Chevy 1957 truck – Stewart Creek Somethings

Little Dumper to the shop

August 10, 2024Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is happening, the second to last item that is needed before Little Dumper can be used on the farm is one step closer to getting completed. Mr Gingerman got the new radiator installed last weekend so it could now be driven into town to the brake place. Unfortunately, the back brakes have a huge leak so the brake line for the back brakes had to be capped off and the pickup only had sorta functioning front brakes. This was doable as I had planned on taking all of the back roads to town and only anticipated having to stop 3-4 times on the entire trip. So I set aside Friday as the day to move it into town.

I put my last two gallons of fuel I had on the farm into the fuel tank. I keep a five gallon can full of high octane ethanol free regular on the farm for small equipment. I had to pop the hood and turn on the battery. We installed a manual battery shut off switch under the hood. This way we don’t have to worry about an infrequent ground wire. The battery will be ready to go at all times. Due to the infrequent use the Little Dumper will have this seemed like a good plan. Plus, I already had the switch for an old tractor we sold and it was brand new. This meant I had to get the hood up. After five minutes cussing and repeated attempts I kept getting the hood loose but could not get it lifted. There was some latch trick I was missing. I called Mr Gingerman, yep I needed to jiggle the latch continuously until I found the sweet spot to get the second half released. Once I knew that it only took a couple of tries.

I had only cleaned out the passenger side earlier due to the driver door not working. Mr Gingerman had adjusted the front fender so the door can be opened. I had to get a large box and scoop all of the trash, dirt, broken floor mats out into a box to toss it all away. I was able to get the beast started fairly easily. It sounds amazing! Like really amazing since it had not been run for 25 years. I attempted to put it into reverse, but there are no marks on the shifter. I had it in the wrong gear and felt it as I let the clutch out slowly. It turns our reverse is all the way towards your knee and down to the seat.

It has been 25 years since I have driven anything this old. This was evidenced by me taking off in first gear. That gear is low and slow, it is designed to start off with a full load of wheat in the back in the middle of a field. I hit second gear immediately then tried to slow down with the brakes. NOPE! There were brakes but stopping was a 30-50 foot process. On the plus side as soon as I let off the gas the drivetrain started slowing the vehicle down without the brakes. I then tried to shift into first gear while the vehicle was still moving. NOPE! There are no synchros in the transmission. Again, I knew this but 25 years…

I took a picture as I was going down our driveway. The blurry picture is due to dirt and the original window. My goal was to keep the speed down so that brakes were really unnecessary. As soon as I got on top of our hill I got it up to fourth gear and was whizzing along. I am unsure how fast that was because the speedometer does not work. It was fast enough that when I wanted to veer to the left at the Y intersection I panicked a little. There was a vehicle coming from the other direction and it hit the intersection before me. I almost had to keep going straight as I could not slow down very fast. They managed to get through the intersection in time for me to turn left thankfully. I slowed down to third gear.

The old pickup is a one ton vehicle with no rear shocks. It has this huge stack of leaf springs to absorb the weight and distribute it equally. This does nothing to make the ride smooth. Instead when we hit a couple of bad washboard spots in the gravel road I felt the back end kick loose. It had way more air time than ground contact.

I only had to waive two vehicles past me. Otherwise there was no one on the roads. Now I was able to roll the driver’s side window down and use hand signals to notify everyone else on the road of my intent. For the most part everyone gave me a pretty wide birth as I was concentrating on driving and steering fairly intently. I think they sensed a certain amount of trepidation on my part about me being able to keep the vehicle moving down the road in a predictable manner.

I got to the shop without any incidents and they are going to do a complete brake overhaul. We decided that it was not a rush job but I did not want them to take as long as it did to get the tires for the truck earlier this spring.

I looked up our total amount into getting the truck up and running again and so far we are into it for $4446.05. That does not include the gasket kit for the rebuilt master cylinder or the brake work by the shop. Hard to believe we have literally just done the basics to get it up and running. That won’t even make it street legal. We will need to fix the lights, turn signals and brake lights and speedometer to get that. I believe there is a seat belt waiver due to the age of the vehicle but I don’t know. Another thing I would have to look up. Luckily, that was never our intent. We want a mini dump truck on the place to move soil, compost and rocks. That is what we need and we are closer than ever to our goal.

Getting caught up

April 7, 2024Steve HardinLeave a comment

I spent most of the day just puttering around doing little things. Sometimes it seems like I don’t do much on those days but it all needs to be done eventually. I watered our three new fruit trees, two apricots and a peach tree. They are still in buckets and I will get them in the ground next week. They are all blooming so I will have to pick off the fruit as soon as it shows up. I don’t want them to produce fruit this first year, I want them to grow and spread their roots.

We had already moved our chive plant up to the front porch entrance pots. I split it in half so we could have some in each pot. So today I split our edible creeping thyme into two bunches and put it around the base of the chives. We would like the thyme to grow over the side of the pots. The thyme was in an old half wine barrel in the back garden area. When we moved the barrel the entire back is rotted out so it needs to go away. We will use the soil in the other garden planters then I can burn the rotten barrel. Both planters got a good soaking with water to start them on their way.

I dug thistles on the front hillside. Since we are trying to establish clover we cannot use any type of herbicide on the hillside. So all thistles are dug with a shovel. This took quite a while to get done. As soon as I finished that I went and cut ends for our tomato enclosures. Annmarie wanted panels on the end to keep the cats out so she could plant basil plants between the tomato plants. I almost found enough clips to hold them in place correctly. I need four more small clips. Now that I think about it there may be four out in the old house. I will have to check sometime.

