Author: Levi D. Smith

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1979 El Camino Restoration Project


I inherited my grandfather’s 1979 Chevrolet El Camino. It is basically a car with a truck bed. This article will be an overview of the process I used to get it running and on the road again. Note that I am not a professional auto mechanic, so do not take this article as offical auto repair advice. The vehicle had been sitting in a shortage shed for a long time. It had a 25 license plate sticker, so I assume that it had not been driven for about two years. There were oil change stickers on the windshield, which showed a next service date of 3/26/24 at 131,658 miles. This makes me believe that the vehicle currently has around 127,000 miles. The lens cover on the instrument panel is faded, so it is not possible to see what the current mileage is on the odometer. I believe the odometer has turned over at least once, since they only had six mileage digits in vehicles back then.

VIN Number

I was able to get the VIN number from the title. It is also under the windshield, but difficult to read. It is interesting to know that it is possible to determine the model, manufacture year, engine, and build location from the VIN number. VIN numbers were standardized to 17 digits in 1981, so I had to use a classic car VIN number guide for this one which is only 13 characters.

  • VIN 1W80H9R######
  • Manufacturer – 1 = Chevrolet
  • Model – W = El Camino
  • Body Style – 80 = Sedan Pick Up – 2 Door
  • Engine Code – H = 5.0 L
  • Year – 9 = 1979
  • Assembly Plant – R = Arlington, TX
  • Production Number – ######

Battery Replacement

The battery was about five years old according to the battery sticker. From previous experience, I know that car batteries should be replaced about every five years, especially if it has been sitting idle.

I purchased a new battery, which is the same battery type that was already in it. I learned that there is a $20 charge that is added to the price of the battery, which is refunded to you once the old battery is turned into the store where you purchased the new battery. I think it is some environmental program to recycle old auto batteries.

The first problem was that the old battery was missing a post connector, so I had to order new post connectors online. After I got these, I was able to connect the new battery and try starting the vehicle.

After installing the new battery, it would still not start or turn over. Only a single click. This was probably due to the battery charge being low from sitting on the store shelf. The new battery had a date of February 2006, so it was probably sitting for five months. I connected my battery jumper, and that at least got the engine to start turning over.

Ignition

With some help from a neighbor, I added some gas to the carburetor. This time the engine started firing when turning the key, and it would continue to run as long as I kept my foot on the gas. My neighbor showed me how to adjust the screw that sets the throttle setting. After adjusting the throttle, the vehicle now idled properly. I let it run for about 20 minutes to give it time to let the battery recharge.

I’ve learned that you must be careful, because it is possible to start a fire under the hood by doing this. I did invest in an automobile fire extinguisher to keep inside the vehicle in case of emergency.

Gas and Fluids

Before starting the vehicle, I checked the gas level with a hose, and by the sound it was completely out of gas. I filled up a gas canister at a local gas station that sells 100% gas. The vehicle will now start after pushing the gas pedal briefly one time.

I also checked the oil level which appears to be good. I will still want to change the oil, since it has not been changed in over two years. Radiator fluid and transmission fluid also appeared to be fine, but those will probably also need to be changed as well.

Cab Cleanout and Eliminating Smell

First I used gloves and threw out the excess trash in the cab of the vehicle. Then, I used my Bissell vacuum cleaner with hose attachment to clean excess trash. I used a generous amount of Lysol on multiple occasions. I set plates of baking soda behind the seats to help absorb some of the smell over night. I opened both doors regularly to help expunge the smell. I also used Febreze, which did a good job of eliminating any remaining odor.

I used regular Windex to clean all of the windows. Some of the windows took multiple cleanings on the inside and outside to get all of the grime off.

Cleaning and Under the Hood

I used Simple Green spray to clean under the hood and wiped it down with a cloth, making sure not to get any close to the battery or engine parts. Plastic bags can be used to cover the battery and engine to protect from any liquid cleaners. I will probably do further cleaning later with a brush. I also used zip ties to prevent any hoses or cables from getting too close to the engine, which can cause heat damage to the cables.

Cover

Since the vehicle is parked outdoors now, I ordered a cover to keep rain water from forming a puddle in the bed. Eventually, it would be nice to get a bed liner to protect the bed of the vehicle. The strap that goes under the vehicle goes behind the front wheels, so it can be tricky to get it all the way under to the other side. It is also important to place a tall object in the bed, to make a “tent”, again to keep water from puddling during rain showers.

