Second Suburban

[captjake 1]

Started to work on my second 1960 suburban.

For some reason the shifter was bent in the wrong spot. Maybe to fit a larger engine? See it's rubbing on the seat spring, and won't go in to reverse or 1st gear. The hood was on a piece of wood to raise it. I removed it to get a good before photo.

So I heated it up and hammered it straight.

This is my anvel.

Then heated it up again and bent it in the correct spot. Using the shifter from my other suburban as a reference.

Map Gas works fast. I could get it to say red for about 2 seconds, had to work fast.

Looks close enough.

Problem! The clearence from seat to hood is perfect. But the shifter is too long, in the transmission. Here I cut a small section out. It broke and someone welded it. In the wrong spot. Lucky me I have an original to go off.

My welding skills are bad. I did this with a 80 amp arc welder. Guess what, no one will ever see this weld!

Installed and works perfect!

[tgranthamfd 29]

Personally, I like your anvil like myself, use what you've got and make it work. Keep up the good work. It's a good thing you are not in Oklahoma, you wouldn't have found two of them, that kind of horse is not easily found here. Keep us posted.

[TJ 176]

Nice job. :scratchead:

[Kelly 1,030]

I had a tractor just like that one oh ya that is the one, glad your getting it put together.

[captjake 1]

More work completed!

Started on the stearing wheel. I put a 1 ton puller on it and broke the puller! The shaft was already cut off. So I started drilling with a brand new bit and got about halfway and the bit stopped. I thought maybe it's dull. Put another brand new bit on and nothing. Flipped it over and started from the other direction. Still nothing. I think the previous owner who could not fix it, heated it up and dipped it in water? Would that temper it? I heated it up to red hot and slowly cooled it. After that I slowly drilled through. What a pain.

Seems like a common problem, and it sucks.

About an hour of drilling.

Expensive bit. It's bent now.

Finally got it out.

Now how do I fix this? The hole is not round.

[Sarge 3,464]

Only thing left to do is have it bushed or try to drill it round (not easy now) and get it to an appropriate size to use dom tubing for a bush as a force fit.

Fun restoring some of this stuff, isn't it ?

Sarge