Years ago I managed to find a NOS set of hub caps for my 1971 K5. Still hiding in a box in my garage. I oughta put those babies in my will! Lol
CK5
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'72 K5 - Greg's @MightAsWellK5 Build
- Thread starter Greg72
- Start date
This is the build description. I will improve this later. (GB)
Let me know if you need my contact info... Appreciate you thinking of me!
-G
If I die, I'll tell my wife to internet stalk you and make sure they get sent your way so they can sit on your shelf for the rest of eternity. Lol
2020.12.10 - UPDATE!! - HOLIDAY BEADROLLER AND ENGLISH WHEEL...????
As the holiday season approaches, thoughts naturally turn to the idea of an extended vacation away from regular work... relaxing with family and of course, extended periods of time available in the shop.
Most seasons, the crush of activity is so high right up until the last moment that there is really no time to make a good plan and be truly ready to enjoy vacation. It seems that once Christmas ends... it's already too late to order equipment or get materials in the shop, so the promise of a "hero day" is never realized.
This year will be different!!
Over the last couple of weeks, plans have already been put to paper and most nights some sort of prep work has been happening to get everything staged early. Tomorrow is the last day of work this year, so that leaves PLENTY of time to get Christmas shopping done early... and focus on getting the shop ramped-up for new projects in 2021.
Small things made a difference.... Love having fresh, sharp blue markers and lots of them!!
Seat track installation was completed a couple of days ago. Both the driver and passenger seats fit great... good height, setback and angle!
The plasma is rarely used, but the other day when it was actually needed the switch broke in half... fortunately, Hypertherm has great repair parts inventory and a new trigger was swapped in. Ready for another 20 years!
@K30Blazer (James Merrick) is always raving about these TALL jackstands (29" - 49" adjustment) so I tried to pick up a set of 4. Got 3 so far!!! LOL... it's a start.
The tubing bender came down from the mezzanine briefly to bend a single tube for the seattrack project, but wasn't really "optimized" for hoisting (chains, bolts and ratchet-straps). Now it's got a nice beefy clevis welded at the exact balance-point necessary for a simple and safe lift into the rafters (or down to the workshop floor) whenever it's needed. That convenience can not be overstated....
The importance of reclaiming that floorspace is to make room for a couple of new purchases that have been waiting for a long time.... and now feels like the right time to finally pull the trigger on an English Wheel
From the research, there seem to be a LOT of vendors selling the same exact model rebranded (as shown below)..... Baleigh, Dayton, Klutch & Woodward Fab all offer a 28" version like this one... same welded C-frame design, same base.. same die sets at prices from $400 - $1000+ Seems silly to spend extra money on a "brand name" here... since they are probably all built in the same Chinese factory. When you get into the really expensive $2500+ units there are more obvious differences, but that seems excessive in both cost, size and floor space.
The last thing that really costs some serious money is a powered beadroller (Paging @Deuling).... Been watching lots of YouTube videos and for the thickness of metal needed for floors, and fenders the unit needs to be some kind of "Heavy Duty" version (16GA / .060" sheetmetal capable). The Mittler Brothers ones look nice... can't decide if the 24" throat depth will be enough or if there is truly a need for 36". It seems important to select a brand that has a universal shaft size so that dies can be purchased from different sources. From what I can tell the Mittler Bros ones have good interchange with Lazze, and other die makers...
Anyway, the English Wheel is the simpler decision... it's basically cheapest price, locally available for pickup (if possible) and done.
EDIT:
Almost... Ordered the Klutch English Wheel this morning from NorthernTool. Will pick up at the local store in Austin in about 7 days. Unfortunately, the extra anvil set (since the english wheel only comes with the upper wheel and a single lower anvil) is backordered until the end of January.
Not sure if this is going to work, but found a nice set of hardened MetalAce lower 2" anvils that can ship immediately. As you might expect... the anvils actually cost MORE than the tool itself!!!
The shafts on these may fit the holder...they may not. But once everything arrives it will be obvious what needs to be done to adapt them. MetalAce makes a LOT of add-on anvils... so it will be great if they turn out to be interchangeable. The finish quality and hardness also appears to be substantially better than the typical cheap sets out there.
The Beadroller still needs some research... but want to get it figured out soon to take advantage of Holiday sales and also get it into the shop so that it can start creating floor & patch panels to move the MAW project #FORWARD....
-G
As the holiday season approaches, thoughts naturally turn to the idea of an extended vacation away from regular work... relaxing with family and of course, extended periods of time available in the shop.
Most seasons, the crush of activity is so high right up until the last moment that there is really no time to make a good plan and be truly ready to enjoy vacation. It seems that once Christmas ends... it's already too late to order equipment or get materials in the shop, so the promise of a "hero day" is never realized.
This year will be different!!
Over the last couple of weeks, plans have already been put to paper and most nights some sort of prep work has been happening to get everything staged early. Tomorrow is the last day of work this year, so that leaves PLENTY of time to get Christmas shopping done early... and focus on getting the shop ramped-up for new projects in 2021.
Small things made a difference.... Love having fresh, sharp blue markers and lots of them!!
Seat track installation was completed a couple of days ago. Both the driver and passenger seats fit great... good height, setback and angle!
The plasma is rarely used, but the other day when it was actually needed the switch broke in half... fortunately, Hypertherm has great repair parts inventory and a new trigger was swapped in. Ready for another 20 years!
@K30Blazer (James Merrick) is always raving about these TALL jackstands (29" - 49" adjustment) so I tried to pick up a set of 4. Got 3 so far!!! LOL... it's a start.
The tubing bender came down from the mezzanine briefly to bend a single tube for the seattrack project, but wasn't really "optimized" for hoisting (chains, bolts and ratchet-straps). Now it's got a nice beefy clevis welded at the exact balance-point necessary for a simple and safe lift into the rafters (or down to the workshop floor) whenever it's needed. That convenience can not be overstated....
The importance of reclaiming that floorspace is to make room for a couple of new purchases that have been waiting for a long time.... and now feels like the right time to finally pull the trigger on an English Wheel
From the research, there seem to be a LOT of vendors selling the same exact model rebranded (as shown below)..... Baleigh, Dayton, Klutch & Woodward Fab all offer a 28" version like this one... same welded C-frame design, same base.. same die sets at prices from $400 - $1000+ Seems silly to spend extra money on a "brand name" here... since they are probably all built in the same Chinese factory. When you get into the really expensive $2500+ units there are more obvious differences, but that seems excessive in both cost, size and floor space.
The last thing that really costs some serious money is a powered beadroller (Paging @Deuling).... Been watching lots of YouTube videos and for the thickness of metal needed for floors, and fenders the unit needs to be some kind of "Heavy Duty" version (16GA / .060" sheetmetal capable). The Mittler Brothers ones look nice... can't decide if the 24" throat depth will be enough or if there is truly a need for 36". It seems important to select a brand that has a universal shaft size so that dies can be purchased from different sources. From what I can tell the Mittler Bros ones have good interchange with Lazze, and other die makers...
Anyway, the English Wheel is the simpler decision... it's basically cheapest price, locally available for pickup (if possible) and done.
EDIT:
Almost... Ordered the Klutch English Wheel this morning from NorthernTool. Will pick up at the local store in Austin in about 7 days. Unfortunately, the extra anvil set (since the english wheel only comes with the upper wheel and a single lower anvil) is backordered until the end of January.
Not sure if this is going to work, but found a nice set of hardened MetalAce lower 2" anvils that can ship immediately. As you might expect... the anvils actually cost MORE than the tool itself!!!
The shafts on these may fit the holder...they may not. But once everything arrives it will be obvious what needs to be done to adapt them. MetalAce makes a LOT of add-on anvils... so it will be great if they turn out to be interchangeable.
The finish quality and hardness also appears to be substantially better than the typical cheap sets out there.
The Beadroller still needs some research... but want to get it figured out soon to take advantage of Holiday sales and also get it into the shop so that it can start creating floor & patch panels to move the MAW project #FORWARD....
-G
I was patient and found this at 1/2 of new. Guy used it for a few hours. 3 dies were brand new. Works great.
In Colorado I was looking for used sheet metal working equipment. Did not find anything I could afford that I wanted. Move to east Tennessee and within a year, 8' Chigago brake, this beadroller and a Tennsmith air powered sheer.
Those tall jack stands are great. I got a set and made swapping out the rear suspension and axle way easier.
Too many "moving" parts for my liking on those jack stands.
I can understand liking to be able to collapse them into a more sizable storage space but my life is more valuable than the extra space saved.
I can understand liking to be able to collapse them into a more sizable storage space but my life is more valuable than the extra space saved.
Crap. and one is missing the yellow grip!
Yep! That's not a great observation for a guy like me to make either.... OCD and all that.
