Restored 1930's Auto Shop

[soj]

Originally Posted by markviii

vince,
We try not to "work" around here, though it seems we enjoy doing things that other people might consider work. The "work" we can't seem to get started on these days is doing our taxes...it's just sooo hard to get going on them, even with the deadline looming large! Our other fun stuff is so much more enjoyable (and highly distracting) and fun to share.

Chris

Chris, thanks to you and Thomas I have had a great excuse (at least for the past few days) not to work on my tax return. Instead, I have been reading this thread from "cover to cover". Now that I have reached the temporary "end", I am out of excuses!
I have been a long-time GJ member, but as you can see from my post count, I am an (almost) incurable lurker. I was steered here by the Car Craft article and knew after the first few pages I would have to comment. But I wanted to wait till I had read it all. I can only add a big +1 to all the kudos, congrats and "atta-boys" that you have already heard. And a big thanks to the both of you for the time and effort it took to keep coming back and keep this thread going for so long.
Good luck with the framing shop, may it cause you to have to pay more income tax!
John

[e-tek]

Thomas, I posted a thread in Free Parking about your Garage being the third from GJ to make it onto the pages of CarCraft. Of course, being what your resurection of Virgil's shop is, it rightfully garnered 6 FULL pages! I absolutely love what Jeff Smith does with "This Guys Garage" and especially liked the "side bar" he wrote about GJ/your shop in the feature. I'd like to meet him in person one day.

I have to also say I especially enjoyed the several paragraphs devoted to your Dad, his teachings and how much you learned from his perfectionist ways. Between that and the part about finding Virgil's name patch in the grass, I was tearing up enough to blurr the pages.

Thanks again for the ride!

[old salt racer]

Originally Posted by BB767

dcm5652 those are outstanding pictures. That's something along the lines of what I'd like to do with my flathead perhaps. I've never done one before and believe it would be an enjoyable project. I've got a great friend by the name of Lou Bingham from San Diego.



He just happens to have held around 14 or so various land speed records over the last 50 years at El Mirage and/or Bonneville, many of them using flathead power.



He's a very knowledgable guy who I bet could give me proper guidance about flatheads.



Here's a copy he gave me of what I think this was the last speed record he set using the car pictured below.





Even though he finished his driving career with " modern" OHV engines he none the less knows what makes a flathead tick. You'll hear some more about Lou and his involvement with a certain Indy car already mentioned here, a certain, special manifold and that 6 degrees of separation thing and the world is really a small place etc.
BTW he's been to EVERY Bonneville Speed Week since I believe around 1953 without missing one, including last August. Even though he no longer drives race cars, he's still is active out there every year.

As for the always charming and delightful Chris being an angel I couldn't have said it better. I'm "lucky, lucky, lucky".

Thanks again for you kind words and persistence.

Thomas

Tom, you are more than generous about my records .the certificate refers to the full fender 32 roadster.

[becarsb]

kudos

i liked every bit of this tread


and.....
add Croatia on the list

[markviii]

becarsb - thanks for joining! The world gets smaller as it comes to the center of the universe.

Page 97 state/country list is updated.

hey, old salt racer - we're about over our jet-lagging, but the good vibes continue. We'll pick up where we left off sometime in the future - hopefully sooner rather than later. It's going to be 60 degrees here all week. Hopefully winter won't return for one last snow!

Chris

[BB767]

Originally Posted by soj

....

I have been a long-time GJ member, but as you can see from my post count, I am an (almost) incurable lurker...

Good luck with the framing shop, may it cause you to have to pay more income tax!
John

Hi there John and welcome. As you've read this thread is becoming a gathering spot for lurkers such as yourself so you're among friends here. I appreciate the good wishes for Chris's success with her framing but about that tax thing.......

Thomas

[BB767]

Originally Posted by e-tek

Thomas, I posted a thread in Free Parking about your Garage being the third from GJ to make it onto the pages of CarCraft. Of course, being what your resurection of Virgil's shop is, it rightfully garnered 6 FULL pages! I absolutely love what Jeff Smith does with "This Guys Garage" and especially liked the "side bar" he wrote about GJ/your shop in the feature. I'd like to meet him in person one day.

I have to also say I especially enjoyed the several paragraphs devoted to your Dad, his teachings and how much you learned from his perfectionist ways. Between that and the part about finding Virgil's name patch in the grass, I was tearing up enough to blurr the pages.

