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Issued Monday October 19, 2015 

Updated Friday April 13, 2018

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