She Ain’t Purty … Yet:
Day 29 – Forstner bits

Thanks to Rockler Woodworking, the 3″ Forstner bit is set to arrive arrived oday.

It is indeed a thing of beauty.

I’ll use the 1/2″ drive 3″ diameter bit to recess the fuel filler cap into the pickup truck’s bed floor, and another 1-1/2″ Forstner bit to make the hole all the way through for the inlet tube.

Stainless steel Allen head countersunk machine screws are being used to secure the fuel cap assembly to the bed floor. Washers, lock washers and nuts will be tightened before lowering the final board into the floor and aligning the fuel filler neck hose to the gas tank inlet.

The last steps will be to tighten the circle clamps around the fuel hose; install the last two bed floor strips; and the bed will be done!

Yesterday was the day for the major ignition system tune-up.

New vacuum advance unit, contact points, condenser, rotor, distributor cap, plug wires, spark plugs and an Accel Super Stock coil were installed.

I did notice several articles about the “lost art” of setting contact points are out there.  Here’s one. Here’s another, and here’s another.  Did you know a set of points are only good for 5,000 to 6,000 miles? Ah, yes – the good old days.

I think the vacuum advance unit helped the most since the old unit no longer held its seal. Rather than function to advance the spark curve, the old unit just provided a massive loss of vacuum in the intake system.  The new functioning vacuum advance unit added about 15% to the truck’s top end speed, while allowing a lower idle speed to be set.

Double Yea!