Thanks again for the ride!

e-tek I really appreciate the kind words. When Jeff from Car Craft first emailed me about using a couple pictures for the "This Guys Garage" section in the magazine I told him I didn't think two pictures could really do the shop justice. I sent him a series of before and after pictures and because of the unique nature of the shop he agreed it needed better coverage. He advocated with the senior editor for a full feature article and was given 6 pages to tell the story. The result was extremely well done and has been widely well received. He's been writing professionally for 30+ years and it shows. He then went out of his way to come to Willow Springs to meet Chris and myself. If you do ever get the chance to meet him I highly recommend you do so. He's one great guy and Car Craft is fortunate to have him on their staff. (how was that Jeff, think you'll get that raise now??)

I also note e-tek, you were an extremely early supporter of this thread commenting on here in only the second day I started posting about it back 2009. Thank you for your staying power.

Thomas

[BB767]

mhcomp
Junior Member

Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Grand Junction, CO

Allen, I don't know if you're still lurking here, but yesterday was your 75th birthday. Last year we honored you with....



...a picture of the more than 250 prune juice jars found on the property. Well for this year you get to see where they were found...



...in this trailer. Note the brick barbecue and white pine tree to help orient yourself.

Many happy prune juice jars to you sir!

Thomas

[BB767]

Originally Posted by old salt racer

Tom, you are more than generous about my records .the certificate refers to the full fender 32 roadster.

..........I knew that ............


(sorry abut that Lou) Thanks for the correction.

Thomas

[BB767]

In the continuing saga of the Walker floor jack...



The jack splits apart left and right around the power cylinder and lifting arm assembly. To help facilitate that...



...I put the jack body up on blocks just like a car. Next the wheels need to be removed.




The hubcaps on the front wheels will need to be removed first. The caps are a press fit onto the front wheel hubs. Look closely and you'll see two notches on the sides across from each other. This will allow you to place a hook tool into the notches and work the cap off from side to side. These notches will probably be be covered in harden grease and difficult to locate but they are there. Also the caps might be rusted on, so liberal use of penetrating oil ahead of time would be helpful. I was unsure how these were installed when I removed the first one so I worked veerrry slowly, didn't want to break anything. The first one took an hour to remove. Once I saw clearly what I was working with the second one took less than 5 minutes.



The front wheels from the factory had pins holding the hubs on. When removing them lightly tap from both ends of the pins. You'll probably find they move in one direction easier than the other. Note there is a washer between the pin and the wheel hub.



These pins are frequently replaced over the years with cotter keys.




With the pins removed the wheels slide off. If the end of the axle has been mushroomed you might need to file it down before the wheel will slide off. Look inside the hub, they contain needle bearings so when removing them place something under the wheel to catch any that might fall out of the hub. I use paper towels, they're white so anything falling on them is easily seen.



Here's a better view of the wheel hub. It's a good habit to count the needles as they're removed and make note of that number, 20 in this case. Note the wide space between two of the needles at the 9:30 position. The other wheel was just like this one. Intuitively it would appear they are both missing at least one needle so 2 new needles were fabricated for each side. Once the wheel is reassembled I'll know if it needs one or two more. If nothing else the additional needle will serve as a spacer and prevent these from cocking in the hub. While I don't know for a fact it's missing a needle or two, experience tells me they are.



With the needles removed you can see that there is a plain bearing pressed into the wheel hub. It's the slightly raised lip on the inside.(why yes that wheel has been powder coated, I didn't get a picture inside the hub until afterward)



This close up shows inside where the zig-zag ends of the bearing come together. Also you can see at the 9:00 position one of three holes in the plain bearing where grease from the zirk moves through to the needles.

Walker went to great effort to provide a well engineered piece of equipment here. Take your time to ensure you don't damage anything by rushing through the disassembly process. Harden grease will masquerade as metal, rust will challenge you, previous damage will sadden your heart, but by prepping ahead of time (days ahead) allowing penetrating oil time to soak parts will greatly aid your efforts.

Stay tuned for more exciting action...

Thomas

[creativedust]

I find myself getting anxious waiting for the next post and I know the guts of it completely. I finally got to read the article in car craft today very good spread Thomas

[BB767]

I'm sorry I forgot to show the final, completed handle sheet metal repairs in case someone was interested. Most of these have been posted but not the final inside pictures. This puts them all together.























