Crap More Work!

Well,.... Chris decided that her project of old ford truck restoration/rat rod was not a big enough job for me and because i am not a smart man I opened my big fat mouth and it looks like we will be trying to add a big yellow turd to this whole truck restoration thing......

Sooo...... I was our surveying today and look what I found....

Believe it or not, it is a 1948 Ford F-5 School Bus with the original stick shift and Flathead 6 under the hood. What is cool/strange is there is a metal tag on the dash that says, "Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs" on the dash, wish I would have gotten a picture of it.

Look ma, no rust. There is no cancer on any of the front clip and the only thing missing is one headlight ring, unlike our 48'.

That is not dirt on the floor, the entire thing is covered in some kind of rodent droppings. Hazmat suit and respirator are in order.

 Luggage compartments. Cool! If you look at the bottom of the side windows there are 3 bars that fold up and down, not sure what they would have been for, guess nobody wanted to go to school.

 The big red taillights are actually glass and are painted with, "STOP" on the inside.

 It looks like most of the side had a cool black paint job that tapered to the bottom rear.

 More rodent poop.

 Are your items secure in the overhead compartment?

 Flathead 6 with bonus pack rat nest.

Chris's idea/dream is that it would be re purposed as the "COOL BUS" for taking friends and family to the local HI-WAY Drive In for movie nights. I am sure the people behind us would just love the view....

Not exactly sure what will happen as the ranch manager has to talk with the owner to see if he wants to sell it or wants it gone. As of now our offer is to haul it off so he does not have to deal with it but who knows, the owner might have plans for it. We will see.

Sea Doo Part 2

So I finally got a chance to work on the Seadoo on Friday....
Well, to be honest the engine has been out for about a month but I am too slow on this blog thing but good for you I am even slower on the Seadoo project. So I checked for air leaks and there were none so all indications were that the engine was fine and ready to be reinstalled.

Now to give you some background I have grown up watching my uncle Gary fix about anything and he would never rest until every part was checked and fixed almost to obsession so something must have rubbed off. So the squish was within spec but not within what the performance spec was so this got me thinking. FYI: the squish is the little bit of clearance between the top of the piston and the cylinder head at the outer edge. This creates turbulence that helps mix the air and fuel mixture during compression and just before ignition for a complete burn of the air/fuel mixture. Too much squish clearance and the engine is not as efficient and incomplete combustion but too little will cause too much heat and pre-ignition, also bad. So long story short seadoo had some big manufacturing tolerances and makes 5 different cylinder base gaskets to adjust squish and marks it with holes in the gasket. Mine had 6 holes for 0.6mm and my ideal squish needed a 0.3-0.4mm gasket. So to be safe I started to think I should change the gasket from the 6 hole to 4 hole.

Yes, I decided to take the engine completely apart for inspection and new gaskets and seals. And, the engine had never been apart, woohoo nobody had messed with it! All was going good until I had to remove the PTO (Power Take Off), Seadoo thinks these are snowmobiles. I could not get it by hand so I went an bought the most expensive Ingersol Rand impact wit 700 ft/lbs of torque and...... Nothing, didn't even move. I had to get the breaker bar and the 3' jack handle and a lot of heat to get it off.

 

 

I still was not strong enough so I had to bring in the big guns....

Finally got it.

So everything went smooth from there but I am glad I took it apart. The cylinders look great and they even have the crosshatch from the factory so I would guess that this engine has very few hours on it. Score! But the pistons had a few lines on them. My guess is that there was a little surface rust on the cylinders or some carbon because the previous owner did not use the correct oil and when I checked the compression and started it briefly it left some marks on the piston.

If I was going to sell the ski I would just wet sand the piston lines and put it back together but I think she is going to be a keeper so I ordered new OEM pistons and rings just to be safe.

 

 

Here is one of the cylinders and the piston cleaned up but I would always be worried about it.

 

Here are the cases ready to be cleaned.

 

And here is the......... Wait! that is not a Seadoo cylinder, guess you will have to wait for that project Brian Sr. BTW: it is from 1978 just to keep you guessing.

 

So all threads are cleaned and all parts will hit the solvent for a good clean and then wait for parts to arrive.

 

Here are some shots of the hull that will get a good cleaning and buff.

All stripped and ready for some wet sanding and buffing. I am going to try to save the decals because they are no longer available but we shall see. Seadoo discontinues things very early.

Here you can see how bad it is oxidized. The white is from the sun and the yellow is where it rested on the trailer

 Here you can see that I have some gel coat repairs to do and after running around town all Sunday just to find that nobody sells it anymore the gel coat kit is on order from amazon. Please stay tuned for part 3 as this old girl gets an new lease on life.

 

Going to give this whole blog thing a try since I have been enjoying

66motorpalace.blogspot.com so much.

Things are starting to gear up for summer so I am looking forward to the jet ski season. I will be working on a friends skis but still have a few of mine to get sorted out first.

 I picked up these two gems at the end of last summer from a friends neighbor for $500, including the trailer.

They look much better in the pictures. They had been sitting since 2007 but he said they were winterized properly. That is why I only offered $500, you just never know. Once I got them home the compression checked out good and everything mechanical looked good. I added some fresh fuel and a new battery to see if they would even be eligible for restoration and to my surprise both started and ran fine. That was last year and I have not touched them since. To be continued.