Last Indian

Congratulations to all who entered, always a tough job to make a choice! Kudos to all the winners and especially too my buddy JustA! Congratulations Steve!

JustA quick question! Was it fine before the alternator replacement & did you get the supercharge connected right after the alternator replacement? If so then we’ll help you step through this step by step! Gas, air, spark! Engines haven’t changed since invented! It maybe a sensor or some other birdbrain idea a tree hugger had, but it’s still gas, air, spark!

That’s good enough Pete! Not a lot you can do with that pedal setup without getting real involved! So let’s JustA stay with what you have for now. The bracket with the ears will work, but it will need to be made from at least 1/4” steel stock! For added security & strength! It should also be design with a gusset that runs from the ear arrangement to the vertical side that attaches to the frame! This will eliminates any flex. Remember you are going to be applying at least 500 pounds of pressure to the master cylinder! Maybe more in a panic stop! With the limitations you will have you need to be very selective in your pads and rotor selection!

Pete, the 1” bore is ok and may even work well for you! So since you have it at least start there, but you are staying with manual brakes and you are moving from drum to disc! Disc hands down out stop drum, but disc require more fluid volume & more applied pressure! So I mentioned a 1.125 piston master cylinder because that is what I ran on my 4 wheel disc that I ran on my “69” Z. Things can get pretty complicated with a brake system & there is a lot of math if you want an excellent stopping car! Your pedal ratio is 4.6 to 1. You may need to go as high as 7 to 1 because the pedal is going to be harder just by moving to disc, but that can be addressed down the road. If you can take picture of the brake pedal assembly that shows me the entire pedal and linkage. As soon as I can I will sketch up a fitting that you’ll be able to get made that will serve as a fitting for the master cylinder and serve as a attaching bolt for the new bracket! You are most welcome!

Pete, presuming you’ll remain interested in this conversation this will take several exchanges! I believe the bore size of the stock “55” master is 1” and quite obviously a single fluid line out! While I don’t know specifically what duel master cylinder you have I would encourage you to get one that has at least a 1” bore! Preferably a 1.125 bore, while this will give a little harder pedal if you change nothing else, I will give suggestions that will also alter that effect! Make sure the two line ports of the new master cylinder are not on the frame side. You will need to make or have made special fittings for those ports and also serve as mounting bolts for the new brackets that will have to be made. So to be clear, that means you will need a distribution block that will mount somewhere else! This distribution block will take the single front line and divide it into two lines and the same for the rear line. Take a look at your brake pedal! Measure the distance from the master cylinder push rod attachment to the middle of the pedal, the pad you push with your foot! Than measure the distance from the center of pivot point of the pedal, where it mounts on the upper shaft to the master cylinder push rod! Note them and tell me what they are!

Can you show me a picture of the master cylinder you have for the disc brakes and than the stock master?! If it can be done and most likely it can, you need to make different brackets & possibly a new piston rod!

Well I finally found a sandal, little dangerous on the second story though! But no shoe yet!

