Working On The M561 Gama Goat

[mkcoen]

In today's episode of As the Earth Rotates we find our intrepid MVer...scrapping paint. Gee it's almost as fun as watching it dry.

I did have a visitor of the Red Tailed variety as seen over the fender of the deuce. He dropped by for the afternoon buffett at the bird feeder. His delicacy of choice being one of the many white-winged doves we have around. Good thing the wife wasn't home or she would have been after him with the 12ga.

 

[mkcoen]

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Guess what I did today. Actually I did a little bit more. At 0800 I was at the tax office getting it registered. I went with the FMV tag as I plan to drive it before I get any bumper numbers painted so didn't want any issues with the local LEOs.

 

[Another Ahab]

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Guess what I did today.


View attachment 548228

Nice work, mkcoen; getting it done! Thinking that some-bunny started out the morning with more than just a single cup of coffee:

 

[mkcoen]

started out the morning with more than just a single cup of coffee:

Don't drink the nasty stuff. Started the morning with a bacon/egg taco with XTRA bacon and a nice un-sweet ice tea (gotta get the caffine somewhere).

 

[Another Ahab]

I Get It

Don't drink the nasty stuff. Started the morning with a bacon/egg taco with XTRA bacon and a nice un-sweet ice tea (gotta get the caffine somewhere).

 

[TexAndy]

Neat. Nice picture of the hawk.

Don't shoot the hawk. Shoot the dove. They taste better.

 

[Keith_J]

Neat. Nice picture of the hawk.

Don't shoot the hawk. Shoot the dove. They taste better.

How would you know how hawk tastes? I would think it is a cross between spotted owl and golden cheeked warbler .

I left my Motive pressure bleeder in the shop in case I cannot make it on Thursday. But all signs are good I will be there. Just hope the rest of the brake hoses are open, every hose on the carrier was clogged solid with the products of DOT3 and DOT5 reacting.

 

[TexAndy]

Your lead will be there, Thursday. Don't orphan it.

 

[mkcoen]

It was supposed to be raining today so planned some honey-do's and then hitting our MVPA meeting this evening. Turns out it rained between midnight and 0600 but hasn't since. I did get a couple of small things done but need to knock off to get the chores done and head toward Austin.

Hit the left side of the carrier with a DA after yesterday's stripping. Only thing left on the carrier now is the front. I'm going to let the blaster do the wheel wells as I'm not that good of a contortionist.

I finally got the broken pintle hitch off. Because it's mounted to aluminum they built a box style brace around the inside of the mount point. As such there was no way to get a pipe or crescent wrench on it to undo the nut. I wound up having to buy a 1 15/16 socket. Even then it was a major task getting the socket into the box. After that I took a tie down strap hooked to the broken pintle piece and the brush guard of my pickup and tightened it enough so it wouldn't spin then hit the nut with an impact driver.

I also took off all but 1 of the lifting/tie-down rings. It was easy enough using a crow bar to spin them off. Tomorrow I'll try the one that wouldn't break free with a 5' track bar. If it doesn't come off then I guess it'll just stay there.

 

[Another Ahab]

I also took off all but 1 of the lifting/tie-down rings. It was easy enough using a crow bar to spin them off. Tomorrow I'll try the one that wouldn't break free with a 5' track bar. If it doesn't come off then I guess it'll just stay there.

You make me laugh, mkcoen :

- Sometimes the fight, it goes to the matador; sometimes it goes to the bull.

 

[M813rc]

I'll give you your tail-lights at the meeting tonight.

Cheers

 

[turnkey]

lots of work done and as always more to do...looking good keep the pics comin.

 

[turnkey]

still the goat lloks almost ready for a public debate...or de, ball game ,which ever...Nice job

 

[mkcoen]

Keith_J and TexAndy dropped by today to do a little more work on the Goat. While Keith was working on clearing the front brake lines Andy and I were scrapping some more paint. The driveway was littered with CUCVs to the point of having our own MV show. While we got a late start progress was still made. Andy suggested leaving the Goat unpainted for a while with a sign saying "Limited Edition Delorean." We'll see.

 

[Keith_J]

I did my best impersonation of an intervention cardiologist yesterday, successfully cleaning out the DOT3-DOT5 reaction product clog in the left front brake hose. 1/16" ER-308L and 0.023" ER-70-S6 filler wires successfully breached the clog, then brake parts cleaner and denatured alcohol for a clean flush. We ran the larger wire in a drill, I lack a pin chuck for the smaller wire. Just slow speed and careful feed.

I found correct fittings to use compressed air in blowing out the lines and hoses. Also looked at brake function with compressed air.

Still have have the middle axle hoses, then bleeding.

