Call me crazy - Ranchero's (again)

**redfalken** · January 9th, 2012, 01:17 PM

Did you say peeps?!! I'm not quite ready for them yet but will be some day. Can you set them aside or bring them to the meeting? Shoot me a price or maybe we can do a coffee trade??

**Luva65wagon** · January 9th, 2012, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by redfalken

Did you say peeps?!! I'm not quite ready for them yet but will be some day. Can you set them aside or bring them to the meeting? Shoot me a price or maybe we can do a coffee trade??

I did and I do. I'll bring them in with me to the meeting on the 18th... hopefully along with the Flarechero for it's prime-time debut. They cost me all of $27.10 on eBay, for the pair. Here's a pic from the eBay listing.

**Luva65wagon** · January 17th, 2012, 02:13 PM

I received my new gas tank yesterday. Fed Ex braved the snow to deliver it. It's a really nice quality tank as best I can tell, but I'm going to bring it into the garage tonight, deburr the knife-sharp edges, and wipe it down with acetone and paint it with some Eastwood Tank Tone spray. I already have the new sending unit as well, which I will install.

Something JeffW might be interested in is the new hose I have on order to join the Jaguar cap to the lower pipe I had made. The one I found was a Gates molded 2.5" ID hose make specifically for fuel filler necks. It looks similar to the style hose found down below. There is no wire in it (supposedly) which made the other hose we both used almost impossible to clamp, much less stretch, over the Jag cap. The Jag cap was originally designed to insert into a machined hole with an o-ring seal.

I have it ordered from Amazon and will probably have plenty of left-over.

I noted some fuel drip coming from somewhere when I was putting gas in the other day, and though it's been too crappy out there to climb under the car to figure out where it came from, this is the only connection I was never certain about. So, while I'm at it...

http://www.amazon.com/Gates-24714-Fu...6836703&sr=8-1

**doghows** · January 17th, 2012, 04:17 PM

Uh-oh those dreaded words again... She'll be a show car yet.?. Oh wait it already is.

**Jeff W** · January 17th, 2012, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by Luva65wagon

Something JeffW might be interested in is the new hose I have on order to join the Jaguar cap to the lower pipe I had made. The one I found was a Gates molded 2.5" ID hose make specifically for fuel filler necks. It looks similar to the style hose found down below. There is no wire in it (supposedly) which made the other hose we both used almost impossible to clamp, much less stretch, over the Jag cap. The Jag cap was originally designed to insert into a machined hole with an o-ring seal.

I have it ordered from Amazon and will probably have plenty of left-over

http://www.amazon.com/Gates-24714-Fu...6836703&sr=8-1

Yes I am very interested as mine is still loose after using the expensive clamps I bought.

**Luva65wagon** · January 17th, 2012, 09:51 PM

Figured you would be. It is due to arrive on Thursday (if deliveries are even possible). So I should be able to bring in what I don't use to the meeting.

**Luva65wagon** · January 23rd, 2012, 02:18 PM

So yesterday Gene swung by with a few empty gas cans and we pumped the gas out of the old tank and swapped it out.

Other than the fact that I had to spend almost 3 hours on Saturday putting in the sender, pulling out the sender, over and over, playing around with it to get it to a) fit by cutting the pickup tube off 1/2" and bending it to go into the recess in the bottom of the tank, and b) read the right resistance at empty and full by bending the rod into the shape of a Z and twisting it to make the float stay level in the tank, it all went pretty well. The new tank was a little "fatter" and we let out a little blue smoke trying to get those tank straps to stretch around to the J-bolts. Nothing a bottle jack couldn't handle. It looks no different to the old one, so with the wind and rain blowing, I didn't "document" the swap. But it did happen, I swear.

The new hose I got for the Jag cap - without the embedded wire - worked famously. Very happy with that. Jeff will get the remainder, which will contain a 45 degree bend. I think that may work out good for him since his filler is rear-ward of the old filler. Mine was in-line with the old filler and needed to be straight down. He can better clear the taillight with it, me thinks.

Good news - the gauge now says FULL!!

I also bought a new distributor from Rock Auto and recurved it according to the Classic Inlines site. What I saw in the new one better matched the description I read of the process (heavy and light spring) whereas the one I got from Pick and Pull had two heavy springs. Never knew if I did it right. So I will swap that out and play with some timing settings, as well as trying the vacuum port on the carb instead of manifold vacuum. Have no idea how that port signal looks yet, but plan to check it out.

