46 Power Wagon Restoration pt. 2

[Greg Coffin]

On the plus side I finally got the input gear I need for the PTO so I can make the winch work. I ordered new bearings and seals to rebuild it while I'm installing the new gear but after an e-mail to Chelsea-Parker they told me there is no repair manual for this PTO to just make sure to take lots of pictures/video when I tear it down. It's kind of crazy, I have an exploded diagram, that's not my issue, just wondering how you set clearances and torque values?

I just rebuilt the Chelsea 352 PTO for my 6x6. I could only find a little bit of info on the web, so I called a local drivetrain shop to see what they could tell me. The gear lash at the input gear should be 0.006-0.012", and the bearing preload on the internal shafts should be right at zero or just slightly loaded (under 0.004"). I went with standard torque ratings for 5/16" Grade 5 fasteners (17 ft-lbs) for the end caps, and 3/8" Grade 8 fasteners (44 ft-lbs) for the mounting studs and nuts. Honestly, I don't think I was able to get all the way to 40 ft-lbs on the studs, since I was using a small open end wrench to reach the nuts.

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

Can you tell me more about that floor matting? Did you glue it down or is it just sitting in that position? Curious does it move around much? I really like the looks of it and have a few trucks I am trying to figure out what to do with the flooring.

Again thank you so much for sharing all of this!

[Desoto61]

Have I mentioned I don't much like body work? I've been dragging my feet on the bed sides because of it. I started with just a few obvious areas and as I started sanding realized I was going to keep chasing bad spots, so I broke down and did all of the bed sides. It's tricky though with the right angles making corners that are hard to sand into smoothly. After a few rounds of adding and removing filler I think I'm close enough that a coat of glaze will get me to my final sanding. Then I need to move to the fenders, but I'm waiting on a more flexible sander before I try that.

Also need to go talk to a few of the spray in bedliner places and see who I want to use and how best to tackle the surfaces I want sprayed.

Took a closer look at the oil pan and it's the axle housing that is hitting, more concerning is that one of the brake line mounting studs is also hitting now. It put a good gouge in the pan so that needs to be handled before I drive it again so I don't punch a hole in the oil pan. I think the easiest fix will be to replace the stud with a button head bolt, at least for the short term.

On the plus side I finally got the input gear I need for the PTO so I can make the winch work. I ordered new bearings and seals to rebuild it while I'm installing the new gear but after an e-mail to Chelsea-Parker they told me there is no repair manual for this PTO to just make sure to take lots of pictures/video when I tear it down. It's kind of crazy, I have an exploded diagram, that's not my issue, just wondering how you set clearances and torque values?

[Desoto61]

Picked the bed up yesterday which was an adventure. It's been in the mid 90's here with high humidity. So after running home and getting the truck out of the garage I drove over and we loaded the bed onto the trailer. Some of the mounting hardware had gone missing but we strapped it down real well and I was only going about 6 miles in town. Truck ran fine and the AC worked pretty well in the heat with the temps leveling off about 200 at the thermostat.

Only problems were that somehow I had basically balanced the trailer perfectly, which is not ideal, even with the other parts at the front it was not as nose heavy as I would have liked, but the trailer didn't misbehave so it was OK for the short drive. Plus side is that made it much easier to move once unhooked from the truck! Unfortunately the bed shifted while on the trailer and banged up one of the fenders pretty bad. I have body work to do anyway but it still sucks.

They did a really nice job. The black is a heavy duty primer that is preferred for use under spray-in bed liners. He actually did the whole thing in that and then shot an epoxy primer over the outside surfaces for body work, so it should stand up to a beating even before it gets coated. I plan to do the body work and paint on the outside first, and then have it coated inside and underneath. I'll just have to determine a better method of moving it this time!

As an amusing side story, I kept a close eye on it to make sure nothing was leaking and how it would handle the high temps and (light) towing. I had some coolant leak but it turned out to be from the tank overflow line. When I got home I noticed something else dripping and got all worried because I saw oil, but the dripping turned out to be condensate from the AC and the oil was just left over from when I changed the filter.

I did however notice that I managed to bang the oil pan again even with the new notch, which leads me to believe I'm going to need to add a leaf or two to the front axle, and maybe play with the brake line mounting as I think it's hitting the T-block on the front axle.

One step forward...

[Desoto61]

Monday I get out of work and run to the Fastenall store for a 7/16-14x2" socket head cap screw for the power steering box - they have it. Then over to the local Cummins supply and get a new oil pan gasket - they have it. Then I proceeded to have to go to FOUR different auto parts stores to get the oil and filter I was looking for!

Got the pan back in on Monday but ran out of time to torque everything down and finish changing the oil so I finished that up yesterday. I must have had to use about 12 different configurations of extensions and adapters to get to all the pan bolts, which get torqued way tighter than any bolt I've ever seen on those type of sheet metal parts (18 ft-lbs). The remote oil filter was a little messier to remove than I though it would be, but it is easy to pre-fill the new one. Then slowly add 8 quarts of oil, thank goodness oil change intervals are fairly long on these motors!