Frosty, First of all congratulations on the huge cool garage, drool! Everybody has different needs, expectations, budget restraints, etc. So what worked for me may not be good or practical for someone else. So this is what I found that worked for me! Take from it what you will. I have done and seen many floor coating! Stains, paints, epoxy, nature stone and the like! Ceramic tile, regular floor tile and linoleum! None had much longevity if you are actually going to do mechanical work! Like floor jacks, jack stands. Things to do suspension work, tranny work, etc… These floor applications are not rugged enough! The biggest headache with all of these applications is the cleanup to replacing them! All are pretty ugly and labor intensive. So what I finally arrived at, that has work for about 10 years now and show no sign of failing, was a blended floor of carpet and Gflooring! I park the Indian on the carpet. These are self stick indoor outdoor carpet tile, relatively inexpensive. Here I can do some moderate work and if I have an accident I can replace the damage tiles very easily, as I bought excess. Because this carpet has some slippage to it, when I jack up the car it doesn’t grab and pull the carpet. The carpet also gives a level of comfort to the feel of the garage, I.E. acts as a thermal barrier over the concrete and sound absorption. Also when I’m on the floor working it’s not cold because of the carpet! Now I see you plan on installing a lift so those issues may not be relevant for you. The main part of the garage is done in Gflooring! I looked at all the different types of garage flooring tiles & rolls including Race Deck! All of them are going to need some form of protection when you use a floor jack, jack stands etc. if you don’t you will gouge, cut & dent these materials, but driving on them daily is no problem or just sitting there. Yet if you try to jack up a car that’s a problem! First off the floor jack will leave divots in the PVC tiles and sheet PVC and jack stands do the same. Also because the adhesion between the tires and the PVC material is so good that as the car rises up the wheel pull inward! This pulls the material with the tires and when you set the car back down it pushes the material out. This will cause tiles to break tabs or unhook. Roll PVC flooring will end up puckering. Again this may not be a concern if you only use a lift, but the best form of car storage is jacked up, wheels hanging, I.E. no spring compression! So the Gflooring I glued down, which takes some patience! When I got to the walls I rolled the sheet of Gflooring 4” up the walls and glued it there as well! Then put cove molding over it! This gives not only a clean look, but keep any water or liquid in on the floor where I can clean it up. It keeps debris in and it keep insects out! There is also a transition molding between the carpet and Gflooring. The Gflooring does offer some minimal insulation from the concrete, as will the tiles. I presume you plan to heat the garage when you’re there working in the winter?! If so you might consider insulating and weather proof the garage door, as this will be a huge heat loss! So I will tell you what I did which made a huge impact on the comfort of the garage, both in hot and cold weather! I bought 2” thick R-tech foam board insulation. This is a 7.7 r value board. This I cut and glued to each panel of the garage door, allowing for just enough clearance of each panels angle as articulates through its opening cycle! I also cover the ends of the exposed foam with a high quality tape to protect it! I than encased the side rails of the garage door in the foam as well attaching it to the rails with 3” wide Gorilla tape. The foam attachment to the rails runs from the wall to be even with the side rail. The outside of the garage door should have flexible seals that overlap onto the door, as this helps prevent wind and blowing from pushing into the gap around the door. I also used these seal on the inside of the door between the side rails and the side edge of the garage door. This all made for a very weather tight garage door! In my shop I also used a R-tech on my man door which made a big difference on temperature intrusion! Here’s how the impact of those improvements effected garage temps. My garage, 2x4 construction. R-13 wall insulation, attic R-30, garage door is R-.9! On a 90 degree day, door never opened, no cars driven. The garage temperature would by mid afternoon reach 84-85 degrees! Same conditions in the winter with single digit temps the garage never when below 40 degrees, but the deeper we went into winter the less the day time temperature recovery would occur! This is because of the direct impact of the ground temperatures declining as we go deeper into winter. Because as you reduce the impact of above ground outside temperatures the more ground temperatures effect the air space of the garage, I.E. geothermal energy! Now after insulating and weatherproofing the garage door! On a 95 degree day, yes 95 not 90, no door open no cars driven, 77 degrees is the hottest and that’s not till late afternoon. Winter, the coldest it ever has gotten in the garage period is 49 degrees! Most of the time it is in the 50’s and up until late December, or longer some years, lower 60’s! Most of the time I can keep the garage a 72 degrees when working in it, with just a 1500 watt electric heater after bringing it up to temperature with my big electric wall heater!

Frosty I have a few thoughts if you want? I’m a little pressed right now, but I’ll post this weekend if you want?!

Well it to raise my head for 5 minutes! Thought I’ld let you know I didn’t fall of the roof yet, although I haven’t made it that far yet!😫 It’s unbelievable to me that anyone could e so incompetent at a job! Yet I should know better! What a mess! I spent two weeks fixing our bow window that they really never installed right! It would have been easier to have pulled it out and started over, but when all you have is me myself and I and you don’t want a 5x7 hole for a couple days in the front of your house; you do things that take a lot longer! Had to replace all of the foam board with plywood! Than tar paper, which they never used. When I got to the front of the garage! Surprise these morons not only didn’t use tar paper they never heard of flashing! I can’t wait to get to the second story! Oh happy days! I didn’t think it would be possible to drive the Indian less than last year! Guess what?; it is! 50 miles so far!

Well the cedar was ship plank. Ship plank has a undercut lip that the one above overlaps so it worked ok, but at the end of the day the crew the built it were real incompetent! I went to the house nearly every day & did most of the interior work, but I missed the transition of shell to siding because I was traveling during that time! Now I find in taking all this front siding off that they didn’t even use tar paper! Idiots! I’m using Stone Facade by Certainteed on the bottom, but just 32” high than transitioning to dimensional vinyl cedar board. Than in the back there is a fireplace chimney with cedar that will get stripped as well and finished in the stone facade! My shop is a mess! and that’s not all of it!