Not sure the weather will be decent to drive it to the meeting on Wednesday. I'd be driving it to work and leaving it uncovered 12 hours or more and I'd like to give it a "controlled test" for water leaks before finding out I forgot to plug-up something. Have not been able to do that yet. I still have tons of snow and yuckiness at the house too, so it would likely still slide down the hill into the ditch across the street.

**doghows** · January 23rd, 2012, 04:18 PM

Congrats.. One step closer. O actually drove mine to work today!(15miles one way) She did just fine other than the icy roads this am. So don't be scared Roger it will be fine. I know yours is in better shape than mine.

**Luva65wagon** · January 28th, 2012, 11:08 PM

Drove to Sequim today and picked up the tonneau cover from Steve and saw his two Ranchero's too.

Thanks Steve for helping me strap that on. Going straight into the wind it went very well, but about 2 miles from the Hood Canal bridge it got crazy when the side winds got REALLY strong. All I kept saying was, "Stay up there until I get over the bridge. I just need to get over this bridge. Will this bridge ever end! Thank GOD I'm over the bridge!" That thing was flapping around like crazy!

It held though, and is safely home. Cool, a new project.

**Nathan289** · January 29th, 2012, 12:09 PM

Roger,
When I installed my new tank in the station wagon I noticed the flanges were a little bit bigger on the new tank.. so I used some 2x4s and notched the flanges in the same locations as the old tank.. after this slight mod the straps fit fine..

Nathan

**doghows** · January 30th, 2012, 08:12 AM

Glad to see you made it OK. I was worried you were going to take off like an airplane. Keep us posted on the progress as usual and put it here so people don't have to go to face-book to see it. (haha)

**Luva65wagon** · January 30th, 2012, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Nathan289

Roger,
When I installed my new tank in the station wagon I noticed the flanges were a little bit bigger on the new tank.. so I used some 2x4s and notched the flanges in the same locations as the old tank.. after this slight mod the straps fit fine..

Nathan

I did a similar thing to bend those flanges a bit more and that helped, but it was still a bit thicker than the old tank. Once I got it hooked up and tightened the straps, they tightened to about the same place as before, so that was good.

Originally Posted by Doghows

Glad to see you made it OK. I was worried you were going to take off like an airplane. Keep us posted on the progress as usual and put it here so people don't have to go to face-book to see it. (haha)

I will start working on that this week. I'll start with duplicating the missing hinge. I didn't have the energy yesterday to do much of anything after Gene and I got back from looking at Bill Williams' motor. Gene helped me off-load it, and it was still in one piece. And of course, a complete photo-op is planned for presentation here.

**Luva65wagon** · February 2nd, 2012, 02:54 PM

Have been working on duplicating the missing parts for the tonneau cover I picked up from Steve. It was missing one of the hinges, which I had to make from scratch. There was one of the spring mounts that was all twisted up too, which I had to drive out the rivet holding the spring to the bracket and straighten that up. So I have these parts now done.

Steve, as you saw in my PM, maybe you can get me the measurements from the car this came off of. If you can give me measurements as shown, that would be great. #1 is where the hinge plate bolts, which I think was further forward than the picture shows. Just the distances between the closest screw holes - not the outboard holes. And from the top edge down to the upper-most holes. Should'a done this while I was there.

Will be doing some fiberglass repair and then I can paint the cover black. I have new pinch-weld windlace ordered to cover up all the edging.

**doghows** · February 3rd, 2012, 08:54 AM

Measurements done. Sent you a PM. Hopefully those are what you need. If not I can call you tonight and remeasure whit some daylight left. I should be home around 4:30 today... Hooray for Friday!!!

**Luva65wagon** · February 9th, 2012, 04:06 PM

As I've been helping Gene have fun I've still been having fun of my own working on the tonneau cover I got from Steve. It had a number of cracks in its ribs and I wanted to strengthen the areas between the ribs... here is comes... while I'm at it.

So I laid fiberglass over all the old ribs and weighted the center to close all the crack-gaps while the resin cured, and then I cut a few pieces of corner edging (wood equivalent to a piece of angle-iron) and glued them down and then fiberglassed them. This eliminated most of the oil-can effect between the original ribs. Made a world of difference.

I received the new edge material too, so that will cover all the edges.

Steve, I also laid out the hinges on a slab of plywood and confirmed the measurements by exercising the setup. It works as I expected it would. The big spring both lifts and holds the top down when it goes past-center. So no worry about "oops, need to drill the holes a little further down."