United States of GRIZZ - Just how random do you want it?

[brandersnatch]

Keep on keeping on Grizz. It’ll all come good en the end.

[Grizz]

Keep on keeping on Grizz. It’ll all come good en the end.

Thank you mate.

I am actually starting to enjoy this whole cleaning and clearing up process.

The fact that I am moving stuff on that one way or another has no use to me, on FB marketplace and bringing in bots of cash, that’s being stashed for another stupid car purchase (if it is still available when I have all the cash together) using “free cash” makes me happy too.

[Grizz]

With stuff happening it was just a matter of time before I got back to the Astro van.

Well, John my old lodger and driving school instructor got going. I don’t know much about electronics and he loves it.

His driving instruction car was lightly damaged recently when someone cut across and pushed him off the road.

He was quoted £100 for a “repair” which took me about 10 minutes to do with some G3 compound and polish. I touched up a few other marks too.

Because he had cancelled his lessons he spent part of the day here and we started to look at and mess with the Astro’s 1.5 DIN radio that I always disliked, along with the dash that had been cut.

So he/we started to disassemble and try figuring out what the two amplifiers and speakers were doing.

Currently only the 6x9’s in the door work.



Of course because the radio hole is so shallow, one cannot fit a standard sized radio in there so I will have to go to Halfords to see if there is a suitable replacement for it.




The other thing that became apparent was that the replacement is a different colour.

But I will live with that.

I could repaint it like the lower sections that I did before.




So hopefully tomorrow is an easy day for the electrical stuff.

Fingers crossed again.

[paulplom]

My 7" android unit it the van is only about 2" deep.

[DodgeRover]

The mechanism less ones are really shallow, just a radio MP3 player though.

[mercrocker]

I bought some Chinese tosh to go in the Minor. It is about 2 inches deep although DIN-width. It could even be made shallower than that as there is only a ribbon circuit in there, no mechs as it won't play CDs, just SDs and USBs. Got it wired up to a couple of old Murphy TV speakers, sounds about as good as a BMC transistor radio which is the effect I wanted anyway. Currently loaded up with some Brian Matthew downloads off Youtube...

[Grizz]

So with starting on the Astro van radio @sparkplug and mate Martin in different ways immediately sprang into action finding me sources of short radios.

Some are crazy expensive and some are not.

Martin found a like new Pioneer radio with a load of auxiliary functions for £30.00 about 30 miles or 50km from home. Regular advertised price is £90.00

Mate Darren had “bought” my Cortina steering wheel from the Rezin Rockit that was advertised for £25.00 and was going to come collect it next week. His workshop is a mile from the radio seller so John and I decided to buy the radio for £30.00 and save £60.00 plus deliver the steering to Darren for free, though he absolutely insisted on giving me £10.00 for the “Free Cash” savings kitty. I then got into his skip and rescued a wheel clamp with two keys that I have given to mate Martin for his trailer as well as some solid wheels and an axle, plus some scrap steel for my stash, all free.

So a good day in the end, despite not making a load of progress on decluttering.

It was also miserable with the temperatures around 6’C and a nasty cold breeze cutting through our bones.

Called it a day by 4.45

Today John is back and trying to figure out the total clusterf#€k of duplicate and dead end wiring in the van.

I am at the garage, continuing the clean up.







More later.

Its 12.45 already.

[Grizz]

Thanks for the various responses guys.

Much appreciated.



Saturday was a good day.

Not warm but the cutting breeze reduced to something more tolerable.

No rain.

John was back by 10.00 in the morning to carry on with deciphering the archaeological history and crap of 33 years of each new owner adding their stamp to the sound system.

This includes two amplifiers, a 720 and 360 Watt units. Presumably forva sub woofer and the rest of the system.
They both power up.
I do not have any need for a Sub. So bypassed that.

The rear door speakers have never worked since I bought the van.
Front door speakers were and still do but not great quality. So I will go get some subtle 6x9’s for the front doors and a pair of new 6’s for the rear doors, which work but I think replacing the whole system makes sense.

Once all the chaos was sorted, John started the van with a jump pack as ignition had been on all day and the van not driven for 3-4 weeks, only to find that on starting the van, the radio stopped working. Buggerrr.
So back to tracing wires and then all fixed.

It sounds brilliant with the four speakers all working and set to the way my ears like them.









Next job for me, will be to make a U-Shaped radio surround blanking plate to close in the 15mm gap under the radio in the replacement dash unit.

I think I have just enough of the Mazda Bongo/Friendee interior trim panel that I used for the rear door trim making left to create something that is grey and colour matching.




Video.



And of course it is still raining outside but I have dry jobs that can be done.