Tires

All of the tires were around 20 PSI or lower. I used the air compressor on my battery jumper to air up the tires to 35 PSI. One important lesson that I learned is that the end of the hose on the battery jumper can be screwed into the tire, so you don’t have to hold it the entire time. It does take about 10 minutes using this air compressor to add 5 PSI to the tires.

The tires to appear to be in good shape, but I believe they were manufactured in 2021 according to the marking on the tires, which ends in 4521. I believe this means the 45th week of 2021, from my experience with others tires. I want to get the tires replaced anyway, since the vehicle had been sitting for so long.

Break Lights / Turn Signal

The headlights, turn signals, and tail lights all worked except for the driver side rear brake light/blinker. I purchased and installed a replacement bulb for the blown brake light. It was very noticeable which light was blown, because it had a dark discoloration. The tail light apparatus is in the rear bumper, and contains four different lights.

Other lights

I also tried replacing the license plate light in the tailgate, but new installed light did not work either. I believe there is a problem with the wiring, and I noticed a wire plug between the bed and the tailgate, which may be the problem.

Title

Getting a new title for the vehicle in my name took several trips between the lawyer’s office (executor) and the county clerk’s office. The important documents to obtain are the original title, the Affidavit of non-dealer transfers of Motor Vehicles document, and a notarized memo stating that the executor has authority to sign for the deceased of the estate. By taking these documents to the county clerk’s office, I was able to get the vehicle registered and a license plate. The new title in my name came in the mail about a week later.

Insurance

I was able to get a break on insurance, since this car will not be a “daily driver” and just a project car for show. For now, I just need to be able to drive it to get the tires changed and get the vehicle washed.

Next steps / future repairs

At this point, the vehicle is drivable, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to it. Below is a list of repairs that I plan to make.

  • Replace cracked windshield glass
  • New tires
  • Paint job
  • Fix electric window controls
  • Driver’s side door does not close flush with the body of the vehicle. The door can be lifted from the outside to get it to close flush.
  • Passenger side door doesn’t open from outside
  • Inside dome light does not illuminate. I tried replacing it, but I apparently got a bulb for an older El Camino.
  • Replace instrument panel / gauge cover
  • Replace inside carpet

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Kitty’s Adventure removed from XBox


Kitty's Adventure

I was notified that Kitty’s Adventure has been removed from XBox. Honestly, I didn’t even know that it was still on XBox. I still have the source code, but at this point I don’t have the time or energy to figure out how to recompile and get it running on XBox again.

It looks like Kitty’s Adventure on XBox ended up with over 76,000 acquisitions on XBox since it was released in 2017. That number is way beyond my expectations for a game that started out in a game jam, even though it has been available for free and I’ve never made any money from it.

If anyone wants to play the game, I suggest playing the online version at LDSMITH GAMES.
https://ldsmith.games/details/kittys-adventure

There are also downloads for Windows, Linux, and MacOS at another site. Eventually, I would like to have the downloads migrated to LDSMITH GAMES as well.
https://ldsmith.itch.io/kittys-adventure

Thanks for everyone’s support!


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Easter Egg Crash – Developer Log


Easter Egg Crash is my entry into the Knox Game Jam 2026 game development competition. This is my fourteenth consecutive year doing a 48 hour game jam. My first game jam entry was Amish Brothers back in 2013.

We had a kickoff for the event with some of the game developers in Knoxville on Friday. It was good to see everyone at the annual get together. At the meeting, we put all of the themes on a virtual wheel and spun it which is always fun. The theme for this year’s Knox Game Jam was limited resources.

Since this was Easter weekend, I decided to create an Easter themed game. I had previously made Easter Egg Hunt, which is a competitive scramble to collect eggs of the specified colors. For this game jam game, I decided to make a puzzle in the style of Puzzle Fighter, but with colored Easter eggs instead of gems. I thought about having a limited number of eggs to fit the theme. Instead of fighting an AI controlled character, this game has set goals similar to a game like Candy Crush. Currently, you just have to clear 5 eggs of each color, which increases by 5 for every level. The diamonds that clear the eggs of matching color do not count toward the goal total.

The objective is to connect eggs of similar color, and then use a diamond to clear the eggs matching the diamond’s color that are adjacent above, below, to the left, and to the right (diagonals do not count). When eggs and diamonds are cleared, all of the eggs above will fall similar to other falling block games. The trick is that you can create combos by strategically placing diamonds on other eggs to be cleared. In this game, combos don’t provide any extra benefit, but could be used as a goal in a future version.

