Author Topic: Today I... (Read 696055 times)

kali_74TA · « **Reply #1040 on:** February 27, 2016, 11:46:50 PM »

so about same as on a 95 for the tune up? pain in the ass, lol......guess I would need to have my mechanic shoot me an estimate on that. hmm, maybe I'll call the guy tomorrow...

Casey · « **Reply #1041 on:** February 28, 2016, 02:14:50 AM »

It's a little bit easier on the LS1 as it uses coil on plug versus the Opti-Spark distributor and plug wires that have to be routed a certain way on the LT1. I know on LT1 cars the book says 7 or 8 hours in labour, and the LS1 might be an hour or two less but the main cause for such a long amount of time is you're really supposed to drop the exhaust and pull the starter on the passenger side in order to get to the number 8 plug.

Wait, somebody remind me why do I want a fourth gen again?

kali_74TA · « **Reply #1042 on:** February 28, 2016, 02:47:15 AM »

Quote from: Box on February 28, 2016, 02:14:50 AM

It's a little bit easier on the LS1 as it uses coil on plug versus the Opti-Spark distributor and plug wires that have to be routed a certain way on the LT1. I know on LT1 cars the book says 7 or 8 hours in labour, and the LS1 might be an hour or two less but the main cause for such a long amount of time is you're really supposed to drop the exhaust and pull the starter on the passenger side in order to get to the number 8 plug.

Wait, somebody remind me why do I want a fourth gen again?

just because, that's the best answer i can give

btw, maybe a terrible and stupid question....but, what if you didn't replace the number 8 plug, are the other 7 easy to do? is there anything bad that could happen if you did only 7 vs 8?

FormTA · « **Reply #1043 on:** February 28, 2016, 04:48:38 AM »

I replaced the plugs on the 98 LS engine that I'm installing in my 79 TA. The plugs were burnt so bad.. The gap was huge! How and why it ran so well, I have no idea. The only downside I can see if you leave the one in is the coil pack for that plug is probably stressed and may have a shortened life trying to create a spark across the excessive gap. One of my plugs had a gap that was no longer measured by thousandths....

DeCaff2007 · « **Reply #1044 on:** February 28, 2016, 07:30:49 AM »

I haven't contributed to this thread in a while, so yesterday I...

Finally finished installing the water pump to my house's water supply. I didn't read the instructions the first time and did it totally wrong

Now I just have to pressurize the system. That involves dragging the air hose from my garage to my basement. That's going to be a pain in the ass, so I"ll do that after work tonight

« **Reply #1044 on:** February 28, 2016, 07:30:49 AM »

Casey · « **Reply #1045 on:** February 28, 2016, 01:20:37 PM »

Quote from: kali_74TA on February 28, 2016, 02:47:15 AM

Quote from: Box on February 28, 2016, 02:14:50 AM
It's a little bit easier on the LS1 as it uses coil on plug versus the Opti-Spark distributor and plug wires that have to be routed a certain way on the LT1. I know on LT1 cars the book says 7 or 8 hours in labour, and the LS1 might be an hour or two less but the main cause for such a long amount of time is you're really supposed to drop the exhaust and pull the starter on the passenger side in order to get to the number 8 plug.

Wait, somebody remind me why do I want a fourth gen again?

just because, that's the best answer i can give

btw, maybe a terrible and stupid question....but, what if you didn't replace the number 8 plug, are the other 7 easy to do? is there anything bad that could happen if you did only 7 vs 8?

It varies from person to person, if you're small and flexible you'll have a much easier time than if you're not. You'll want to replace all the plugs, leaving the number 8 unchanged would make you one of THOSE people and it can lead to the cylinder misfiring once the plug is past usable. It's a royal pain in the ass but if you use good platinum or iridium plugs you won't have to do it again for another 50-100K miles. If it were me I'd spring for the Denso or NGK iridium plugs that you can get for $4.50-6.50 each off RockAuto so you won't have to change them for again for a very long time.