[Grizz]

Here’s a 7 plus day job update.

And I have only scratched the surface with this.

Too many photos of this lot but hey…… you can scroll faster ehh??

As mentioned before, a wise man once said that doing one thing every day is progress. Even if you just touched something that made you think about how you should proceed with it.

So the last 19 days, starting on 20 February I have been spending time in the garage sorting, clearing, cleaning, planning on how to take control of my life back.

As there is not much happening in the job market, partly because companies seem to wait for the end of financial year before they start spending money on new team builds etc. I know that when I am back in the daily slog and have limited time for hobbies etc. this job will be a nightmare to try achieve.
So getting my shit in order now while I have loads of time will make life easier.

Who remembers what they did at Christmas 2014 ?
That was 9 years ago.
The world was a different place back then.
Facebook remembers.
It also remembered that in March 2015 the Chevy was being torn down for a 6 month rebuild over summer.

So this was back then.

Of course a lot has changed since then.





Divorced
Made redundant
Travel and discovered America
Loads of car builds
Covid.
Distractions

Life goes on.

So I started by packing away and tidying the tools etc used in the Rezin Rockit build.
Changing layout and ditching stuff.
In order to make space I tried giving away some stuff.
Amazingly nobody wanted to collect anything from my house.

So I decided to put a price on stuff and suddenly up to 8 punters for a diesel space heater and yesterday 5 people wanted a £5.00 propane burner torch.

I still have way more crap than I need. 95% of my tools and junk are used but functional and not expensive but makes me happy.

The money I have made from the junk (some stuff is brand new and unused) is going into a savings kitty to possibly buy something stupid. We have to see how it unfolds.

Some of the stuff that’s gone is not represented in the pics.
But I have done a ton of preparation for when I get started with the 1966 C10 truck that has patiently waited for me.

I am still a long way from done with the tidy up, junk clearance and identification and sorting of the Chevy parts but it will happen.

One of the bigger jobs was to sort and arrange the parts that went with various builds and subjects.
Bodywork tools
Paint guns
Fillers
Paints
Rattle cans
Pneumatic tools
Electrical
Steering Wheels
And much more.

I cleared two cabinets to move a load of bodywork stuff into from inside the garage. This was two days work including regular daily stuff.

Bloody chilly at 4’C plus cutting winds.



Hard to see the changes.



Tools. Paints. Order. OCD?









One of the most daunting challenges facing me would be all the boxes of car parts etc on the shelving unit to the left of the cabinets.
During the clear out I also found 8 car and truck batteries. Two of which could be rescued. One went to John as a backup to an alarm system and the other was put on a trickle charger in my garage.
The rest went next door, along with all the wiring looms etc for Mickey to go weigh in for beer money at the scrapyard recycling plant.

And so far, excluding the stuff I have given away, sold or put on the sidewalk for recycling, I have junked about 12 double bagged 100 liter bin liners of junk for recycling.

By last night after John had done the Astro radio and sound system, this was where my tidying up was





Four more bags of heavy junk, plastic, wood, metal, three car radio/CD/tape players etc ready for next bin day.
The boxes all empty, waiting for me to arrange some of the C10 parts in there.



Not sure how much time all the junk inside the garage will take to process and sort out.
But it will get done.



Ultimately the C10 is waiting.

Yesterday it actually donated some audio plugs from what is left of its wiring loom to the Astro Van audio rescue that John was working on. @nickwheeler had come around for a coffee and a chat and moral support but was quickly roped into crawling into the C10 cab to rummage around under the dash, looking for these elusive parts that were not in my stash.
Many hands make light work and all that.



Battered and bruised but ready to be raised from the ashes.

I believe the truck will be back better than before.



Well.
With half the dy gone, I think I need to get my butt in gear and get down there and touch something.

Thanks for checking in.

[Grizz]

Did very little yesterday. 


But still managed a couple of slow hours. 


Visitors, shitty weather and forums can easily suck up many hours. 


I started on the odd little, custom radio surround plate that has to go in here. 
There will still need to be some trimming to the mounting bracket that stands proud by 15mm





So I pulled out a bit of the Mazda Bongo interior trim that I had used for the rear door trim making. 






Established  that I had enough material to make it work. 
Marked out, cut out and finished the plate. 
Followed by cutting it to size to fit the radio face trim. 






Cutting with a grinder is not ideal but a Dremmel was going to take too long  




Some more finishing  and the whole thing seems right  

On the old cut up dash surround  




I was pleased with it  

Last job in the cold, some satin black paint  






next job is to cut back the mounting bracket in the dash and to see if it all comes together  



​​​​​​​Fingers crossed