This style of puzzle game is good recursion coding practice. I have a board data structure, which contains all of the landed eggs (diamonds are also considered “eggs”). Whenever an egg pair lands, it gets added to the board data structure. One of my biggest gripes with GDScript is that it does not have a 2D array data structure, but I was able to figure out how to simulate one with a list and get/set methods passing in the row and column indexes. Basically row is the list index divided by row size (rounded down) and column is the list index modulus the row size. After the eggs are added to the board, the doCrash method is called which checks all of the eggs on the board. If the egg is a diamond (isCrash boolean is true), then it finds all of the of the adjacent eggs. It is basically the painting algorithm that I covered on a Knox Game Design podcast a while back. If an adjacent egg is the same color then it gets added to the “connected” list, then the getCrashConnected is recursively called for all eggs adjacent to it. The recursion stops when it the adjacent cell it not of the same color, it hits one of the boundaries, the adjacent cell is empty, or the adjacent cell has an egg that has already been added to the adjacent list. The last check is really important, otherwise you will end up in an infinite recursion loop. The nice thing about this method is that the connected list ends up with the entire list to be cleared, so after the recursion is finished, you just loop through that list and remove those eggs. Once the eggs are removed, the other eggs are then dropped, then the crash check is completed again, in case that there is a combo. The loop completes when the crash check returns no eggs to be removed.

Looking back, I should have used an enum for the egg color instead of using an integer. Creating random integers is easy. The statement randi() % + 1 returns a random number between 1 and 4. I created an Egg prefab, which has all of the egg and diamond models as children. Initially all model objects on the Egg prefab are hidden, then one is set to visible based on the egg color and type (diamond if isCrash is true or egg if isCrash is false). If this was an object oriented, I would have made Diamond a subclass of Egg, but I’m not sure if that is possible to do in GDScript.

I created the egg and diamond models in Blender 5.1. For the egg, I used used the default ICO sphere mesh and translated the upper vertices upwards to give it more of an egg shape. I just winged it and didn’t use any reference pictures, since I know what an egg is supposed to look like. I exported the layout and made textures in Gimp. I just made simple polka-dots, checkerboards and spirals using Gimp filters. I used a star pattern from a memory card game I had developed to create the star shape on the blue egg pattern. I should have used one egg model and swapped the texture based on egg color, but I did not have time to figure out how to do that in GDScript.

For the diamonds, I used the Extra Mesh Objects addon to add a Gemstone > Diamond mesh. It seems like it was made for this sort of thing. I used it in my Jewel Swapper game years ago.

For the music, I went with GarageBand on the MacBook Pro again. I was able to create game play and title music in about an hour. I used bfxr for the sound effects. If I had more time, I probably would have done something a little more unique for the sound effects.

The background image for the title screen and gameplay was created in Krita, using a simple gradient. I used one of the brushes with green to make a grass type background around the border. I originally had a green splatter background for the game screen, but it just did not look good, so I ended up going with Gmip’s Render > Pattern > Sinus and gave it Easter theme colors.

This was my first time finishing a game in Godot Engine for a game jam. Previously, I started a Godot game which ended up being Shape Quest in GameMaker. I also made Sky Combat in Godot, but it was not for a 48 hour game jam.

I was impressed to see the improvement in Godot. The 2D UI system it much better than I remembered, but still not at the level of Unity. The GDScript programming language it uses reminds me of the syntax of Python (indentation spacing is important) but also has typing that reminds me of Typescript. After I uploaded my game, one problem I noticed was that the title screen would not fill the entire space allocated for the game on some systems. It did not appear to be a browser problem, because all browsers on one system would display it correctly, but when I ran it on a laptop all of the browsers would display a small title screen with a lot of gray background. I found that the fix to the was creating a Camera2D node, setting the properties for it, and then resizing the 2D UI components for the Camera2D.

I am definitely thinking about developing this game further. I’ve already made one update, so that the eggs now scale down when they are cleared. I really want to have a cell fracture type effect, but I’m not sure if that still exists in Blender, and I would need to learn how to play model animations in Godot. I would like to add new goal conditions, so that there are maybe other types of eggs that must be cleared. I think the base gameplay in the game jam is solid, so adding additional features should not be a problem.

Tools used:

  • Godot Engine 4.6.2
  • Blender 5.1
  • Gimp 3.2.0
  • Krita 5.3.1
  • bfxr 1.5.1
  • GarageBand 10.4.11
  • Audacity 3.7.7