46 Power Wagon Restoration pt. 2

[Greg Coffin]

Cab Rotisserie



I have GOT to make one of those rotisseries for my cab repair work. I don't have a lift, and I've heard people say they build them using 2 engine stands, I might look into that. Do you have a picture of how you attach the mounts to the cab, and how did you determine that balance point?

[Desoto61]

It's not that heavy, so some wooden stands would easily do the trick as well and let you determine how much height you want. My concern with the engine stand is it's not tall enough to really let you rotate the cab any direction. The downside to my setup is I can't roll it outside that way, but I can adjust height.

My setup looks like an H with the middle bar extended. I basically started with a piece of angle that went across the opening and welded a section of pipe/tube to that about center. At each end of the angle I made a plate that used the hinge bolt holes in the front (it runs top to bottom), an at the back uses the striker bolt holes. Then welded a brace between the two angle brackets. You could get away without the interior brace if you used a stronger side bar though. I put this one together with scrap and some cheaper metal.

It's not perfectly ballanced, I originally used a piece of larger pipe welded to a "T" in the lift arms as my bearing/supports and drilled and tapped a hole for a locking bolt, but as it wasn't perfectly balanced or as I put weight on it while working it would still move, so I ended up using some vice-grips braced against the lift arms to control movement, one for each direction.

Saw someone use a piece of plywood/OSB in the door opening and just screw it in place then find the balance point on that sheet and drill for the cross bar, same could then be used to help build some side supports.

I have pictures somewhere, I'll try to dig them up and post them when I get a chance.

[Desoto61]

Here are some pics of the rotisserie. Some don't show the center support pole as I added it later. The angle iron I used still had too much flex in it otherwise.

I had to modify it slightly after I replaced the old latch mechanism with the new bear-claw latches, but it works the same way.

The only downside right now is that it blocks a lot of the door opening, so while it's great for work on the outside, it will require some effort to paint the interior as I will have to do what I can with it in place, then remove it to paint the areas it covers, but not sure how you would get around that.

One change I need to look at making is to make it two pieces. The center bar makes the whole thing very cumbersome to install and remove by yourself without scratching up the newly painted surfaces. Having a bolted or sleeved joint in the middle would solve that.

Good luck and post pics of what you do, I'm sure there are better ways, this is just the one I used.

[Greg Coffin]

Thanks for posting the pictures. I'm going to build something like that for my cab, given all the work I have to do to it. I may use two engine stands, and install taller risers off the bases. Stands are cheaper than bare steel and casters. I'll post a few photos when I get it done.

I'd also be interested in seeing the new bear claw latches you installed, I didn't see them in your earlier posts.

[Desoto61]

I'd also be interested in seeing the new bear claw latches you installed, I didn't see them in your earlier posts.

The door latch saga starts at post 224 on page 6, got any questions please ask.

[Desoto61]

I disassembled all the front end sheet metal parts one by one, taking apart the hood halves, hinges, and brackets. The replacement fenders were solid but a little beat up, and someone had put some really bad patch panels on them. Really just small backing plates tack welded so the body filler didn't go through. Those also had to be removed so they can be fixed correctly. Any obvious dents and issues I worked on with the hammer and dolly set to try and take care of the big stuff.

The radiator cowl had top had been bent up inside to gain access to some of the fasteners without removing the radiator, so they got hammered back into place also. There are D-shaped captured nuts inside it, which kind of work like a riv-nut. Most of them were so badly rusted you could see the ends of the threads on the flat section of the D. So I drilled out the top part and popped them out. I'll tack weld some new nuts back inside to take their place after they are blasted.

Outside of that I'm trying to find some weather to spray the primer and primer/surfacer on the cab, as well as get primer on some other parts. Which means slowly prepping for that by cleaning, hanging, and masking off the cab and other parts.

[Desoto61]

After a couple of days of crazy weather the blaster called and told me everything was ready. Most of the parts came back with no surprises. The one splash shield I could use has one area that will need patched, and the fender that I already knew about. Also had some deep pitting on the exhaust side of the hood, but nothing too deep to cause problems. There was also one hole in one of the fenders that had been badly patched and covered in a heavy layer of filler. That I re-welded and ground smooth on the surface.

With the parts home, I proceeded to make a few piles. The stuff that just needs primed I cleaned and wiped down the some After-blast to keep them from flash rusting and clean up any that had started. The parts that need some metal work were set aside till I can take care of that.

Weather tomorrow looks nice, though not for long. So the cab is all masked off and I'm hopefully all prepped and ready to get the cab ready for some block sanding as well as get a few other parts prepped.

[Desoto61]

Long day of prepping and painting. Like many of these endeavors it wasn't ideal, I wish I'd had more room to lay things out, and a little less wind would have been nice, but the PPG primer I'm using seems pretty forgiving of my lack of experience and ideal conditions. I'm pretty sure my gun wasn't set quite right but since I don't know what right is I can't say what was off.

I didn't go into the primer/surfacer to be on the safe side of the cure times, but I did top coat some of the brackets and the underside of the one fender that was ready and the transmission cover with some Eastwood Epoxy Chassis black. It's tough stuff, both liquid and dry, a little tricky to spray if you don't thin it.

I cleaned up the overspray and the garage and try to get the primer/surfacer sprayed the next morning before the weather goes to crap.

[Desoto61]

Weather was turning colder today with rain this afternoon, with no real improvement in the forcast till next weekend, so tried to get the primer-surfacer on today before the top coating window closes.

