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Been working on a few projects around the house/garage. First up, we actually used the AL bed to haul a yard of mulch for the garden beds
With how much bigger this bed is, 2 yards should fit in there just fine. Next up was to fix the remote mounted Warn x8000i. After 20 years the cable was sprung, and one of the solenoids was only intermittently working, so i opened it up and swapped them out. 
 ...and finally i also got 2 small projects done in the garage. #1 was adding a light to the drill press  ...and the other was replacing the old bottle jack on the press, with this new pneumatic one  ...and with all that done, its time to start building some new leaf springs for the F250  Still doing some tuning on the '88. The rear driveshaft is making noise so its out to be rebuilt, so while i wait on that, i decided to put this together!  One Swag Offroad Heavy Duty Finger Brake kit! I picked this up during their Black Friday sale, and its been sitting in the garage since then, since my priority was getting the '88 up and running again. So lets bust this thing open!  Tons of pieces:  ...and a good set of instructions  I thought i had more progress pics, but apparently not. So this is the base all done and welded, with the upper jaw behind it, also assembled and welded:  ...and the finished product!  Ive got an idea for a set of rock sliders for the '88, so if all goes well we'll be putting this to use this week! So after 'finishing' the resto on my '88, (plus countless parts trucks & junkyard trips) i ended up with boxes of OEM hardware. Interior, body, frame, whatever. I cant help but save it! But it was super helpful when putting the 88 back together, so thats my excuse for keeping it! It was a bit of a mess though, so i started sorting it. This is just one of many boxes:  Bought some organizers from HF, this wasnt enough:  ...so i ended up building a frame to store them:  The finished product:  Built it so that it would just roll under the workbench for storage  So im pretty happy with how this came out. I figure next time im working on one of the trucks i can just roll this over if i need hardware. Before you ask: Yes, every bin in every organizer has hardware in it. Took me a week to sort it all! So naturally, the night after i finish building this i pop into the lab at work to find out that with the expansion theyre getting rid of all their old cabinets! Thankfully i had driven the truck in to work, because i scored big: cabinet 1:
cabinet 2, a Vidmar! Loaded with partitions & dividers:   cabinet 3:  cabinet 4:
random free sheetmetal, some of which ive already used to build a shelf for the inside of cabinet 4:
black resin countertops for cabinets 3 & 4:  Anti-fatigue mat:  the mother of all anti-fatigue mats, this one 4' x 24'!  So now the Vidmar is now under my workbench:  The other cabinets are still sitting in the center of the garage- im currently trying to figure out where im going to put them or if im using them to replace any existing cabinets, etc. Currently ive got boxes of stuff all over the place! Im kinda nuts for item & tool storage, so ive spent all week just looking at stuff & moving it back and forth from cabinet to cabinet, trying to figure out how i want to reorganize it all. Goal is to get all this sorted next week, and then its back to work on the '88! Ive always wanted a sheet metal brake, but never really had the room to store such a big piece of equipment. Well, now that i have a decent workshop, and a pretty big project to work on (the bronco rebuild) i decided it was time to get one. But, didnt want a big press taking up space, so i decided to try and build a smaller compact press. So this is what i came up with: One piece of 3" angle iron bolted to bench top, with a 2" piece of angle iron attached to that via 2 4" hinges. Both are 36" wide, which gives me 28" between the hinges. Thats got to be plenty big. The 2 ½" bolts secure it to the bench.  So this is the basic motion. Those 2 3/8" studs sticking up with springs on them, will hold another piece of 2x¼" angle iron, which serves as the jaw that clamps the sheet metal in place  Some slight trimming of the jaw to clear the hinges. Wing nuts to clamp it down w/o needing any special tools, and the springs will lift it back up when loosened to remove the piece or put another in.  On the underside of the hinged piece of angle iron, is 2 pieces of pipe welded in place, for a pair of handles made out of ¾" bar stock  test bend!   Removed from bench for 'storage' (actually i was cleaning). The handles fit under the clamping jaw for storage.  Set back up, and im now ready to resume work on the bronco!  Looks like its gonna work just fine!  |