77 TA man · « **Reply #1046 on:** February 28, 2016, 03:58:16 PM »

I primed a spoiler end cap, it looks pretty good for a rattle can job. I cut out the remaining pass floor pan and fitted in the replacement along with removing the heater core.

roadking77 · « **Reply #1047 on:** February 28, 2016, 04:42:32 PM »

Worked on the pass side window adjustment some more, think I got it close enough until I put the door panel on. I also took the dr. side regulator out, cleaned all the rust off, installed the new window motor, re installed and installed the door glass. As typical, this side adjustment looks really good and the door panel should only make it better. A little bit of work is better than nothing I guess.

Ford5of5 · « **Reply #1048 on:** February 28, 2016, 05:57:22 PM »

Today, I helped my brother seperate the 55 Ford and 66 Tbird. Apparently these cars don't get along with each other.

Casey · « **Reply #1049 on:** February 28, 2016, 06:21:39 PM »

Aren't they a little old to still be having a sibling rivalry? That really bites, at least it seems the damage is mostly in removable parts. Speaking of brothers and Fords I helped mine with his '70 LTD and '76 F100 today, got a new carb on the LTD and it running again and then sorted some wiring on the F100.

79GoldnTan · « **Reply #1050 on:** February 28, 2016, 07:15:03 PM »

Today I replaced my power steering box. Was an all day job but will be safe to drive again. Spring is just around the corner. Next up is to pull the trans for a rebuild, was jumping out of 2nd letting off the gas last summer.

Pats TA · « **Reply #1051 on:** February 28, 2016, 08:12:11 PM »

Ford5of5, I hate Murphy's Law! I feel bad for your brother. With no tags on either car I'm sure they are not insured.

Ford5of5 · « **Reply #1052 on:** February 29, 2016, 12:16:12 AM »

The Tbird is registered and insured, the Victoria is not. I was told by my insurance company that in Mass the insurance company does not pay for repairs to cars of this age and would total the car; my agent stated that the salvage value is $1.00 after 20 years of age. My brother will double check with the insurance company tomorrow.

My brother was working on installing the dash, steering column and 12v conversion wiring. By silly Ford design, the 55 Vic can only be started in neutral. So, the neutral safety switch was disabled to be swapped out later for a newer unit that would start in park or neutral. The transmission is in need of a rebuild, the car/tranny needs to warm up before it can drive. What happened is that he started the car thinking it was in neutral when it was in drive. Once the tranny warmed up the Vic took off. Apparently, he forgot to hook the linkage back up.

I was in the garage grinding out welds on my 79 TA. I felt the collision more than I heard it. I was going to ignore it at first, but I didn't. I go out back and do an immediate face palm. I have no idea about availability of parts for the Tbird. The Vic is on the difficult side for many parts.

76455sd · « **Reply #1053 on:** February 29, 2016, 04:16:06 AM »

Ford5of5: wow, that's a bad day. They both look like nice cars. MA auto insurance sux.

72projectbird · « **Reply #1054 on:** February 29, 2016, 08:05:16 PM »

That sucks about the 55 and 66

They look fixable at least,

I picked up an 81 SE T/A parts car last night.

« **Reply #1054 on:** February 29, 2016, 08:05:16 PM »

Ok-TA1977 · « **Reply #1055 on:** February 29, 2016, 08:07:08 PM »

Sorry took so long to get theses but work and weather...

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Both rear quarters and the trunk drop offs... pretty much gone..
Also ordered all the body parts today.. hopefully it won't take long to start putting back together.
BTW labor is $40 per hour is that good or bad????? He does excellent from what I've seen. I went to his shop and seen some WIP's and photos of finished cars.

scarebird · « **Reply #1056 on:** February 29, 2016, 09:29:05 PM »

$40/hour is great if the work is good.

Finished up the cam swap on the 71; quieter and smoother.

77 TA man · « **Reply #1057 on:** March 01, 2016, 07:02:01 AM »

Quote from: scarebird on February 29, 2016, 09:29:05 PM

$40/hour is great if the work is good.

