my 1994 silverado

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Moparmat2000

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Speaking of "the white buffalo" my friend 2G Gary tapped me to build the gage panel for it. It's been some time since I started this thread, I may have put these pix here, may not have, but he wanted gages that were better than stock. Autometer Z series, and a Matt fab and install. We started with a stock stripped empty S-10 gage bucket. I milled down any high spots and bonded a piece of sanded down .050" thick aluminum sheet with JB weld. Then cut out for the gages, and Harley Davidson indicator lights with universal symbols made by SoliCo.

I have a bare stock plastic gage bucket for my silverado and am thinking pretty hard on doing this. What's holding me up is cutting the wiring coming in to wire it up. I did that on my buddies truck and then pinned everything with molex connectors. I really dont want to cut the stock plugs. Heres his gage panel I made and installed. Some ideas for you guys.
 

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Moparmat2000

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I'm watching Tonka truck restoration on youtube. It's pretty therapeutic. Especially when he sandblasts the rust off and powdercoats the parts. He uses JB weld as body filler and powdercoats right over it. These things look great when finished.

This is a hobby I would love to do if I didnt have other stuff i wanna do. This guy has some really way above average cool tools. If he cant get replacements of certain parts, he makes injection moulds with a CNC machine, and makes repops of stuff he needs, or fabricates new parts from sheet stock or rod stock. He even nickel plates parts.

I would recommend it to anybody to watch. I am seeing the old Tonka trucks, and Buddy L trucks I played with as a kid getting reborn. Be forewarned. Its addictive!!!
 
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Hipster

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Speaking of "the white buffalo" my friend Gary tapped me to build the gage panel for it. It's been some time since I started this thread, I may have put these pix here, may not have, but he wanted gages that were better than stock. Autometer Z series, and a Matt fab and install. We started with a stock stripped empty S-10 gage bucket. I milled down any high spots and bonded a piece of sanded down .050" thick aluminum sheet with JB weld. Then cut out for the gages, and Harley Davidson indicator lights with universal symbols made by SoliCo.

I have a bare stock plastic gage bucket for my silverado and am thinking pretty hard on doing this. What's holding me up is cutting the wiring coming in to wire it up. I did that on my buddies truck and then pinned everything with molex connectors. I really dont want to cut the stock plugs. Heres his gage panel I made and installed. Some ideas for you guys.
looks nice!
 

Hipster

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I'm watching Tonka truck restoration on youtube. It's pretty therapeutic. Especially when he sandblast the rust off and powdercoats the parts. He uses JB weld as body filler and powdercoats right over it. These things look great when finished.

This is a hobby I would love to do if I didnt have other stuff i wanna do. This guy has some really way above average cool tools. If he cant get replacements of certain parts, he makes injection moulds with a CNC machine, and makes repops of stuff he needs, or fabricates new parts from sheet stock or fod stock. He even nickel plates parts.

I would recommend it to anybody to watch. I am seeing the old Tonka trucks, and Buddy L trucks I played with as a kid getting reborn. Be forewarned. Its addictive!!!
gotta link? I'm all about sombody makin' sumthin' outta nuthin'.
 

Moparmat2000

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Hipster,
Not sure how to add a link.
Just go to youtube, type in
"tonka truck restoration"
and go down the rabbit hole lol
I just watched them restore a tonka dragline.
This guys youtube channel is called
"Chip Channel"
 
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Moparmat2000

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So a long awhile back, I got a new idea for my truck. Off evilbay you can purchase these phone charger plug ins that mount in a circular hole. Some of em are a single plug in with a built in digital volts and amps indicator, some are dual plug in etc. Since I dont smoke, and my ashtray is a virgin and has only had change and gum wrappers in it since new, I figured this would be the perfect spot for these in the lighter socket hole. Problem is after buying 3 of these in a multiple purchase buy at $2.35 each off Evilbay, I found out once they showed up that the hole you have to mount it in needs to be quite a bit larger than the usual cigar lighter hole. I was originally going to mount this in my lighter socket hole, but do not want to butcher the hole for this. So for 2 years these things have been sitting.

So since then, I used one in my shop as a plug in for my phone off a power inverter I wired up, and the other 2 have stayed in the shipping package. Fast forward to last december. I special ordered a new daily driver. A Ford Maverick XLT. My 2008 Chevy HHR I bought new, and now nicknamed "Lucky" is dying. Lucky is my 4 wheeled version of the joke about the lost dog that has 1 eye, 3 legs, fleas, broken tail, and answeres to the name Lucky.

My Lucky has broken turn signal switch (wont cancel) check engine light that wont go out (yes I changed the bad part and reset it) shot lower control arms, power mirrors wont work, broken windshield, full of hail dents, and burns 2 quarts of oil every 3,000 miles. But the A/C still works. So I suppose with these 100° plus Texas temps that's Lucky for me LoL. And since the boneyards are littered with HHRs, Lucky is lucky that it's still on the road and not in there. I plan on putting in a used windshield, and some new lower control arms, and keeping Lucky as a spare car as it's only $200 a year to insure it.

Anyways I tend to ramble on, however my new DD Maverick due to be built sometime this month has a built in USB port right in the dash. So I thought, where could I put one of these right in the dash of Betsy and make it appear stock. I cut all the plastic away from the phone charger on one of these, so all I had was the circuit boards, and plug.

The rectangle knockout plate in the dash that's used for blanking off the hole when not used for driving lights, or for rear defoggers in suburbans is the perfect spot to mount this. I dont have pix yet, but will be cutting a hole in the rectangle dash blank off plate and fitting one of these charging ports. The nice thing about doing it this way, is it can be removed, and the dash isnt modified at all.
 
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Moparmat2000

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Heres the pieces for this plan
 

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Spareparts

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EMB 175 seat tracks. A view from "my office" in cargo. These come undrilled. They have to be measured, fitted , clamped, and precision drilled in place using the holes in all the mounting brackets as templates along with lots of cleco pins. We also use 45° and 90° angle drills. The hole sizes are machinest #s . Example a #21 drill equates to a nominal size #5 diameter rivet shank. They come back out to deburr the holes to remove potential stress concentrations and treat the drilled holes with a corrosion preventative before these go back in for good. An awful lot of work.
I feel your pain.
This is what i have helped build for the last 15 years. Both the 100 and all new 900
 
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