 

[mkcoen]

Bought some mirror arms from Eastern Surplus and they arrived today. Items look great but they charged me $22 (for 4 mirror arms) shipping via FedEx then sent them USPS for under $15. If they had charged $2 more per mirror arm I would have been fine with that but by jacking up the shipping to make more money they just lost any chance I'd buy something else from them.

 

[quarkz]

Sorry to hear you are sour on Eastern. You should have also ordered a set of their goat seat cushions. That would have raised your total. Dealing with shipping has to be the @$$ end of the retail world. But I figure it evens out on my end in the long run. When I ordered arms for my goat I got a few different styles, including ones with plastic at the joint. So when you tighten them to secure the length, the plastic stripped or cracked. Eastern sent replacement all metal arms and ate the shipping costs. That is great when you figure the small piece parts aren't what make them a profit. The sale of a whole truck is what is keeping them in business, not our $25 orders. The parts are what build them a good reputation in the MV community. Also finding a one size fits all shipping system is tough. They could pay one person to search out the best deal for your merchandise. But that person's salary it going to raise the cost of the piece parts we are ordering. Still a lot cheaper than taking a trip to their store and picking them up yourself.

Heck I am still amazed I can send a letter from my door to someone across the country's door for less than a buck.

But I agree it sucks when shipping is greater than or equal to the price of my merchandise.

 

[mkcoen]

Sorry to hear you are sour on Eastern. You should have also ordered a set of their goat seat cushions. That would have raised your total. Dealing with shipping has to be the @$$ end of the retail world. But I figure it evens out on my end in the long run. When I ordered arms for my goat I got a few different styles, including ones with plastic at the joint. So when you tighten them to secure the length, the plastic stripped or cracked. Eastern sent replacement all metal arms and ate the shipping costs. That is great when you figure the small piece parts aren't what make them a profit. The sale of a whole truck is what is keeping them in business, not our $25 orders. The parts are what build them a good reputation in the MV community. Also finding a one size fits all shipping system is tough. They could pay one person to search out the best deal for your merchandise. But that person's salary it going to raise the cost of the piece parts we are ordering. Still a lot cheaper than taking a trip to their store and picking them up yourself.

Heck I am still amazed I can send a letter from my door to someone across the country's door for less than a buck.

But I agree it sucks when shipping is greater than or equal to the price of my merchandise.

You certainly make some valid points and generally I would agree, but (and you knew there was going to be a but - fill in your own joke here) when you say you're going to do something one way and I agree to that way, then do it. Don't come back and change things up to make yourself some more profit. I'd be willing to bet if when they went to ship it and the cost turned out to be $8 more that they would have called me back and said there was an error please pay the difference (maybe they wouldn't but we'll never know). If they had simply sent it FedEx there wouldn't be an issue as it isn't about the cost. I would also imagine they have a parts monkey who's job includes going out to the warehouse, getting the parts, figuring out the shipping, boxing it up, and putting in the mail. Our $25 orders are part of what keeps him busy enough that they keep him on the job. One thing it did was take him extra time, as he had already figured out what the FedEx shipping would be, to turn around and figure out what USPS shipping would be "Hey look! We make an extra $8 on a $25 order!" Charging me 33% more is not cool no matter how small that 33% amounts to in the end.

Earlier in this thread I made a big deal out of saying how great Red River Parts was with that order and how much I appreciated the experience. That's one of the reasons I'm pointing out how disappointed I am with this order. I will do business with one again and not with the other.

 

[mkcoen]

Got a little bit more done today and sent a text to the blaster asking when we can get this scheduled so I don't have to do any more. It appears that the Forest Service stripped the front fenders at some point. There is a single layer of yellow and then some non-skid painted just outside the door frame opening. They apparently painted the non-skid over the original paint at one point then stripped the rest, painted it yellow, then added some more non-skid further out from the 1st batch as there is only mil paint under a small section of the non-skid. Any way, that's been the easiest area to work on by far.

I tried out a new stripping compound on this section, Citristrip. It's a little less harsh than the straight chemical stuff I was using and works excellent on single layer paint. It isn't that great on multilayer and I think the previous stuff I was using is better for that job.

If I can get it to the blaster this week I'll have paint on it before our big event in Austin in April.

 

[TexAndy]

Keith_J and TexAndy dropped by today to do a little more work on the Goat. While Keith was working on clearing the front brake lines Andy and I were scrapping some more paint. The driveway was littered with CUCVs to the point of having our own MV show. While we got a late start progress was still made. Andy suggested leaving the Goat unpainted for a while with a sign saying "Limited Edition Delorean." We'll see.

View attachment 548587View attachment 548586View attachment 548588View attachment 548589

Stop applying the FAT filter in editing, Mark.

D: