Salt Lake City '58 W300M Thread

[drewPWguy]

How will you be reattaching the cross member; with bolts or rivets?

[drewPWguy]

Reinstall?

How will you be reattaching the crossmember with bolts or rivets? Just wondering because I am going to have to repair my crossmember and will need to remove it.

[Kevin Mienke]

I have college night school welding skills so maybe not much value in my opinion but your repair looks great. ..novice question butr why is it called fishplate? I've seen the term a few times here on board....

Fishplate is derived from the french word fichier which means to fasten. The term got its origin with the railroad in Europe. Ficheplates were used to connect sections of rail. The spelling was later Americanized to fishplate.

I could do well on Jeopardy if they had a fishplate category.

"Fishplates for a thousand Alex."

By the way, the work looks great Mike.

[Steve G]

How will you be reattaching the crossmember with bolts or rivets? Just wondering because I am going to have to repair my crossmember and will need to remove it.

There is an indepth discussion about rivits on the Dodge Power Wagon forum.

http://www.dodgepowerwagon.com/wwwbo...s/2930271.html

[PWFFnut]

Powder coating plit rings works great

Hi Homewood4,

Wish I could answer your question better. You must have noticed the one (and only) good looking tire that I am using on my '58, which is actually the spare for the '56. I purchased the two trucks together from the same previous owner. The '56 is mechanically sound, runs great, brakes work, I drive it just about every weekend. The previous owner put new NDT's all the way around, and also had the rims powder-coated at Les Schwab. I don't know what he paid for the NDT's, but they are of the Denman variety. A quick check for current prices on the internet for these seems to be in the 170.00 range. The price for the powder-coated rims (I have the original invoices) was around $18.00 per rim, but that was a couple of years ago, and I think that the price has gone up. I will say that the black power-coat looks great and also seems to wear well, so I'll do the same for the currently unrestored rims on the '58 at some point in the build. There is a large powder-coat operation a couple of exits up the freeway here in SLC that I'm going to check out. If I get any info from them, I'll post it. The split rings on the '56 are painted with a rattle-can cadmium metallic paint. These are wearing OK, but some rust is starting to bleed through. I think these can be powder-coated as well, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I am can chime in on whether powder-coating the split rings would impact how they seat on the rims???

I powder coated My slit rings and have had them on My truck for a few years no problems at all works great.

[mdvberg]

Frame/Crossmember Update

Well...to answer Drew, I guess I will be using grade 8 bolts for now. I just don't have the equipment (or experience) to do rivets, even though that would be my preference.

I finally had a chance to get back to work on the crossmember, and got it installed today. I put grade 8 bolts in place of the plug welds that are typically on the top of the frame rail.





As you can see from the pictures above and below, I also added another plate to the bottom frame rail flange. Despite the fish plate that I welded on the inside of the rail, I was still worried about the bottom rail, which was not in the best condition due to earlier repair attempts. I beat the plate around a heavy wall piece of square tubing first to get a rough fit, and then clamped it and lightly hammered it on the frame a bit more to get a perfect fit before I welded it. I wish that there would have been a way to hide the patch, but this is not going to be a Concours d'Elegance restoration...I just don't want the thing to crack again, and I feel better knowing that there is a bit more solid metal supporting that bottom rail.

[njjim]

crossover repair

Mike,

Keep up the good work. The repair looks excellent and the weather is getting warm. Soon the work can be done with the doors open.

[mdvberg]

Franken-Frame Continued

A month since the last post...time flies when the weather finally gets nice. The frame saga continues, but I think I'm getting close finally. The front cross-member was really beat up as well. It had been repaired in the past, and the repair failed too. I stared at the cracks in the cross-member for a couple of weeks trying to convince myself that there was a way to fix it, and finally admitted that welding this thing up was a bad idea. I decided to replace the bottom, cracked section of the cross-member with a new plate. Rather than use the thin stuff that was there originally, I went with a piece of 3/16 plate (which is fun stuff to bend into a complex shape by the way) Had to pull every Macgyver trick I could think of, but finally got it fabricated. Just a couple of holes to drill and it's ready to install.

Seems like the bottom plate on these front cross-members is a weak spot. I noticed that my '56 has a smaller stress-crack in the same place.

[njjim]

Front Crossover Repair

That is a great repair. Looks like all the bends are right where they should be. Keep up the good work.

[mdvberg]

Frame Repairs Complete - Time to Blast & Paint!

Thanks njjim!

The front crossmember went back in without any problems. That pretty much takes care of the frame repairs. Just need a nice weekend so I can blast and paint now. Have to admit that I'm a bit tired of dragging around the dead weight of the frame, so getting it back on rubber will be a nice change this spring.

[mdvberg]

Finally...Something Mechanical

Decided to crack open the rear axle this weekend. The axles came right out, and look to be in excellent condition, but when I pulled the 3rd member, I found at least a pint of water...yikes!

The ring gear does not look good at all. Heavy rust in one area, and pitting everywhere else. The pinion gear does not look much better. I guess the good news is that I've had 4.89 gearing in mind for a while, and this pretty well seals the deal. For the most part, the bearings look OK. The bearings on the pinion look particularly good.

I completed disassembling most of the 3rd member, most of which came apart fairly easily, (the pinion oil seal was interesting) but I'm stuck on how to remove the differential bearing cone from the differential case(Pic #1). My Dodge Truck Shop Manual is sort of vague on the subject, and none of my pullers can get a grip anywhere that won't destroy the bearing. Is there any way to remove these two bearings without completely destroying them?

[ringodog]

Way back

Way back in your thread you used a modified English wheel from Harbor Freight. How did you modify it and how did you use it? I have a cab that has a similar crease near the windshield, not nearly as deep. Also, my hood sides are pretty warped and hard to latch, would this be amendable to English wheel work? Have had the truck for 10 years or more, just starting to work on it. I'm very green with all of this. Thanks, Mark

[Chris Olson]

Clamshell puller

This is the kind of bearing puller you need to not damage the bearings....
http://www.pirate4x4.com/articles/te..._Puller_Review

[Jake]

Nice work mdvberg

Not sure how you snuck this thread past me but all the same you are doing a greaat job fixing this truck, keep up the nice work!!

[mdvberg]

Back from Vacation...Need advice on the differential cap

Chris...thanks for the reply on the clam-shell puller. I've never seen one, but that is clearly the right tool for the job. I ended up getting them off by pulling the bearing cage and the roller bearings, and then ever so carefully grinding the inner races until they cracked. It took about an hour per bearing, but I did manage to get them off without any damage to the housing.

After I removed the old carrier bearings, I was able to remove the differential case cap from the differential case to get at the spider gears. In my Dodge truck manual (I have a B-4 series book, although I'm working on a " 58 W300M), it says that "the cap is a thousandth of an inch or so larger than the hole", and that the CASE must be heated to remove the cap or "Damage will result"

My differential case cap just unscrewed by hand. It screws all the way in by hand as well. The cap is definitely NOT a thousandth larger than the hole!

My question is...should it be?