The bed is done at the media blaster so the goal is to go get it today and figure out how to get it back in my garage. The trailer is tricky to back up and my skill at doing so doesn't make things easier, plus there's little space to maneuver in many places along the driveway. Should be entertaining!

[Desoto61]

Got the new belt tensioner and belt and went to install them. Modern cars have nothing on me, there's not much room up front, add in the hoses and tubes for coolant and the intercooler and there's not much room to pivot a tool to release the tension and then the belt has to be snaked in and out. To add just a bit more fun the Cummins uses an 8-rib belt, while the AC compressor uses a 7-rib, so I run the narrower belt, which means trying to align the belt on all the factory pullies too. It's a good way to practice your adult english.

While searching for a tool that fell into the abyss under the truck I noticed some other issues to track down, the biggest being a loose power steering bolt. Turned out another one is missing altogether. Still need to pick up a new one but the other two I can access were removed, cleaned, and some lock-tight was added before they were re-installed and torqued down. Other searching showed a loose engine mount bolt, so all those were re-torqued. They're a bear to get at so we'll have to see if they stay before I fight to do a more thorough fix, but obviously I've been going over most of the other fasteners too. Most seem fine luckily.

Another problem I knew about was the oil pan, it had hit the axle and damaged the front axle brake line, so I routed it differently when I replaced it and while that was fine it has definitely hit once or twice since then, so it was time to fix that too yesterday.

I dropped the pan which didn't want to come out till I jacked the front end up and got the axle to droop. It showed me how much the front suspension has settled, now I'm wondering if I may need to add a leaf to the front springs anyway. Something to look at later, but for now the pan relief. I cleaned away all the oil and paint around the old one and cut out the top part of the old relief and spent some time templating the new opening and test fitting it to see that there was no interference. I failed to extend the oil pickup quite far enough the first time and it sits tight against the cutout. That's still there, but I didn't make it any worse.

The TIG welder made the new patch much easier to weld in. I then filled it with water and let it sit to make sure I had no leaks which I did, but amusingly were two very minor weep points that were part of my previous patch. I touched those up and then painted both sides. I'll get a new gasket today and pick up a lot of oil and hopefully get it all back together today.

[Alxj64]

Good deal! Looks great and glad that the debugging process is still going well! I have been taking note of everything you do to make sure I do, or don't do, whatever that might be!

Thanks for documenting and sharing all of this!

[Desoto61]

Spent the long weekend playing with the truck since I'm still waiting for the bed to come back from the media blaster. Lots of repairs/upgrades to do.

Finished getting the radio installed, works well and definitely gets loud enough to hear over the Cummins, but have a bit of a speaker hiss I'll eventually need to track down, and I need to make up a pair of RCA cables, the shortest ones I could buy were still way too long for my needs which leaves stuffing a lot of extra cable behind the dash.

The other big upgrade was new flooring. The place I got my sound deadening from started offering a heavy vinyl mat with a foam backing already attached, mostly for trunks and such but seemed perfect for the floor of the truck. A few yards of the diamond tread pattern wasn't cheap but it's nice stuff.

To install it I built a template from some craft paper. The key was to build it up vice try to cut it down. Taping smaller pieces together was way easier than trying to take a big piece and cut it smaller. With the rough template I laid it out and did a rough cut, then pressed and trimmed to get it to fit and sit well. The front is one piece that goes under the seats, the rear was two pieces that overlap the front under the seat. Managed to use one of the leftover pieces to make a small pad for around the shifter hump too.

It will offer much better protection and from a quick startup while still in the garage seems to have done a lot for the sound in the cab (even with the radio off).

I tracked down a wiring issue with some of the switches in the overhead console, I'll need to find a different switch for the fans since the way the controller works it looks for ground not 12V so the lights on the switch won't work when wired backwards. Also ran a trigger wire for a relay to make the seat heaters switched vice constant power. I used the power window circuit from my Painless harness to run the seat heaters, but it's not a switched circuit like in most modern cars, so that means you could leave the heaters on when the vehicle is off, which is not an ideal situation. So the relay will kill the ground and prevent a seat heater from killing the battery if left on, not that I'll need them any time soon.

I tried replacing the belt tensioner and belt but turned out the Dodge one won't work on my Cummins, tracked down one that should be right from RockAuto, also used their much better search engine to track down a slightly longer belt which should make changing it a bit easier.

Final mod was the power steering remote reservoir hose. It was a tight fit before I put in the windshield washer tank, but notice while I was under hood the braided stainless hose was actually wearing a groove into the tank where they touch, and the routing created a high spot I wasn't sure wasn't trapping air. So I ended up getting some fittings to put a 90-degree fitting in the line to better route the hose, which was a good thing as it looks like I did have an air gap preventing the remote tank from keeping the pump full.

I still don't have a perfect run afterward, but by filling the tank differently I'm sure I've managed to purge the air from the line, and I'll run it for a bit and then re-purge. If I still have issues I'll have to work out another option for routing.