These handles get cracked for two reasons in my opinion. If the attachment screws at the base of the handle are allowed to get loose and from rough, manhandling. A contributing factor is the jacks themselves are quite heavy, mine each weigh approximately 187 lbs (85kg). When you want to move them from place to place it's easy to just grab the handle while you're walking and yank them from a standing start. The handles are about 4' (1.2 m) long and that gives them a fair amount of leverage which aggravates the problem. Click on the link below from biggee's post #2427, and you'll see how those handles were reinforced right where they tend to crack.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...2-16110250.jpg

While in a school environment it's not realistic to expect them to receive love and affection but with a just a little care you can greatly minimize the damage.



This is the base of the handle of my original paint jack. It's older than the one I'm restoring and yet there are no cracks on the handle anywhere, testimony to what greater care can do for you over the years.

So remember to show your Walker Big Boy, Roll-A-Car jack a little respect please.

Saving old equipment, one jack at a time.

Thomas

[BB767]

Originally Posted by creativedust

I find myself getting anxious waiting for the next post and I know the guts of it completely. I finally got to read the article in car craft today very good spread Thomas

Patience Don, patience. No fair peaking ahead to the last post to see how it turned out like you can in a book!

I thought Jeff did a nice job on the article too, thanks.

Thomas

[BB767]

Originally Posted by bestatv

hello thomas. I have been lurking here for quite some time,and I have come to a conclusion,Peter Egan HAS to be your brother from another mother.The similarities are amazing.If this has already been mentioned,my apologies.
Oh. by the way,incredible job on everything.

Have you been talking to brother Peter? You have, haven't you??? Or maybe Mom? I thought he had agreed to keep that our "little family secret". Nothing's private anymore with the internet is it?? Geez...Ya know, I always thought I was better looking than him... but what do I know? I slave and toil away in a cockpit in Timbuktu, shoot- even my passengers rarely get to see me anymore, and HE gets all the glory.....you'd think he'd throw me a crumb every so often but noooo way. Mr-"I'm published monthly in TWO magazines, I've got book deals, royalties coming in hand over fist, etc, etc. yadda, yadda big shot. At least I've got more hair than he does.......... but even that's thinning these days. Maybe it's a good thing the passengers can't see me after all.

Seriously bestatv, you're the first to bring it up and frankly to mention me in the same breath with Peter Egan is beyond an honor. I'm not fit to empty the shavings from his pencil sharpener! What a talent and one of my favorite writers. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the thought.

Thomas

[Motown 454]

It looks like its came out great. Nice work.

[soj]

Thomas, a question... did you ever remove the data plate from the powder-coated jack? I know you were waiting until you had rivets in hand to do so, and you showed us the donated rivets, and I saw the post about painting it and cleaning off the letters. But it looks like the original rivets. Did I miss a post about removing and reinstalling the plate? Say it ain't so, cauz I stayed up late wayyyyyy too many nights reading this "cover-to-cover", and I don't want to find out I was reading with my eyes closed!

Also, I noticed on the other jack (unrestored), that the data plate states "Factory Rebuilt" So, even though it is older than the one with the handle cracks, it could have had cracks in an original handle that was replaced during the factory rebuild. Not that it matters, just a thought.

And I agree,about taking care of those jacks, and it applies to all tools, new or old, "use 'em, but don't abuse 'em".
John

[libbydog]

You brought the place back from the dead.
Really great work and very cool.

[dcm5652]

Thomas something to help you put the wheel-caps back on. If you can freeze the wheel with the bearings in place heat the caps and you can put them on by hand ,then when they reach the same temperature the wheel expands and the cap shrinks and you have a tight hold.I use outboard motor needle-bearing assembly lube to hold the needle's in place.

[PlekVis]

whoa!
i'm at the end?
just stumbled across this thread somewhere this morning, now it is almost 3 in the morning here in the netherlands (that's about 15-20 hours of almost non-stop reading) and my eyes are sore and my head is allmost exploding, what a great job you did on the shop and the tools... just awesome
the part about the Y-manifold gave me a lump in my throat...
keep up the good work, i'll be following from now on,
danny

[BigDaddyUSMC]

Lou Bingham's gift

I know you all are tool nutz..
Well Lou Bingham sent me a 50 year old tool today
It is a Proto tool company DZUS 1/4 turn fastener tool... I know that doesn't sound like much. BUT this tool was give to my Uncle Chuck Chenowth in 1961 when he had his Indy Roadster at Indianapolis motor speedway. Chuck gave it to Lou many years ago & Lou just gave it to me.



On one side it says PROTO PROFESIONAL QUALITY , on the other side is says INDY 500 SAFETY FIRST.

THANK YOU LOU