Finished up the cam swap on the 71; quieter and smoother.

Screw college, I'm becoming a body man now,

scarebird · « **Reply #1058 on:** March 01, 2016, 12:08:55 PM »

that is what the shop gets, you get 12/hour and all the cancer causing chemicals you can snort.

Ok-TA1977 · « **Reply #1059 on:** March 01, 2016, 01:11:14 PM »

Quote from: scarebird on March 01, 2016, 12:08:55 PM

that is what the shop gets, you get 12/hour and all the cancer causing chemicals you can snort.

Its not too bad if you wear the proper PPE.

Quote from: 77 TA man on March 01, 2016, 07:02:01 AM

Quote from: scarebird on February 29, 2016, 09:29:05 PM
$40/hour is great if the work is good.

Finished up the cam swap on the 71; quieter and smoother.
Screw college, I'm becoming a body man now,

That was the lowest i could find, everyone else was at least $50 an hour.

Casey · « **Reply #1060 on:** March 01, 2016, 01:13:16 PM »

Or open your own shop and then you get the $40 an hour, but then you have to cover all the overhead and take all the risk.

Yeah $40 an hour is a pretty fair deal provided the service is good to great.

Casey · « **Reply #1061 on:** March 01, 2016, 01:19:46 PM »

Quote from: 77 TA man on March 01, 2016, 07:02:01 AM

Quote from: scarebird on February 29, 2016, 09:29:05 PM
$40/hour is great if the work is good.

Finished up the cam swap on the 71; quieter and smoother.
Screw college, I'm becoming a body man now,

Actually the thing to do would be to go to technical school and get on with a dealership as a service technician and work your way to becoming their Master Tech. That or start as an oil change tech and show initiative and that you know cars, and you can even get the dealership to send you to school to become a service tech. If you get in with someone like VW and you get all of their certifications you won't have to ever worry about losing your job over something trite, as VW requires all their dealerships to have at least one fully certified VW technician just in order to run a service shop. With cars getting increasingly more difficult to service at home the demand for skilled mechanics is only going to go up.

scarebird · « **Reply #1062 on:** March 01, 2016, 02:26:50 PM »

Quote from: Box on March 01, 2016, 01:19:46 PM

Actually the thing to do would be to go to technical school and get on with a dealership as a service technician and work your way to becoming their Master Tech. That or start as an oil change tech and show initiative and that you know cars, and you can even get the dealership to send you to school to become a service tech. If you get in with someone like VW and you get all of their certifications you won't have to ever worry about losing your job over something trite, as VW requires all their dealerships to have at least one fully certified VW technician just in order to run a service shop. With cars getting increasingly more difficult to service at home the demand for skilled mechanics is only going to go up.

not quite.

That may have worked 20 years ago but the service tech nowadays do not make the money they used to - not even close with the way billing is set up. I have several close friends who wrench for a living and they are darn glad they are retiring soon.

Casey · « **Reply #1063 on:** March 01, 2016, 02:50:20 PM »

I guess it depends if you get paid by the book hours or hourly. My uncle is a master tech for Toyota and is paid by the book hours on jobs completed and averages around $100K a year, not bad for not having gone to college. I could understand though if you're only getting hourly pay as with on the book if you're good you can do things faster and still get paid for the listed hours, then turn around and do another ticket. I suppose most dealers are getting away from that system for obvious reasons.

Ford5of5 · « **Reply #1064 on:** March 01, 2016, 03:44:33 PM »

Today I got quotes to repair the T-bird. I went to 4 places and got 2 quotes from each, one for the repair with blending and a second for the repair and full paint. We already purchased a new door and fender, $550 delivered; we use Pat Wilson for T-birds parts, I can't say enough good stuff about these folks, they are simply fantastic! The first shop said 9k and wouldn't give me a quote for just the repair. They didn't want to put their name on a sub par repair and made sure to tell us they had 4 cars in the World of Wheels and that we wouldn't get the car back until June!. Next place gave me a price of 3k and 7k. Third place, 1500 and 3800. Fourth place said 1400 and 3500.