[Desoto61]

Quiet here so thought I'd post an update. There were a few minor things to finish on the bed, including welding a stud for a ground wire, a few areas to clean up/grind down, and I wanted some way of securing anything I decide to put into the stake pockets, so I purchased some pins with the integral clips to see how they'd work since the access to the back side of the pin is a little tricky based on how they're mounted. The worked well and aren't too difficult to remove so the holes were drilled for those. Otherwise everything came apart and the bed was placed back on the trailer (after it got a little TLC too) and I hauled it off to the media blaster to get cleaned up and primed. I wired in a trailer connector real quick and used the Power Wagon to haul it's own bed!

We were out of town for a few weeks which made it a perfect time to haul the bed off anyway. Now that we're back and while the garage is still empty it's time to tackle a bunch of other tasks on the truck itself, mostly on the interior. I finally picked up a radio which means mounting the rear speakers, but they needed a place to go, so spent part of my weekend building speaker mounts behind the seats. The first one was a little ugly as I started with one piece and then changed my mind and it became two. The other side was much quicker as I just copied the design as one piece this time. Since the mounts will be hidden behind the interior I'm not too concerned about looks, the paint is more for protection than looks.

I've got to run some wires for a pair of amplifiers and a subwoofer, nothing crazy but with how loud the Cummins is the stereo will need some help to be heard. Also have some other interior tasks to tackle as well.

[Desoto61]

Getting closer

Kind of lazy yesterday but still making progress. I marked out and started cutting the hole for the handle. It was a bit tricky to template the opening for the hand-hole access, but with some fine tuning I got the cover I picked up with the handle to fit, end result looks surprisingly clean.

Also started cleaning up the panel itself. There was a little overhand on the sides and top, so I took a flap wheel and sanded them flush to the frame. I flipped the unit over and cut the remaining excess off the bottom of the piece. There was also the relief cuts for the D-ring shackles,I did some side cuts and then using a hammer slowly worked them over to cover the openings, and also rolled the ends of the panel over the hinges.

Last task right now is to cut and weld in some small pieces that go over the sides of the hinge and relief cuts to clean up those open ends, and I still have about 4 or 5 bolt holes that ran into weld material and won't drill out properly I need to figure out how to fix.

[Desoto61]

The rear skin of the tailgate was an interesting problem. If I weld it onto the outside I'll need access openings to get at the latches and such, plus how to properly paint and protect the inside. Access panels on the inside of the tailgate will give dirt and such an entry point and still would make protecting the interior tricky.

So I decided that I'm going to install the exterior panel with a bunch of button head bolts. It will kind of look like rivets, and allow somewhat easy access should I need access or it gets damaged. However that means drilling and tapping a lot of holes. To do that I needed a mounting surface, so I welded some bar stock around the perimiter as a bolting surface and then started drilling and tapping holes.

The bottom was is a little trickier because of the hinges, I made relief cuts and then worked each section down with some clamps so I could drill them and bolt it down. I'll need to finish trimming and add some pieces to cover those cuts, and the reliefs for the D-rings. Only problem is that some of my holes ran into some of the welds that hold the lip in place and they do not want to drill, have to figure out a solution for those spots.

[Desoto61]

Making progress, always slower than I'd like, but getting close to getting the metal work on the bed done.

Needed some way to hold the tailgate open. For the bed side I cut some square tubing to space it from the side of the bed like the latch pins. I welded a cap on the end and drilled and tapped it for a bolt. A few gussets and then I welded some nuts on the inside edges of the tailgate for a bolt, a bit of chain and that's done.

The stake pockets were universal units I got online. A pack of 8 was only slightly more expensive than the 4 I needed, and worked out in the end. Since I couldn't mount them on the outside of the bed I needed to space them off the inside to clear the top rail. It just happened to be the same thickness as the stake pockets, so I welded one pocket on top of another as a spacer and welded both to the bed side and welded a stop on the bottom with some scrap steel. I will probably drill them for some pins in case I want to lock whatever it is in place.

[Desoto61]

What about moving the tire outboard enough for the stake pocket? It'll still be inside the width of the fender.

Not really an option. This truck has the cast arm that bolts to the frame and holds the tire. You'd have to space that out over 2" at either the frame or tire end. There's already extra bracing on the frame to support the lever arm that tire becomes on the frame, and the new tires are already probably heavier than the original tires, and that arm isn't light in itself.

[aeblank]

What about moving the tire outboard enough for the stake pocket? It'll still be inside the width of the fender.

[Desoto61]

Thanks, but like most things on this truck the factory setup isn't going to work. Mainly because I can't fit a pocket in the front passenger corner due to the spare tire, so I'll need to mount some sort of stake pocket inside the bed.

I bought a set of 1/4" plate universal stake pockets online, but have considered just installing some smaller square tube. The trick is there's an inside lip on the bed where that top rail is mounted. I want to keep the rail for obvious reasons, whatever I build has to be spaced out from the bed wall.

The other picture is the trailer wiring connector, I couldn't fit the picture in my previous post.