I hate body work cuz I'm so crappy at it. I always sand it too much and you can tell right where my work is. After many hours over a few days of stripping and patching and 'putting it on and sanding it off' I have it good enough for me..... until I paint it and can see my work. Once all the bondo and paint was stripped there was more rust on the firewall than on the rest of the truck! I welded several patches in to repair the rust and some 'modifications' around the steering column.
My truck is coming along..... like a big model kit with much of the fab work done. Exhaust took hours to refit (all I did was take it off and paint it!) mostly because I had to lift the front of the engine and helicoil all four of the front bolt holes for the headers. My first time I did that.... pretty easy and they turned out perfectly. The front bolts have to be a little shorter and I suppose someone in the past just cranked them in. The firewall looks blue but it's a medium grey for a little contrast. It looks better in the pic than it is but it's good enough for me. A few sticker will disguise it. I laid down the webbing so the body can go back on and begin wiring. I just might make that Father's Day car show
You do know the front four bolts in the flathead exhaust are a bigger diameter than the others, right?
In the words of Inspector Cleudeau, 'Not any more'. At the bottom of the bore they were 3/8-16, the tops were a mess.
Got most of the wiring done and it doesn't go fast when you try to do it right. I wanted to keep the firewall clean so I mounted the starter solenoid and ignition resistor on a little plate on the back of the engine and the voltage regulator is mounted on the inner firewall. The fuse box had cool little mounting tabs which will allow the box to be removed from its mount and drop down to inspect the fuses without folding myself in half. I covered the interior of the wall with BQuiet (like Dynamat) to try and keep the cab quiet and cool The body is back on and will get bolted down tomorrow so I can wire the instruments and hang the doors and maybe start the engine again next week. Can't wait to hear it through the exhaust.
Dear old Bruce (of course ) knows. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/doh-flathead-exhaust-manifold-bolts.86376/
Got the gauges wired (except for the speedo) and made a steel panel for the dash. I don't know what I want to do with it yet so this will suffice until I figure it out. Just a few more connections to be made before firing the engine.... maybe next week.
Got most of the truck wired, gauges in and started on the floor. Reused the bottom piece but had to re-cut the toe board. I first made a card stock/hot glue template, then refined it with a fiberboard template and finally the 3/4" plywood toe board. A few more card stock templates for the sheet metal covers got most of it finished up. Just a little bit of welding and a cover for the clutch master cylinder will get it done.
I picked up an old flathead con rod from Vern and made a couple plastic spacers to mount the column. It's coming together.......
Column drop is done.... pretty happy with it. Fired up the engine a couple days ago and bled the clutch slave cylinder. As soon as a wayward u joint gets here we can take a drive around the block.
Boring stuff today.... mounted the battery in the gutted below-the-seat fuel tank, mounted a fire extinguisher (you have one in your car, don't you?) and installed a battery kill switch (you have one of those too, don't you?).
For the first time since the early 70's this truck moved under it's own power. I turned it around in the court and will pull it back into the shop once it's clean. The Unisteer,for the short time I drove it, is great. Tight turning radius and the ease of steering is about halfway between power and manual
Thanks!!!! It's really cool to be able to start it up and pull it out of the shop. This weeks work was mounting doors. I bought a set of United Pacific hinges but it ends up that it takes more work than I'm willing to do to remove the door side hinges. They don't wear anyway... I had to drill out the screws but it was a successful R&R. Someone in the past mounted bear claw latches and COULD NOT have done a worse job. I had replacement doors and rear jambs from the back of another cab. The jambs in my truck were 'smooth' but when I started removing the sheet metal I discovered that the dove tail pockets were full of semi cured bondo and the actual dove tail receivers!!!!! Why remove them when you can just mud them over? I pulled the latches and window regulators.... they were completely crusty and stuck. An hour of Marvel Mystery Oil freed everybody up and they're ready to go back in. Now I just need to do the other side and check for the dove tail pockets first!
Welded up, a little grinding and it's good as new. Just waiting on the latch striker, dove tail and window glass to call this door done!
End of the road..... took it's maiden voyage today to my buddy's house via back roads (no windshield). It ran great, drove straight and rode like a truck(!). I had cataract surgery Tuesday so I did a lot of work over the last couple weeks so I could do light stuff while I recuperated. I got the electrical done, the fenders mounted, headlights, tail lights and steering column wired. I still have a bunch of little stuff to do but now I can enjoy driving it. My mom took the picture of me taking the maiden voyage in 1971 with my '34 because she was sure it was never going to run. My wife took the pic today but she KNOWS everything is going to be back on the road, better than it was. See ya when I see ya!!
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