The first shop has done insurance repairs for us in the past. Body and paint wise, they do nice work. BUT with a few glaring exceptions, my Dad wanted an aftermarket grill on his truck after I rear ended a box truck. He bought one that literally bolted on top the origional with hidden fasteners. For some really odd reason they cut out the factory grill and grafted the new grill onto the old mounting flanges. I have no idea why that was done; it looked good so we never questioned it. Also, they messed up the door locks and broke the windshield wiper washer bottle and pump. Their mechanic had the balls to tell me the washer bottle and pump must have got hit in the front end collision. They weren't, the pump worked and bottle held liquid, I know because I used it and had checked the bottle when checking for leaks. Also, they left out maybe a half dozen plastic rivets. They took care of all our complaints, so we never really put up much of a fuss. Basically, for body and paint they are excellent, for anything mechanical they kinda blow. Now that we're talking about 9k, that stuff does matter.

I went to the 4th place based on the recommendation of one of my customers who uses them for his DD's and Corvettes. They do mostly insurance work and some custom stuff. The examples I've seen of their work are excellent, a '65 Vette respray and his rear ended Lexus. The shop owner said he can take the car right away and have it done in 2-3 weeks as long as there isn't another big snow storm. Funny thing is the third shop said the exact same thing. lol

scarebird · « **Reply #1065 on:** March 01, 2016, 05:20:12 PM »

Quote from: Box on March 01, 2016, 02:50:20 PM

I guess it depends if you get paid by the book hours or hourly. My uncle is a master tech for Toyota and is paid by the book hours on jobs completed and averages around $100K a year, not bad for not having gone to college. I could understand though if you're only getting hourly pay as with on the book if you're good you can do things faster and still get paid for the listed hours, then turn around and do another ticket. I suppose most dealers are getting away from that system for obvious reasons.

They are, hence why gigs like your uncle's are vanishing. Another consideration is the work is very hard on your body.

Casey · « **Reply #1066 on:** March 01, 2016, 10:02:15 PM »

He actually had to have back surgery not that long ago as he's been doing it for over twenty years now. I was looking into following his footsteps about six years ago and the dealership was still hiring on book pay, but that's quite some time for things not to change I guess. I would say go into nursing since last I recall there was still a shortage, but it's a demanding job and stressful in its own way. Eh time to fall back on an old adage, "If you find a job you love you'll never have to work a day in your life".

Today I found a car I want to buy and called this afternoon and presumably it was his wife that answered and said he was at the store and to call an hour or two later. So that's what I did and apparently was out with the grandkid at that time. Gave her my number and asked for him to call when he could and judging by the time it's not happening today. Hopefully get a call back tomorrow, I don't want to have to call constantly and look like some kind of crazy person just to get ahold of him.

cal30_sniper · « **Reply #1067 on:** March 01, 2016, 10:27:44 PM »

Today I finished grinding out the welds on my driver's side repair patch. I used part of the lower patch panel from Ames to get rid of an area of the fender that had rusted from the inside out. The patch was shoddy, as noted in the Ames catalog. It was a good source of sheet metal, but everything had to be reshaped on it, and the attachment tabs and fenderwell edge had to be formed from sheetmetal separately and welded on. I'd say it's not too bad for my first time every welding sheet metal. Patch was butt welded in.

And, after that, I finished stripping the fender. I used a DA sander with 80 grit pads, and a variable speed angle grinder with strip wheels to get the smooth areas down to bare metal. I used my media blaster to get all the places I couldn't get to with the strip it discs, including the inside of the fender. I also used my stud welder and stud buddy to pull out the various dents and creases that I could find. I left the inner bracings separate and blasted them as well. I'll put a couple of coats of epoxy primer on everything, and then weld the braces back in.

I got the skin of the other fender stripped, but it still needs to be blasted. Hopefully I can finish that up tomorrow and be ready for paint.

