There is nothing that makes your day like a chthonic monster!

In Greek mythology this protectress was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster. Gazing directly upon her would turn the onlookers to stone.

Medusa?

Chris and Bryce worked away all week last week, making sense of Fillmore's neural pathways. Hooking up the fans, solenoids, overrides, relays,fuses,bypasses, sludge pumpers, spiral retarders, and of course the ever elusive dingle hopper mounting bracket.
Seriously there were times that the conversation made my head spin.I've said this before, when working on a task on Fillmore you really have to focus on that one task. Looking at the electrical wiring for example, when you are not the one in the thick of it and simply round the bend and take a look at Medusa's crown of snakes wiggling out of the dash, it's enough to stop you cold and turn your mind to stone.
But we had the dragon slayers on hand, Chris and Bryce were able to compartmentalize and win the battle, one wire loom at a time.

I lost track of how many wire looms we ran from from to back, but thankfully we have a chase to run the cables!

A Medusa up front and her sister in the back. This my friends is ordered chaos. At first blush it looks confusing but in reality it is really quite ordered and neat.....awaiting split loom of course.

The front of the breaker box shows us the fuses, relays, and breaker bars.

Cave Dwellers

 Cave drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient scrolls. They all tell a story, a story of the events of a time or the struggles in a society or group, or the dreams and aspirations of a lofty idealist. (It comes via idea from the Greek idein (ἰδεῖν), meaning "to see"...thanks be to Vecelli.
The man cave of Fillmore, and I call it a 'man' cave not because women are not welcomed openly but rather because experience has shown that most members of the xx gender don't like the smell of oil grease and grime and thus don't venture to far past the threshold willingly.

 Yet I digress...as I was saying, the Man Cave of Fillmore has it's own set of cave drawings.



Some are humorous. (because they have an element of truth-cue the banjo music)











Some are informative, warning explorers of this strange location of the possible dangers that lay within...

Some are educational...













Some are philosophical...

And others simply are sarcastic!

Doing a little archaeological dig I was mentally documenting the different circuits that have been set up by the electrical system mastermind from the Montana tribe. It was the VCR which originally caught my attention. I thought...." Aside from my mother,who uses a VCR anymore?". And then I saw it.Deep withing the elecrical bowels of the fuse panel.A circuit labeled for a reel to reel player!

Good one!....funny!.....would be even funnier if I had one to install in Fillmore.

They're heeeeeerrreee....

 I have to say, I am so grateful for Chris and Bryce coming all the way up here from Montana to help with Fillmore. Yes, yes, I know I am paying them but quite frankly they put in huge long days and eat live and sleep Fillmore. On top of that how easy would it be to simply say " no, not my problem" but they don't. They drive 5+ hours, across the border, leaving their loved ones behind (thank you Kim!).
 And what do I give to them in return?...sure there is the bed to sleep in, the food and beer in the fridge....but I bring a Canadian Winter.....or is that a Canadian spring?....right! One and the same.

 Thankfully I had Randy pick up a very large tarp for the shelter on Wed. night. The rough part was putting it up on the shelter by myself....in the dark. Jeff was helping but eventually Michelle called him off. Some people think kids shouldn't be outside helping their dear old Dad well after 9pm on a school night with no apparent end in sight! "Hmmphf!"

 Well, as Bring Crosby said, "The weather outside is frightful , but the wiring in the engine compartment is soooo delightful".......OK maybe it's closer to what Bill would have said rather than Bing.
While the snow fell and the conditions were poor. We all stayed snug as a bug in a rug inside. Chris worked on the fuse panel, Bryce was replacing the piggyback brake cans....apparently a corroded diaphragm is a no no....I think that would be a safe concern for any type hmmm??


Now Bryce is a big man, and seems to be the kind of guy that is you really ticked him off he might just 'pop' your head like the little domes in the bubble wrap....and of course I would never say this to him but......

Is it just me or is the jolly green giant sleeping under the bus?

 So while the boys worked away on the electrical, I got to....wait for it.....wait!....

POR-15.............'nuf said'.

Clean Slate

Its the same every year. I don't think it matters where you live or who you are, but when spring hits you feel like you need to clean house, get rid of the winter cobwebs and crap that has accumulated. The other motivation was that the Montana boys are coming. Yup, Chris and bad boy Bryce are on route to get Fillmore road worthy!

So I cleaned up the inside so we are no longer tripping over ourselves

Then, I spent a few hours painting with POR-15. Once all the pedals and electrical gets in there I wont be able to do it with so much freedom of wire movement

Cleaned and painted the floor panels at the drivers seat, and the two doors at the front.

In my haste I broke the cardinal rule. Always paint with gloves on. I did and didn't break that rule. I was wearing gloves, and they were rubber, but only on the palms. I didn't even think about the fabric soaking through. Damn this stuff takes forever to come off, and I have to work tomorrow!!

