Dissassemble Johnny 5

To continue the story of my new project, it is December 2009 and I’m like a kid in a candy story. I found a great source of information about the IDI over at Oilburners. The guys over there really go out of their way to help. I learned a great deal about these engines and their little nuances. With the cold weather, that was about all I could really do. On the nice days I would go out and strip some stuff, but for the most part it was just wait and learn.

Even though it was still winter I had gotten a little bit done to this truck. Like tearing out the interior. Meanwhile, the truck was all Mikey and I would talk about. He was going to take a weekend and come down to help. Of course, easier said than done with the state of the economy in 2010. Awesome.

So after tearing out the interior, I decided it was time to work on something else. With all the reading I had done, I had learned that this motor wasn’t as light as a gasser. A fully dressed gas engine weighs in around 5-600 lbs. This motor is somewhere in the neighborhood of 900-1100. Hmmm….

My dad had called me and offered to let me have the cherry picker. Seeing as Mikey had my trailer and my Dad was going to meet me in Kansas with it, I said why not. Besides, cherry pickers aren’t cheap and renting one for this project was impractical. I also had the problem of how to move the blue truck with no front axle. Which,  my dad had an answer for….his car dolly. More on that fiasco later.

Prior to going to meet my parents in KS, I pulled the transfer case and the driveline. It was cold….and wet when I did this, and muddy. There was so much caked dirt under the truck, it got me nine kinds of muddy in my driveway. Good times for sure.

I also went ahead and pulled the front of the truck off to get easier access. It seemed a bit of a reach to expect to go out the top with this big motor. there were a few issues with some of the stuff I removed.

Like the core support being nine kinds of bent to shit, cut, and rusted out. I can’t figure out why the top rail was cut. I had a friend weld it up and it took a couple of hours.

So after all of this is down I went to KS to meet my folks for lunch. It was nice to seem them. My Dad showed me how to assemble his car dolly. I’m thinking light weight was not a design concept he had in mind during the build, lord is that thing heavy.

So the next weekend after the trip to Kansas, I get the cherry picker out of the trailer and pull the motor. During this time, I discover the motor mounts were shot, the transmission was missing 2 bolts in the bell housing, and the cherry picker was getting close to it’s limits. But I got it. I got the parts truck in Dec, and by the end of Feb the motor was in my garage.

And yes, in a completely redneck moment, I did the Captain Morgan pose with the motor.

More to come.