Quite, the wife will hear you! Yes I do enjoy it! Even when I’m cussing up a storm! If you sit on your ass as my father and his father before him did, that’s how you’ll die as both did! Now that may be how I go, but I figure if I keep moving even when it does catchup with me; I’ll make it a little tougher on the guys that have to cart my ass away! Need to keep the Millennial’s on their toes! I might JustA be on the second story roof!😁

What JustA said! No! It got bigger! Because I lost the, I have a job excuse! But in all fairness to my bride I could hirer someone to do some of the work, but I have no tolerance for incompetent morons! And you can pretty much never find someone who knows how to do it right, let alone do a job the correct why. You know simple things, like fertilizing a yard! Really! It’s not that difficult and yet it is! Folks pay an arm and a leg to have their lawns taken care of! Fertilized and lawn service! And yet depending on the area, soil type, rain fall, weather conditions some yards can look pretty bad! Why? Well first off the guy paying the bill is to stupid and lazy to be informed, or even drag out a water hose and water his yard! So really do I think he knows the difference between a insect problem or a fungus or even a nutrient issue? No he doesn’t have a clue! And more often than not neither does the service they hire! Out of 9 companies I had look at my house to redo the outside only one gave me a quote! That quote was so ridiculous I could have sided my whole house in the most expensive siding available, had my roof redone and built a forth and fifth bay on my garage! The other 8 weren’t even interested they didn’t want to remove the cedar siding and didn’t know how to do stone facade siding! Seriously they’re in remodeling home exteriors and you don’t know how to do the work?

Who would have thought that remodeling a staircase could be so much work? Add in remodeling the outside of the house and maintenance of over 300 trees, shrubs & bushes would fill one old mans retirement time. Had to hand make about 50% of all the star parts plus remove the knee wall and rebuild a different one. finally got my outside materials! What a pain that was! Ever peel cedar siding of a house? You have to remove every nail! I knew that, but there must have been a sale on nails the week they put mine on!

360 my friend my heart breaks for you! Life can be very unfair for no obvious reason! But I know you will take those lemons and make the best lemon aid anyone has ever tasted! And as Justa6 our buddy said, lean on us whatever you need Justa ask! There are many things that pull us together! God, country, brotherhood! Always in my prayers Randy!

That’s a tough one! More than likely it’s not a water stain per say, but water that soaked through the upper layer of fabric down into the padding! This action usually releases chemistry within the padding that then is wicked and absorbed into the fabric which then causes a stain! As long as you keep wetting the same area with the fabric in place, it’s the proverbial cat chasing it’s tail! You unfortunately need to remove the fabric at least enough to place a barrier between the fabric and the padding! But if the padding is stitched on to the fabric like most seats are than that gets really involved, I.E. remove, unstitch, clean restitch! If this the case and you really don’t want to go through that headache, and who would?! So do what Kiwi said! Find a good dry cleaner who has the capability to apply cleaning chemistry with vacuum suction removal at the same time, which minimizes contact duration and fluid transfer!

Well, this is probably the only work I will do on the Indian this year! Finally took the front splitter back off to paint the underside with Hammerite!

I ask because I’m trying figure timing if I can! You know that project I have going, well actually two projects. One for you one for Frosty! Things have gotten; well as they say at least here, balls to the wall! Trying to desperately finish a major staircase renovation. Which I can’t get any help on for parts from the supplier, this COVID excuse is getting ridiculous! And soon I’ll be starting an exterior remodel that will certainly test just how old I really am!!

I’m not sure what you mean by not working most of the time! I’m not picking, we are all just trying to help with something we can’t see or hear! So you have turned the traction control off and that’s what you mean by not working most of the time than ok, but if you mean it’s not coming on than no, that won’t stop intermittent issues that are due to faulty sensors! As faulty sensors often never register in the traction control mode! Likewise, while the fluid may not be burnt that doesn’t mean it’s good! How many miles are on the fluid since the last filter & fluid change? If and when the fluid was change how was it changed? What brand of fluid was used? All of these things play a big role in GM FWD trannys! And this is all only relevant to the transmission! Which may not even be the issue that you are having!

My personal favorite for a V8 was always a pyramid design! To me it gives a structural stability design to the engine. It also has a tendency, if designed right, to aiding in volumetric efficiency? Kiwi, when do you think you’ll be ready to paint?

I agree with Ringo! The front grille, like most nearly all of today, is ridiculous! He lower front ducts, that at least in the GS are nonfunctional, look stupid! And Really! A triple barrel scoop on a GDI! To me only the wheels & tires on the Judge look good!

Well! As the close of winter comes and the tweet tweet of the birds starts and hope springs eternal?! Oh I’m so screwed! The Last Indians Work Shoppe will now become The Last Indians Sweat Shop! 🥵 More work than one Old man can shake a tree at, forget the stick! 😩 To quote my buddy JustA, and so it begins!😔

Turn off your traction control and keep it off until you determine that’s not the problem! Traction control works off the wheel sensors/antilock system! If the sensors are having an issue because of corrosion or poor signal reception they won’t set a code unless they are completely dead, but intermittent won’t set a code. But the engine will respond on acceleration as though the wheels are slipping! Which can seem like the the car is hesitating!

Oh sure! If you want to get real detailed about it! Good job buddy!

If you are referring to the start of Pontiac as the Oakland Motor Company! It was horse drawn carriages!