How Fast Are We Going?

 

So, the old truck is on the road. Legally. In fact, it's my daily driver - the Prizm is unregistered and uninspected (and has been so for months). The truck gets me around just fine, and is generally fun to drive. However, there are some challenges to driving a 42-year-old vehicle as one's daily transportation...

 

The instrument panel lighting does not work. The really important things work; the turn signal indicators and the alternator warning light. The little bulbs that are supposed to illuminate the speedometer? They're there, but they don't show up for work. I've had the cluster out on the bench and cleaned up the electrical circuits and fiddled with the bulbs, but they just don't want to glow much at all.

 

With the morning commute being performed in total darkness, and the evening commute happening in (you guessed it) near total darkness, it's hard to see the numbers on the speedometer when you have no dash lights. Now, one might suppose that a speedo isn't necessary when driving an old, old truck. There's not much chance of getting a speeding ticket when you have low gears and a wheezy six-cylinder. True that is, but the main concern I have is making sure I'm actually going fast enough. Some times, I'm trundling down the road at a comfortable clip, totally enjoying the trip, when I realize that there is a fairly long line of cars stacking up behind me. Oops...got caught driving ten mph below the speed limit again.(People don't particularly like that.) (Especially when they're in one of those fancy modern cars with heaters and electronic suspension and projector-beam headlights.)

 

So, in order to see the speedometer (and keep other drivers happy), I've come up with a temporary solution to get by until I can fix those little light bulbs: a $2 LED flashlight.

 

 

This little flashlight has a clip that hooks onto the tachometer mount, and a goose-neck that allows the light to be bent and aimed to just the proper spot. It works great, and might just help me keep revved up to the speed limit!

 

 

 



Fuel System

Really nice new filler pipe setup.

Getting pretty good at bending line. (The really pretty offset 45 "S" bends are all too hidden to get photos)

Roll the truck out and find a whole lot of clean-up to do....

Range Time

There's a family two towns over that has built a shooting range on their farm and opened it to the public. There is a skeet range, two pistol ranges, a black-powder range, and the rifle range. It's operated on a donation basis, and aside from a few common-sense rules, you're left alone.

 

A few friends/co-workers were headed down to shoot after work on Friday, and since I had some free time, I decided to join them. A quick stop at home to grab the 20 gauge and the .22, and it was on my way to the gun shop for ammo. It was easy enough to get the shotgun shells, but .22 ammo is scarce. I've been looking for months for .22, and have always missed the shipments at sporting good stores and gun shops. Finding it online hasn't been successful either.

 

I found some at one of the local gun shops, but they were limiting sales to one box per family. ONE box of 50 rounds was selling for seven dollars. Somebody needs to get cracking and make up a whole bunch of .22 ammo, and soon. (And get it back down to three bucks for 100 rounds, too!)

 

It was a beautiful evening to be shooting and the range was fairly empty. Got to shooting the rifle and noticed that I was hitting four feet to the right of where I was aiming. Went to adjust the windage, and the whole knob broke off from the scope tube. That sucks. I ended up taking the scope and rings off the rails and shooting with the iron sights. Dead on at fifty yards. Turns out that I can't even see the target  any farther away than that without a scope!

 

As I was plinking away with the dinky little .22, there was a guy next to me booming away with his brand-new AR in 5.56 and my friends a little further down shooting a bolt-action .308 and a semi-auto 7.62. It's been a while since I was at a rifle range, and I'd forgotten what a big shock wave was produced when those things are lit off. Still pretty cool...

 

 

We went up to the shotgun range where I got to fire a lot of shells at tiny little flying clay targets, and I learned two things. First is that a single-shot break action is not the gun of choice to break clays. Second is that I really suck at hitting moving targets!

 

When the other guys started breaking out their handguns at the pistol range, I realized that I need to get myself one of those too. (Slim chance in this household, but I did see a really nice and inexpensive 9mm Glock at the gun shop when I was buying ammo. I also saw a nice S&W, and a totally reasonable Springfield XD......)

 

 

Pretty cool to have an awesome range so close to home...

 

 

 



Progress

The weather isn't freezing cold anymore, and work is progressing on the truck.

 

The fuel tank is securely hung in the proper location. The fuel filler neck that was ordered to go from the side of the truck bed to the fuel tank turned out to be too short....by two feet. Several hours of shopping on the internet didn't turn up any suitable hoses, so it was on to Plan B: create a filler neck from scratch using pre-formed sections of muffler pipe, hose clamps, and rubber fuel hose.

 

The pipe and hose clamps were easy to source. The 2" fuel-rated rubber hose was a surprisingly difficult item to find. It took several trips to the parts store, a special order, and robbing a Brink's truck to get some - this stuff costs $1.53 per inch. I needed two six-inch sections - a total of $18.36 for one foot of rubber hose!

 

 

Once the filler neck is complete and in place, it should be a short job to plumb the metal line from the tank to the carb - and then the beast can go to the muffler shop for a new exhaust! Yay!!

 

 



Ugh!

So cold. No fuel system plumbing going on around here.