DeCaff2007 · « **Reply #1068 on:** March 03, 2016, 08:51:55 PM »

Today I... Only went to job number one for a change. Got home, filed my taxes, changed the oil on my fathers HHR, diagnosed a bad water pump on the womans Jeep, and fixed an ABS sensor on my Camry.

Finally had dinner around 9 and I actually have OFF tomorrow!!

scarebird · « **Reply #1069 on:** March 03, 2016, 09:52:58 PM »

Fabbed up a neat little tool to pull the Pitman arm. Essentially took a piece of 3/8 thick 4" round steel disc, drilled a pair of holes and milled a 1-1/2" slot to slide around the arm, then slid in a pair of 7/16 bolts, hooked into the gear puller and away it went.

solargold · « **Reply #1070 on:** March 05, 2016, 11:22:33 AM »

Picked up a set of 8 inch snowflakes completely refinished with a new set of 225/70/15 tires, never mounted

77 TA man · « **Reply #1071 on:** March 05, 2016, 05:03:21 PM »

Today I...Rescued a pair of 1988 F-Body T-Tops out of a guys yard in good condition for $25. I plan to resell them soon.

Casey · « **Reply #1072 on:** March 05, 2016, 06:54:07 PM »

Tomorrow I'm going to look at a '96 Formula hardtop with the 6-speed. It's exactly how I'd want one and looks to be all original in good shape, I'm so excited I probably won't be able sleep(then again what's new there). Hopefully it's everything I've dreamed of. Hopefully I won't be giddy like a schoolgirl, but I'm not making any promises.

scarebird · « **Reply #1073 on:** March 05, 2016, 08:05:42 PM »

According to the local weather guys it was supposed to be a crappy weekend weatherwise (we have had the wettest winter ever here in Seattle...). It was clear with an occasional cloud this morning so I taunted the rain gods further by washing the Lemans. Motored up to visit another righteous Pontiac brother, enjoying the reinstalled 2801 cam. Don was considering a 2802 so let him drive the KRE-headed 440 as a baseline (his is a 67 'Bird with a 462 and KRE's). Met daughter and had lunch and the Lemans growled her way home.

cal30_sniper · « **Reply #1074 on:** March 05, 2016, 10:33:28 PM »

Finally finished stripping/media blasting the front fenders, and got two coats of SPI red epoxy on them. Came out pretty nice. Next step is to weld the inner braces back in, add the skim of filler I need to smooth it all out, and seal it with epoxy again. Then I'll spray my high build and do the base coat/ clear coat on the edges that will be covered up for final paint.

Unless I find something else hiding somewhere, I can now proudly say my car is 100% rust free. The scale between the inner braces and the outer skins should have been the last rust that was anywhere to be found. Most of it cleaned up very nice after blasting, and I replaced the one scaly part with a fresh patch of sheet metal.

Casey · « **Reply #1075 on:** March 06, 2016, 08:55:20 AM »

Going to see the Formula, wooo. Will update with results later, hopefully it involves pictures.

TA6.6Liter · « **Reply #1076 on:** March 06, 2016, 10:00:46 AM »

Cleaned the remaining interior dash plastic; glove box, vents, kick panels and rear seat side panels. Next step is to paint and clear.

Casey · « **Reply #1077 on:** March 06, 2016, 06:42:51 PM »

Today this happened:

Two owner 118k miles and all stock.

76455sd · « **Reply #1078 on:** March 06, 2016, 07:54:33 PM »

based on the change to your signature line....Congrats and I hope you have good luck with it.

Casey · « **Reply #1079 on:** March 06, 2016, 08:06:30 PM »

Thanks! It's kind of surreal after wanting one for years now and never finding one close enough, the fact it's exactly what I wanted makes it even better. Drove and rode well on the 90 mile trip home, it's the happiest I've been in some time.

« **Reply #1079 on:** March 06, 2016, 08:06:30 PM »

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Author Topic: Today I... (Read 696055 times)