The benefit of the colder weather was a slightly longer pot life which on my surfacer was only about 20 minutes at the temps from the day before. I did three coats, was going to go for four since I figured I will need more coats before long, but after the third I needed to clean up the gun as the paint was starting to gum up the nozzle rather than clean everything twice I just stopped. Again, not sure I had everything set up quite right, and the P-sheet didn't give a lot of detail about the application, but this is a learning experience.

The hood halves were in very good shape, though I might need to repair one of the hinge ends, but I elected to prime and paint them anyway I can always remove and paint the hinge separately after repair, if needed but I didn't want to leave it bare steel any longer than I needed to. Not sure what I'm going to do with the underside yet but the top needed no real body work so it will go straight to the primer surfacer. I had one fender that after some hammer and dolly work is also in pretty good shape, I might need some glazing putty in a few spots but don't think I'll need any gross filler work.

Still, it looks great to see it in some color. I still have a pile of parts that need some repair, or metal work, or like the door some filler work before it's ready for the next step, but it's still progress!

The other big question is what to do over the bottom of the cab. I thought about having it LineX'ed but it's kind of thick and the logistics of getting the cab there and correctly positioned for that is daunting. Plus it is fairly thick, and as others have pointed out if I ever had to repair the metal removal and repair become a problem. So now I'm thinking one of the DIY beadliner materials (basically a tougher rubberized undercoating) may be a better alternative.

[cj7ox]

It's coming together! Definitely looking good!

[Desoto61]

My block sanding skills are non-existent but I'm learning, as expected some areas are still pretty wavy. Burned through the primer in one spot so I'll have to spot prime it before the next round of surfacer.

But while the primer top-coat window was still open I took a detour and spent today undercoating the cab. It's a bed liner product called Al's Bedliner. It's a three-part urethane product, that can be brushed or sprayed on. They sell a gun but it's basically the same texture gun you can buy from HF for half the price, which is what I used.

The biggest problem is the stuff is messy, cleanup requires solvents and it gets quite sticky. The gun did a good job of laying it out and pushing it into most of the tight areas but it also generated lots of overspray onto adjacent surfaces. I had covered most of the cab and other painted metal but found it in a lot of other places after the fact.

I mixed half the gallon for the first coat to see what kind of coverage I got. It was a little runny and started dripping but that was solved by rotating the cab upside down till it set. I had some bare areas left due to spraying the cab upright so with it tilted back I put down the second and concentrated on getting into the sides hidden areas. It came out a little rougher than I was going for, but that's mostly just aesthetics.

The hopper gun worked well and made short work of the job, but due to the size of the hopper it is tough to get the gun into some areas. In hindsight using a brush to get some of the inaccessible areas would have been a good idea and a good use of the leftover mix from the bucket.

[Desoto61]

With the top-coating window on the primer closing I used the nice weather to get the sound deadener on the underside of the hood. The kit comes with an applicator gun and is water soluable so cleanup is much easier, but it is still a thick sludge and kind of messy. They recommend two coats with complete drying in between, so the important part for today was just to get the first coat on.

Since I am also going to apply their heat control products the final thickness is about 80 mills I taped off the front and back edges of the hood where it sits on the cab and cowl as well as the hinge and the back side of the hood. It dried enough to get the second coat of the sound control. The heat control product can be applied any time after that.

Also worked on sanding out the filler on one of the door, still learning the tricks of sanding it down, but hopefully it will come out better than some of the work I did on the cab.

[Desoto61]

Some notes on the Lizard skin products. The directions talk about various thicknesses from 10 mills to 20 per coat. I found out the hard way that thinner is better. The gun is inconsistent so build slowly over multiple coats, otherwise it will crack and can lift. Plus it takes forever to dry. I had to do some repairs on mine once finished. The heat control is lighter and goes down a little better, but I went with finer thinner coats and it came out much better. I'll eventually paint the whole underside whatever color I decide to do the body in.

Otherwise it's been lots of sanding. The fender that looked pretty straight needed more help that I had thought, so I cut down the surfacer with some 80 grit and started building up with filler. The hood sections turned out better and should come out with a few rounds of surfacer and sanding. The cab, as expected, was going to need a few more rounds of surfacer and sanding. I had a few areas where I burned through which had to be touched up with some primer before another round of surfacer, but that meant cleaning up all the sanding dust, and re-masking some of the cab openings.

[Desoto61]

When I got tired of sanding I turned to working on some of the other parts that needed metal work prior to primer. The captured nuts on the front radiator cowl had all rusted badly. So I drilled them out and got some nuts to replace them. To install them I turned to a new toy, Eastwood's TIG welder. It's probably not as good as a machine from one of the big names, but the reviews are good, the company is close if I need to get it fixed or return it, and at $700 it's hard to justify twice the money for name brand unit.

Access to the captured nuts in the side panels is a little tricky, so my first attempts were not that great from the back side. So I tried drilling the hole larger and welding the nut from the front side of the hole. This worked a little better but is very delicate as too much heat in the wrong place will damage the threads, so for the other side and the top piece I moved to a two part system.

First I welded the nut to a washer. I could do this on the table with good access and visibility from the outside where I was less likely to damage the nut. Then I would place the nut and washer into the area and weld the washer to the part. The washer acted as the filler material so I didn't need as much access to feed filler rod in and I could get to areas I might not otherwise be able to weld in with the MIG.

[Kevin Mienke]

It's good to get a report on the lizard skin. I spent a good part of the night reading about it on their site. Reports from actual users are much more helpful.

My plan was to do the underside of my cab and firewall with either lizard skin or the 2-part epoxy bedliner material from rustoleum.

The Lizard Skin seems to be the product of choice nowadays. It apparently holds up to extreme temps better than anything previously available.