Mutt The Race Truck

[DanStokes]

Coastal Plains is open almost year-round, depending on weather.

Had a major breakthru today which probably means nothing to anyone but me. The driver's door window now goes up and down as designed! The window would cock in the opening and the only way to move it was to pull up on the front and hold it square in the opening. The only thing I could see that was iffy was the window track rubber. It seemed like it still ought to crank up and down but it didn't.

So Mr. Rock Auto came thru and the rubber (called a "window track") showed up yesterday. It's a STINKER to R&R but I had it in place last night. There's a pretty good installation video on line and that helped greatly. This afternoon I got the window in place and after some finagling got everything working.

So if anyone is having "issues" with an S-10 side window the track seems to be the culprit.

Dan

[DanStokes]

A few pics of various things that I completed today:

Here's the "before" of the driver's door window. A check online showed that it was most likely the window track so I ordered one up.




And here it is, all fixed. Notice the little triangular brace welded in on the lower back of the door. At some point the support for the rear metal track was removed so I made this little bracket to anchor that.




Another little task completed. I needed an overflow bottle for the radiator so I ordered this up from Jegs. It offered the opportunity to hook it up so it would siphon back whatever expanded into it so I did it that way - I guess it'll work OK. Note the spiffy mounting bracket and the little bracket for the line from the rad to the bottle.



Small steps.........

I got two copies of the second pic again. Any clues? I was careful not to hit the "Insert Image" twice and it only shows up once in the listing below so I'm at a loss to 'splain it.

Dan

[DanStokes]

An experiment in wide angle photography.

My little Canon FS100 that I've taken all these pics with lacks wide angle capability. This was only an issue as I couldn't get far enough away from the truck to get the kind of pics I wanted. I got curious and went online and found out that you can glue a threaded adaptor to the front of the camera and use a cheap, generic wide angle optical lens. I went to our local camera shop and they had a box of odd lenses left from trade-ins, etc. and they sold me one for $5.00 + tax - cheap enough to try it. But they lacked the glue-on adaptor so I decided to try it by just holding the lens up to the camera's lens (well, it really doesn't have a lens, just a place where the electrons "see" whatever is in front of the camera).


Anyhow, here's the result: Without the wide angle:




Same shot, same location with the wide angle:




From the mezzanine, same deal - without:




With:



I'll keep an eye open for the glue-on ring but this seems to work OK. Please tell me what you think.

In the first pic you might detect a tiny little bit of progress - the blocking plate for the rear view mirror is in place. I have the one cut out for the driver's side but as you can see it isn't installed yet. I've been fighting a cold and haven't felt up for doing much though I'm a little perkier today.

I hit "post" and see that I have 1 copy of each pic - wonder what's different?

Dan

[Deaf Bob]

Cool photo trickery!

[Russell]

I think you got your $5 dollars worth! Does your camera have the fetcher where you can take several pictures and it links them together into one long picture?

[Blazerteam]

More money to spend on the Merced...i mean Chevy

[DanStokes]

Arlid - I think it a Chevades. Or maybe a Mercedes-10s (pronounced like "tens").

Russell - as far as I know it doesn't though that would be cool. At $5/ea I can go back and see if they have any wider-angle lenses, though - there was a whole box of them. This one is labeled "0.75X" and "MegaPlus" but I have no idea what any of that means. It was evidently made by Tiffen. I haven't messed with photography much since the 35mm film days and I think this lens is about equal to a 28mm lens. A 24mm would have some distortion (fish-eye) around the edges and this doesn't seem to.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm really happy with the results, especially for cheap.

Dan

[Deaf Bob]

Get the telephoto and see if you can take spy photos

[rightpedal]

At that angle it looks like a stock motor. Makes me mad chevy never offered a diesel S-truck. Nice job Dan. Cant wait to see her rip down the mile.

Steve

[Beagle]

At that angle it looks like a stock motor. Makes me mad chevy never offered a diesel S-truck. Nice job Dan. Cant wait to see her rip down the mile.

Steve

They did offer a diesel in S10's in the early 80's. So did Isuzu (Isuzu diesel for S10 also), Nissan, Mitsubishi/D50 Dodge, Toyota HiLux, and Ford Ranger (CAT). 50-65 hp doesn't suit the American driving style very well.. and if it was priced like the 40k 1/2 ton Ram now. I'd love one but won't afford it.

[DanStokes]

Beags, guys - I was thinking about this yesterday as I was parked next to a new Dodge 1500 Diesel. What engine is that? My guess is "not a Cummins" but that's a guess. I know - I COULD Google it........

My Benz engine started life at 126 (IIRC) HP and I have no clue what the bigger turbo and bigger injectors might bring to the party. Guess we'll find out after I run my speeds thru the back-calculator on <Landracing.com>. Wonder what the frontal area is of an S-10, especially vs. a 300SD.

Dan

[SuperBuickGuy]

They did offer a diesel in S10's in the early 80's. So did Isuzu (Isuzu diesel for S10 also), Nissan, Mitsubishi/D50 Dodge, Toyota HiLux, and Ford Ranger (CAT). 50-65 hp doesn't suit the American driving style very well.. and if it was priced like the 40k 1/2 ton Ram now. I'd love one but won't afford it.

that was a chevy luv, 45 mpg out of a pickup. 36 if it was a 4x4. My dad had one for his shop that went 500,000 miles and he sold it to someone else who is still driving it. Transmissions were crap, though... if I came across one for cheap, it'd end up in my fleet - but like anything Japanese from that era, rust is an issue.

[silver_bullet]

a diesel S-10 was offered in 1st gen... Isuzu of course... rare truck... replacement parts even rarer!

[rightpedal]

I know better than to make definitive statements on this site. Makes me mad chevy never offered a diesel S-truck..... Corrected to..... Makes me mad that I have never seen a diesel S-truck till this outstanding execution of higher conscious thought and superior engineering that when blended together are are more than just machine they are art.

Steve

[Beagle]

Beags, guys - I was thinking about this yesterday as I was parked next to a new Dodge 1500 Diesel. What engine is that? My guess is "not a Cummins" but that's a guess. I know - I COULD Google it........

My Benz engine started life at 126 (IIRC) HP and I have no clue what the bigger turbo and bigger injectors might bring to the party. Guess we'll find out after I run my speeds thru the back-calculator on <Landracing.com>. Wonder what the frontal area is of an S-10, especially vs. a 300SD.

Dan

If I had to guess, I would guess VM Motori common rail... I'm not sure what it is. It wouldn't surprise me if it was from a Fiat asset like VM Motori is. I think they used them already in the baby Compass SUV which got surprisingly sucky economy. It's so electronic, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with it. That's where your Benz mill shines! It will still run after an EMP bomb goes off, making it the perfect Zombie Attack Vehicle.



Hopefully the electro-magnetic pulse bomb doesn't go off in Ohio and kill all the electronic timers, so we can still get a time. Maybe somebody should take a Krondek (sp?) just in case...