The 4th jackstand is still in San Antonio (allegedly) where the other 3 were several days ago.... they all arrived together initially.
This model is now on backorder, so who knows what it's going to take to get a 4th one delivered.... or to get the manufacturer to ship me a yellow rubber grip to replace the one that's missing.
It's always something, but it still feels like progress.
-G
I own 6 of those jack stands, 2k load rating and lots of adjustability. Love them!
2021.01.08 - !! UPDATE !!... "IF YOU WANT TO HEAR GOD LAUGH...."
It has been said that if you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans.
That certainly felt true over the long holiday break on the MightAsWell build. There was a great plan to order new equipment early, so that everything would arrive in plenty of time to really maximize the work and progress.
But it didn't take long to realize that nothing was going to go as expected, and at least God would get a good laugh about it... even if I didn't.
In early December the orders were placed for the English Wheel and the new Bead Roller. It seemed like a great plan to purchase the English Wheel from Northern Tool because they have a local store just a few miles from the house and a local pickup avoids almost $300 in freight charges. Seemed smart... and was going according to plan until the tracking information showed that the shipment left SC and arrived in TN..... and never left ......for over a week! A few days after Christmas when we finally spoke on the phone they indicated that the package was lost and would need to be re-shipped, and the wait would have to start all over... that put the delivery into January, and as luck would have it... arriving just a few days after my 23-day vacation was already over.
The Mittler Brothers order for the bead roller was actually even worse. Being up in Missouri, it seemed like a pretty simple deal to ship out the order and getting to TX should take maybe a week.. 10 days tops since it was truck freight. The order showed as "Processing" for days and days and days... and it became clear that something was wrong. When I finally got a chance to call them, they admitted that they had a huge backlog of end-of-the-year orders and there was nothing even in-stock to ship out. My bead roller wasn't even on the production schedule until early January. Double (As of today, there is still no shipment confirmation... it is supposed to leave their facility next week)
So things were clearly not going to work out as planned, and the majority of the days off were actually spent working on house projects instead. That's ultimately OK because now there are a lot of completed items that would have taken time away from the MAW build in the early part of 2021. Now the schedule is much clearer... the house looks nicer, and the family is happy. When the tools finally arrive it will be that much more enjoyable to spend time in the garage guilt-free knowing that so much was accomplished on the #TURNKEYHOUSE.
On to more positive things.
One of the items on my Christmas list this year was a simple WARN PullzAll so that the K5 could be safely rolled out into the driveway whenever the weather was nice.
Way back when the garage cabinetry was being installed a massive steel beam was hidden behind the wall and anchored to the concrete so that the backwall of the garage could be used an an anchor point for winching.... it worked like a champ
The only disappointment (and a minor one) is that the PullzAll only has a 15-foot long cable... so once the truck got about halfway out the door, straps needed to be added in-line to get the truck fully out onto the driveway.
With the truck out of the way... it was easy to get my leaf blower started up and do a nice thorough cleaning of the garage space. Having cabinet doors instead of open shelves makes this possible and the overall look as much more "clutter free"...
It's almost impossible to express how great it feels to be able to work in the sunshine a few days after Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt. This was one of my only "Garage Days" of the entire vacation but it was incredibly therapeutic. Spent the day revising the passenger side seat mount since it was interfering with the Atlas case (which is mounted about 6" higher than a typical installation). Threw a few old designs in the tuition pile and eventually got everything fully sorted out.
That was basically the end of the Christmas / New Years vacation and the normal (abnormal) work schedule resumed. One bright spot this week was that the English Wheel finally arrived in Austin and so I was able to drive down to the freight company and pick it up myself to avoid further risks of delays or lost boxes!!! Looks like I've got one obvious project to spend time on this Sunday.
...and the MetalAce lower anvils (Purchased through Trick-Tools) arrived as well. It's a nice selection of radii and will probably let me build everything that's needed to complete this project. Everything from 1" radius to an 8.5" radius and a pure flat anvil as well.
That's all for now. Keep your fingers crossed for the Mittler Brothers order to ship.... the arrival of that one is going to be an epic upgrade to my humble little shop!!!
-G
It has been said that if you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans.
That certainly felt true over the long holiday break on the MightAsWell build. There was a great plan to order new equipment early, so that everything would arrive in plenty of time to really maximize the work and progress.
But it didn't take long to realize that nothing was going to go as expected, and at least God would get a good laugh about it... even if I didn't.