I have been slowly working on the Bell! I run the wire brush over it to clean up the rust then hit it with some Rustoleum spray paint. I have been doing this for over a year. Today I decided to just hit it and make some solid progress. Mr Rainman and I had lifted the bell off its stand a couple of weeks ago so I had a lot better access to the bell. I got both uprights sanded and painted. I ran out of dark blue spray paint so now it is a bright blue. I went over to the old house and found eight more cans of spray paint so I figured the bell was getting whatever color I had on hand. I was able to break loose the bolts holding the ringer gear onto the bell. I cleaned the bolts up and ran the threads over their entire length to make sure I could tighten them on the reassembly. I then worked on the ringer gear and got it all cleaned up. I am not going to paint the bolts until I get them on the bell. I think another two hours and I will have the entire bell body cleaned up and painted. Once that is done I will need to make a new wooden base for the bell. Then I need to buy four 2x8x20’ boards and I can mount the bell in the upper portion of the hay side of the machine shed. This will keep it totally out of the weather.

Since the Gingerman got the Little Dumper running yesterday I figured I had better do my part. I went over to look at the door rubber seals. I ended up having to grind down some rusted screws holding a metal plate to the bottom of the door. It was just one solid horizontal piece of rust. I was able to grind the tops off and pry the metal piece off. I then had to grind down the screws until they were flush and smooth before installing the new rubber seal. I managed to get the seal on and only had to cut about one inch out of the bottom middle and use seal glue to put the gasket back together. I tried to take the screws out of the door so I can gain access to the window but there was one screw I could not budge. I will need to spray some penetrating oil on it and hope I can budge it next week.

I have all of the door seals and the front and back window seals. The front window seal needs to replaced ASAP. It is torn and has multiple holes in it. The rear window seal looks great but since I have a new one I might as well replace the old. I did try and latch the passenger door but it would not seal tightly. One more thing to adjust and repair on the old truck. I suspect the rotating mechanism is not rotating! I know, it took a pure genius to figure that out. When I get the panel off to get at the window I will be able to get at the door lock/handle mechanism at the same time.

Spring is coming

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024Steve HardinLeave a comment

The bees know when spring is here. If they can find pollen then spring must be here even if we cannot figure out where they are getting the pollen. Annmarie went out to check on our two bee hives and only one made it through the winter. The other one died fairly early in the winter as the feeder we had placed on top was still full of sugar water. This sucks but we knew that there is a high kill rate on bee hives before we got into this. Luckily, the new hive is bigger and healthier than the one that died off. I went out to the deceased hive and scavenged off as much honey comb as I could. We put it into a metal strainer and then crush it up and let it drain out for a week next to our propane stove. We managed to salvage five half pints of honey. The only thing we did was run it through cheesecloth to get out any chunks of wax and bees. It’s pretty dang good!

Annmarie went out and gave the single hive an extra honey box and put in a queen excluder so she could not use it as a brood box. We have been letting the scavenge the honey from the comb of the dead hive. They have just about cleaned up all of the honey left over.

When Mr Rainman came back with the burnt out switch the first time I was working on getting the dirt pad elevated some more. I put up string so I could find the correct level height the pile needed more dirt and to be flattened out some more. I am holding out hope that the Gingerman can get the 57 truck “little dumper” up and going so I can get gravel instead of having it delivered. I had Mr Rainman work on moving dirt while I fixed the wiring for the second time. My hope is we won’t have to pay for gravel to be delivered, I will be able to just go out and pick it up and pay for it by the ton. Once the wet weather is over we will break out the compactor and start beating some gravel into the pad and getting it level. I just did not want to make the entire pad out of gravel. I think once we get the pad level. I will dig four equally spaced holes and put deep concrete pylons in place. All thread installed and I can fabricate anchors so we can bolt the structure down so it cannot blow over.

The Gingerman came out yesterday to work on the 57 truck for a few hours. All of the hoses except the heater hoses are replaced and the single belt is replaced. He had this cool tool that allowed you to pop the distributor and insert it and then use a drill to pump oil throughout the engine! This is pretty slick. We tried to start the engine for real after he messed with the distributor cap and got all of the wires in place. It tried to turn over a couple of times but would not just go. We are going to get some fresh fuel and some starting fluid and give it a whack next weekend. I am still trying to get tires for it. The shop did come out this week and verified that the four rear rims are indeed Widowmaker rims and I will need to replace the tires and rims. So they are now getting me a quote for six tires and four rims. We are going to go up in size on the tires to match the front tires. I have spent some more money on the truck this week. I purchased a window/door gasket set that includes all of the needed items to fix both doors and the front and back window seal replacements for the low low price of $350. I found some cheap cotton bench seat covers and some floor mats I will need to cut to size. So the truck total so far is at $1079.78 and it is not running yet. It will be a race to see if they can get the tires on it before the Gingerman gets it running. The seat covers need to be installed as the seat is in sad shape. As I was trying to start the engine I noticed that I will also have to adjust the doors so they sit correctly in the openings before I can install the seals. I did check for shocks and that is not an issue as the truck does not have any! It has this huge double sided leaf spring arrangement. I bet its gonna be a smooth riding machine when it’s empty! If we can get it running then the next big thing are the brakes, the hydraulic cylinder for the dump bed and the wiring for lights. Currently, the brake pedal is on the floor. I have no idea why and honestly it is low on the priority list as brakes will not be needed until we can get the thing started.