Ice is so uplifiting - Not in a good way!

Last night I was taking out the trash and noticed something alarming. Not too major, but enough to concern me. As I'm wheeling the trash cans out of the garage, I noticed the concrete apron of the driveway entering the garage has lifted up a good 2"-3"! Gotta love frost heave. When we moved to this house back in August of 2007, I noticed it and it wasn't bad at all. And last year during the summer, my son would ride his bike in and out of the garage with no problems. The concrete was lifted then, but only about a 1/2" or so and was like that since we've lived here. Now he'll need a ramp to jump out. I have a feeling that wonderful 70's construction is failing outside now. I've fixed just about everything inside by now.

I would imagine the gravel base was not deep enough or the soil wasn't compacted correctly, or at all. Heck, the gravel is probably only a couple inches deep, so no water can drain. So, it looks like this will be my next project for the spring and/or summer. Maybe we can swing pavers instead of concrete. That would be much nicer looking, but expensive, even with me doing all the labor. Maybe I can get my sister-in-law to help since she laid pavers around her pool practically by herself. Time to price materials, I guess.

So, until the next post, God Bless, keep the rubber side down, and get to wrenchin'!

John, "Pop"

Cruise-in Planning

I have always wanted to get a cruise-in started, but never had the pull, location or interested people to attend. I have been a part of someone else's cruise-in, sort-of, but never one on my own. When I was on the Street Racing Dayton Underground forum, I helped with a pretty large cruise-in that was always held at the Normandy Square shopping center in Centerville. But, those went south real fast because of people trying to be Johnny Hot Rod and speeding past the lot, doing burnouts and some even just coming out to start a fight with other members of the forums. But that was all with a different crowd of people and I had a different mindset then as well.

What I would like to do now is hold a cruise-in either every weekend, every 2 weeks or at least once a month, using a local church as the venue. Or maybe hold the cruise-in at a few select churches in the Dayton area. I'd like to see it open to all makes, models and styles. And it shouldn't compete with another cruise-in time or day.

My family and I attend Southbrook Christian Church, and I think it would be a great site for this event. The lot is huge and is easily accessible. But it's not real close to any major road, so there might be an issue with exposure to people driving by. There are other churches around Centerville that also have a large lot and a good location, but we have never been there and don't know if there would be many people interested.

Last October, our church had an event called Brookfest that had a car show, but we didn't make it in time to see what cars or people we showing. I was hoping we would have made it in time to talk to them about either joining our club, or at least the forums. Maybe this year we can.

Any thoughts and ideas would be great!

So, until the next post, keep the rubber side down, and get to wrenchin'!

John

I Met Chip Foose!

Just to let my readers know, I MET CHIP FOOSE! Yeah, I'm a little excited. He is definitely the good guy you see on TV. I got a couple autographs and a picture with him and my kids. Something cool we saw was Chip giving a kid drawing lessons while we were in line to see him. God love my wife for spending 7 hours at the show and standing with me for 2 hours in the line to meet Chip.

Cavalcade of Customs - Cincy . . . . . Chip Foose Will Be There!!!!

At first, I wasn't going to try too hard to go to this years Cavalcade of Customs show in Cincinnati. I figured it wasn't a big deal if we couldn't or didn't go since we would probably see some of the cars at other shows later in the year. But then I happened to read through the info again, and there it was, Chip Foose is going to be there on Saturday!! Needless to say, my wife and I are pretty excited to go. We just hope this snow doesn't keep him from being there.

The bad thing is though, I don't have anything for him to sign, so I printed a wallpaper from Magnaflow's website. Now I wish I would have bought at least one of the die cast cars I saw over the years that was a Foose designs replica.

By the way, if you're going and want to get together with me and my family, we'll be going sometime around 5PM.

So, until the next post, keep the rubber side down, and get to wrenchin'!

John

New Garage/Barn/Workshop Plans - Just Dreaming

For the past few weeks, my mind has been running wild with plans and ideas for a new barn to replace the not-so-well-built one we have now. What we have now is 32'x40', uninsulated, leaky - wind and water, and the gambrel roof is deflecting about a foot and roof joists are pulling away from the beams. After the last few major wind storms we have had, a lot of the roof has blown off and I noticed a week ago that some of the gutter and downspouts have blown down. Also, it only has a dirt floor and 7 foot ceiling, poor lighting and a workshop and tack room that are unusable for anything other than storage of items that can't really be hurt by the elements. Plus we have or had a groundhog living under the floor of the tack room. As of right now, we store our golf cart, lawn tractor and my truck in there, along with some old engine parts and my engine hoist.

Project "Locomotion" - 1982 Chevrolet C10 Silverado Diesel - Part 3

Here we go with Part 3 of my project plans. In this part, I will give the details on the interior, wheels, tires and the finish details.

INTERIOR
For the interior of my truck, I'm proposing to use a few different methods and materials. For the majority of the interior, I want to do a combination of leather and tweed, probably in a light saddle tan all around with the stitching and any piping matching closely to the main body color of the truck. The center console will be covered in fiberglass and also painted the body color. The dash will be painted the body color on the steel parts and the dashpad will be covered in the leather I decide to use. Any vents and trim will be made from billet aluminum, mostly mass produced parts available from LMC Truck. The steering wheel will be billet aluminum as well, leather wrapped from either Colorado Customs, Billet Specialties, or the maker of my wheels if available. The steering column will be a Flaming River or Ididit polished unit. The seats I plan to use will be re-covered seats from a late model F-body, or possibly a 'Vette. The carpet is going to be from ACC Mats in the light saddle tan.