Chump to Champ

There are certain times of the year that I love being outside. Well truth be known I love being outside all the time but some animals are more equal than others. The days I love the most tend to be when the sun is bright and warm and the air is cool and crisp. Saturday was one of those days, we had been away on a family ski holiday. After 5 days of skiing in Revelstoke and Golden BC, we decided to come home and get some down time. And by down time I mean we got down to some Fillmore time. With Ron at my side we set off on a little journey.

Ron started off with some spring clean up, dismantling the old/new engine lift which became obsolete when I changed engines.

I worked on installing the slam latches for the rear engine door.

A bit of a challenge when there are no square surfaces to mount to. I started by fabricating a mounting bracket for the slam latch.While I was working on that, I threw Ron under the bus. Now that sounds bad I know, and yes I have done it to Randy numerous times. But I do it because I know if I get under the bus on my back in the gravel. I start to day dream and then...well I fall asleep.
So I save the job for someone with perhaps a little more focus.


Ron's job was to cut and grommet holes for the coolant lines up to the front. "Pretty straight forward!" I told him, "just drill the pilot hole then use the metal hole saw to cut out a 1 1/8" hole for the grommet." Hell I even gave him the hole saw.
Ron executed the job flawlessly, the only issue was I gave him the wrong home saw. I said a 1 1/8" hole, but I should have said a 1 3/8" hole.
After Ron struggled with the first grommet he gently informed me that I may want to measure twice and cut once (paraphrased. Actually artistic licence I really don't think he said much more than "are you sure this is the right hole size?"). Bottom line was we had an issue and I was the chump.
I envisioned me under the bus for the next week manually grinding each and every hole to the proper size and then fitting the grommets.....lots of work....lots of noise....lots of frustration.
Ron (the Champ) on the other hand looked at it from a different angle.
Why done we use the first bit as our pilot and simply drill again?



I'll be dammed if it didn't work like a charm. The only down side was that we had to sacrifice the
1 1/8" bit and the 1 3/8" bit. A small price to pay for the continuation of progress.

























I did manage to get the slam latches mounted and at least one of the catches on the frame.
Progress was made.......progress was made.

Handlin' the heat

I love sharing Fillmore. I have such a great time working on Fillmore that I love to share the time with anyone who will dare to take a chance and do something they perhaps haven't done before. Now I have to be careful , I obviously love the help too. I can't just take the moral high road and say I'm loving it solely because of what it means to the other person. I, like other type 'A', goal driven, details oriented quasi perfectionists need all the help I can get and it's a great feeling to get "stuff" done!

Harold came back from a few days in the mountains with his family. The night he got back he snuck out to the engine room to take some measurements and create a plan for a template. That way first thing in the morning he was hitting the ground running.

I was on everything air. As luck would have it my retractable air hose bit the biscuit. So I had to remove that to repair, and then get under Fillmore to install the last of the rear brake components.

Harold continued to toil away to the last possible second before they accompanied us to our kids talent show. A lot of parental hooting and hollering was done. I've got a couple of talented kids. Despite the challenges they were dealt genetically...they turned out OK!!

After the school show I ended up back at home accompanied by Michelle's Dad Ron. So naturally we donned our coveralls and got in a wee bit more work. We installed the heat shield after I finished putting on the the firesleeve.

Then Ron did some last alterations to the drivers side side air chute panel to allow for the coolant shut off valves.

The last step didn't get entirely done, but we got a good start on the hinged panel on the chute front!

Good friends, good times

This past week was a busy week, we had lots of activity at the Sinclair household. Our old stomping grounds, Manitoba, had their spring break. So like so many flatlanders, there is a little spring fever for some last chance snow in the mountains, one more hit of the good stuff. As a kid some of the fondest memories I have are the family ski trips out to the rockies. I look back at all those trips with a smile, even when there was like a dozen of us crammed into a small Acadian it was still fun!
OK we didn't all cram into an Acadian...just Harold's family, but there was 9 of us in  in McIvor's van once with a Burton Cummings tape stuck in the radio that played over and over and over. THAT made the car seem small let me tell you!



So we were fortunate enough to host two Families for a few nights. The Smiths and the Ketlers.
Naturally as any good host, I welcomed them with open arms, fed them a good meal, gave them a nice bed to sleep in.
And then slapped coveralls on them and put them to work in the Fillmore sweatshop.



Figuratively, I mean yes I am a slave driver but the temp was quite pleasant, a mere 3 degrees C....there was no sweat.
My childhood buddy Harold was given the task of heat shield for the muffler. The wires from the battery to the starter and alternator, and the frame ground all run over top of the muffler. We decided to pull the boom can out and place a heat shield above it to deflect heat. As well I am wrapping all the wires in a firesleeve.





Trevor, the Manitoba secret agent guy was given a much less glamorous job than what he is used to back home.
Once again, working on the heater cores at the front. Trev ran hose from the second core, spliced them together and then ran bulkhead fittings through the floor to Fillmore's underbelly.

I must tip my hat to all the ladies in our lives. Knowing the joy shared by us all to putter around on Fillmore together , they packed up the brood and went for an afternoon of skiing, allowing us to work away the day. The boys did their families proud, a lot was accomplished....

Despite the civil servant mentality of a lunch break....all right get back to it!

At days end Harold had done as much as he could with the heat shield. We had to wait for the firesleeve before we could re install the muffler. So he moved on to the removable panels for the engine compartment.

Trev got the front up and running, and ten moved on to creating a template for the drivers area floor.

Old,New Borrowed&Blue

What is this a wedding?
Well work goes on!  Friday Randy came over and we puttered away on the bus. Before he got there I was getting ready for the day, went to put on my trusty SORELS, and yes they are straight from the late 80's neon pink(used to be red) and all, and pushed my foot right out of the back of the boot.






Thank God for duct tape

Then I went to don my coveralls. As I reached up into the closet, I pulled out this pair. My Dads.
In the last few days before he passed away, he and I would spend time together in his den, "going through stuff".
One afternoon he reached down by his desk and pulled these out of a bag. They are the coveralls I gave him last June as a fathers day present.
He held them out to me and said" I don't imagine I'll get the opportunity to put these to work. You'd better have them, that way I'll have a presence out there on Fillmore."

I haven't had the guts to wear them yet, I didn't want to get them dirty.

But today was the day....time to go to work Dad!

So we covered old and new...

I put Randy to work cleaning off the 60 years of crud off the dash. I was working under the bus, but I started to smell a combination of burnt dirt and paint. When I poked my head inside to see how things were progressing......the air was blue.....smokey blue

So then, on to the need for the borrowed....

As Randy was creating a good argument against second hand smoke I was, once again, on hide and tide duty.

Split loom for every thing!

Long time no see!

Hello, my name is Blake....have we met yet?
It feels like forever since I have been on the blog. I could come up with elaborate reasons why I haven't been on the blog, but bottom line is I have been busy with family,friends and music. Sound pretty idyllic to me really.
Last post I was telling you about my visit with Chris. Chris once again made the journey to the great white north. It was great to see him, I have to say I have not seen someone get so involved in what he is doing than Chris, his enthusiasm is infectious!

Chris eagerly spent his time getting everything hooked up, after the first day and a half all the engine hook ups were complete!

Chris then moved up to the garden....a term I affectionately call the front Dash these days as the wire loom looks like some sort of flowering plant. Getting all the connections labeled...lovin' the label maker!!

All the while I was doing the "hide and tide". Basically I was covering everything with split loom....(that should make you happy Bryce).... protecting the lines from abrasion and dirt etc.
Here in end the happy times...... Remember when I said "things didn't exactly turn out the way we had intended. We made a lot of progress, but we had a few MAJOR set backs"

When Bryce and Chris were here in Feb. They left me a "to do" list. The last item on the list was a note about the starter, Chris said...(and I am paraphrasing)....'the starter looks old and may need to be replaced or rebuilt.' After some thought I decided that I would leave it for now...get what I could out of it and then deal with it when it is a problem.

Houston, we have a problem!....yes, among other things, the starter crapped out. It had a dead spot...or two. Chris and I talked about getting a new gear reduction starter, but in the end I found a little mom&pop operation and the guy rebuilt the starter in a couple of hours!

The 'major' set back was the the electrical. Chris worked like a dog all week getting the system all hooked up. He was right on schedule, the plan was that Thursday he would finish up and then Friday spend the day with me showing me everything that was done, what needs to be reviewed etc.
However!....when Chris went to test the circuits there were issues, it took some time and investigative work but in the end he found two problems. First the 20 wire connection loom we had to run the low amp switches was buggered. Although to the naked eye the wire loom looked great, there were spots of corrosion in it, rendering the wire useless. Second was the fuse block itself. The connections in the fuses were tenuous at best, there were corrosion issues as well.After spending a number of hours chasing the problems Chris and I decided to do a last minute hunting and gathering Friday morning. I got the aforementioned starter rebuilt and sourced out a new 20 wire connector loom. Chris went on the hunt for a new fuse block. The bad news is to buy a new one, they wanted a HUGE some of money!, the good news is Chris went back to our friends at Empire truck parts and got two other blocks for a reasonable price.Chris packed up up the faulty block and the two new(old) ones and took them back to Montana with him. The plan is that he is going to return mid April with a  new and improved refurbished fuse block, a conglomerate of the three.