In early December the orders were placed for the English Wheel and the new Bead Roller. It seemed like a great plan to purchase the English Wheel from Northern Tool because they have a local store just a few miles from the house and a local pickup avoids almost $300 in freight charges. Seemed smart... and was going according to plan until the tracking information showed that the shipment left SC and arrived in TN..... and never left ......for over a week! A few days after Christmas when we finally spoke on the phone they indicated that the package was lost and would need to be re-shipped, and the wait would have to start all over... that put the delivery into January, and as luck would have it... arriving just a few days after my 23-day vacation was already over.
The Mittler Brothers order for the bead roller was actually even worse. Being up in Missouri, it seemed like a pretty simple deal to ship out the order and getting to TX should take maybe a week.. 10 days tops since it was truck freight. The order showed as "Processing" for days and days and days... and it became clear that something was wrong. When I finally got a chance to call them, they admitted that they had a huge backlog of end-of-the-year orders and there was nothing even in-stock to ship out. My bead roller wasn't even on the production schedule until early January. Double
(As of today, there is still no shipment confirmation... it is supposed to leave their facility next week)So things were clearly not going to work out as planned, and the majority of the days off were actually spent working on house projects instead. That's ultimately OK because now there are a lot of completed items that would have taken time away from the MAW build in the early part of 2021. Now the schedule is much clearer... the house looks nicer, and the family is happy. When the tools finally arrive it will be that much more enjoyable to spend time in the garage guilt-free knowing that so much was accomplished on the #TURNKEYHOUSE.
On to more positive things.
One of the items on my Christmas list this year was a simple WARN PullzAll so that the K5 could be safely rolled out into the driveway whenever the weather was nice.
Way back when the garage cabinetry was being installed a massive steel beam was hidden behind the wall and anchored to the concrete so that the backwall of the garage could be used an an anchor point for winching.... it worked like a champ
The only disappointment (and a minor one) is that the PullzAll only has a 15-foot long cable... so once the truck got about halfway out the door, straps needed to be added in-line to get the truck fully out onto the driveway.
With the truck out of the way... it was easy to get my leaf blower started up and do a nice thorough cleaning of the garage space. Having cabinet doors instead of open shelves makes this possible and the overall look as much more "clutter free"...
It's almost impossible to express how great it feels to be able to work in the sunshine a few days after Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt. This was one of my only "Garage Days" of the entire vacation but it was incredibly therapeutic. Spent the day revising the passenger side seat mount since it was interfering with the Atlas case (which is mounted about 6" higher than a typical installation). Threw a few old designs in the tuition pile and eventually got everything fully sorted out.
That was basically the end of the Christmas / New Years vacation and the normal (abnormal) work schedule resumed. One bright spot this week was that the English Wheel finally arrived in Austin and so I was able to drive down to the freight company and pick it up myself to avoid further risks of delays or lost boxes!!! Looks like I've got one obvious project to spend time on this Sunday.
...and the MetalAce lower anvils (Purchased through Trick-Tools) arrived as well. It's a nice selection of radii and will probably let me build everything that's needed to complete this project. Everything from 1" radius to an 8.5" radius and a pure flat anvil as well.
That's all for now. Keep your fingers crossed for the Mittler Brothers order to ship.... the arrival of that one is going to be an epic upgrade to my humble little shop!!!
-G
bp71k5
3/4 ton status
Big snowstorm on Christmas Eve and day over here. May have contributed a bit to your English wheel delay.
They never found the first one... maybe when the snow melts you'll find it on the side of the road somewhere!! #FREESTUFF
-G
bp71k5
3/4 ton status
Or it was a Christmas gift for a delivery driver to himself. Just losing a giant chunk of steel sounds pretty hard.
2021.01.11 - !!! UPDATE !!! - SUNDAY GARAGE DAY....
As the snow fell in Austin, TX over the weekend, it seemed like a good time to just stay indoors and make some progress in the garage.
Charlie came out to the garage to help put the English Wheel together...
As predicted, the whole thing was quite simple and went together without any issues.
The only "catch" was that the dies from MetalAce didn't quite fit in the saddle of the lower anvil holder. A few minutes with a flat file opened up the slot by a few thousandths and now they drop right in!!! Easy peasy...
We found the old bowl project that was started when the planishing hammer and shrinker/stretcher were purchased last summer. The results back then were pretty disappointing, and the noise of the planishing hammer was a real deal-breaker especially for the amount of actual work it could do. It was a great comparison to take that boogered-up bowl shape and run it through an English Wheel to see how much cleanup was really possible.
The end result was actually pretty impressive! The bowl shape got a lot deeper and the surface finish was substantially better than we could have ever achieved on the planishing hammer.
As the day went on, we had YouTube metalworking videos playing non-stop and continued to experiment with different techniques and just tried to get familiar with the new equipment. It's hard to describe the way metal moves in an English Wheel.... and it's not as simple as you'd think to get a specific spot on the panel under the anvils. It's almost felt like the first time ever backing up a car trailer.... the parts seems to walk-away from the spot where you want them to go and the more you fight it, the worse it gets. Ultimately, it seems like the key is to remember that your "pivot" point is whatever spot is currently underneath the wheel and everything will rotate around that point.... it also seems to be easier to push the part all the way to through and THEN try to turn it either left or right to change the location on the panel where you want to work.
It's definitely going to take some more practice.. but the nice thing is that it's completely silent, so it's easy to have some music on in the background and just get into a nice Zen moment. There were a few times last night when it seemed like I got "the feel" of what to do... but then when my brain starting thinking about it too much, it slipped away and the part walked off in an unexpected direction. More practice will definitely be needed.
Briefly considered doing these filler panels as an early English Wheel project, but with all the speed holes and flares it was getting too complex and started to feel like a bad idea.
Ultimately, this probably doesn't even need to be pre-bent with the wheel and can probably just be finessed into place with tackwelds and slowly working the part around the curve a little bit at a time.
At the end of the day, we had about 5" of snow... but fortunately, the weather is warming up by Wednesday so it should all be melted away by next weekend and the garage doors can be rolled up to let the fresh air and sunshine in.
-G
As the snow fell in Austin, TX over the weekend, it seemed like a good time to just stay indoors and make some progress in the garage.
Charlie came out to the garage to help put the English Wheel together...
As predicted, the whole thing was quite simple and went together without any issues.
The only "catch" was that the dies from MetalAce didn't quite fit in the saddle of the lower anvil holder. A few minutes with a flat file opened up the slot by a few thousandths and now they drop right in!!! Easy peasy...
We found the old bowl project that was started when the planishing hammer and shrinker/stretcher were purchased last summer. The results back then were pretty disappointing, and the noise of the planishing hammer was a real deal-breaker especially for the amount of actual work it could do. It was a great comparison to take that boogered-up bowl shape and run it through an English Wheel to see how much cleanup was really possible.
The end result was actually pretty impressive! The bowl shape got a lot deeper and the surface finish was substantially better than we could have ever achieved on the planishing hammer.
As the day went on, we had YouTube metalworking videos playing non-stop and continued to experiment with different techniques and just tried to get familiar with the new equipment. It's hard to describe the way metal moves in an English Wheel.... and it's not as simple as you'd think to get a specific spot on the panel under the anvils. It's almost felt like the first time ever backing up a car trailer.... the parts seems to walk-away from the spot where you want them to go and the more you fight it, the worse it gets. Ultimately, it seems like the key is to remember that your "pivot" point is whatever spot is currently underneath the wheel and everything will rotate around that point.... it also seems to be easier to push the part all the way to through and THEN try to turn it either left or right to change the location on the panel where you want to work.
It's definitely going to take some more practice.. but the nice thing is that it's completely silent, so it's easy to have some music on in the background and just get into a nice Zen moment. There were a few times last night when it seemed like I got "the feel" of what to do... but then when my brain starting thinking about it too much, it slipped away and the part walked off in an unexpected direction. More practice will definitely be needed.
Briefly considered doing these filler panels as an early English Wheel project, but with all the speed holes and flares it was getting too complex and started to feel like a bad idea.
Ultimately, this probably doesn't even need to be pre-bent with the wheel and can probably just be finessed into place with tackwelds and slowly working the part around the curve a little bit at a time.
At the end of the day, we had about 5" of snow... but fortunately, the weather is warming up by Wednesday so it should all be melted away by next weekend and the garage doors can be rolled up to let the fresh air and sunshine in.
-G
It was a good day to work indoors, and that’s a fine way to spend a Sunday. I endorse the dimpled strut mount.
David
David
I feel bad when facebook tells me I built my cage on my blazer 4 years ago then have driven it only 2x since.. but I remember about you Greg and I dont feel so bad anymore... hahaha, nice work as always!
