My Project

[MoparFreak69]

Ron, the guy responded to my questions finally and said he would like to get $50 out of the grill and headlight rings. Let me know if you are still interested and I will get that direction and pick them up. Turns out my old man wants the 315 Hemi so that isnt on the offering plate anymore. For $150 he just couldnt turn it down. Its going in his '46 Dodge half ton.

Anybody have a set of front turn signal housings w/lenses they would be willing to part with for some cash? They dont have to be perfect, but the better condition the more interest I have in them.
Also looking for tail/brake light suggestions. I found a set at NAPA for like $10, but they are rather thin and cheezy and would prefer a more period correct look to go with the truck.

After my little fiasco at the DMV I contacted a guy my dad has done a bunch of work with at IDOT and he basically said BS!. He told me to fax him the VIN inspection and the bill of sale and he will get working on it Monday. I will probably have all the paperwork I need done by the end of the week and a conditional title on its way shortly. Basically since the truck does not show up in any database he will just create the truck and do the paperwork to get the title initiated. Sometimes it pays to have low friends in high places, or was that high friends in low places, or maybe just friends behind the scene (as in IN the screwball we call government)?!

[Ron in Indiana]

Ben check your email, I'll take the parts.

[MoparFreak69]

Ron, Looks like I will be heading the direction of the parts truck this weekend possibly so I will pick up those grill parts for you. I decided to go ahead and snag the front turn signal lenses and housings from the truck, as well as the brake/tail lights. They arent in fantastic shape, but will get me going until my budget can get me nicer ones.

Got a little bit accomplished today. Sand blasted/stripped the grill, headlight trim and lower grill bar and got them primed today. I wasnt impressed with the leftover bit of primer I was given, but at least it didnt cost me anything so if I end up sanding it all back off no real loss.
And a photo just for proof ;-)

[MoparFreak69]

More progress

Got some more progress done on the disassembly part today. Removed the front clip, only ended up breaking about half the bolts which isnt too bad of an average considering it was a farm rig its whole life and sat in a field forever and a day. Hope to have the cab pulled tomorrow and on the trailer, ready to go to the blasters. While its away for a day or so I will work on getting the fenders cleaned up and the dents pulled.

A couple progress shots:

[MoparFreak69]

Cab is away to the blasters. The guy thinks he may be able to finish it for me tomorrow, definately by the end of the week though. Should give me enough time to beat a few dents and get it primed before I leave for Germany next week.

Couple shots from last night after getting it on the trailer (yeah yeah it aint no triple axle trailer I know I know, but it works and was $200!)

[Ron in Indiana]

What type of media is he going to use? Looks like you had enough trailer since an empty cab doesn't weigh that much. What's in Germany? Have a good trip. I've always wanted to go to the home of my ancestors in Germany. Maybe someday.

[MoparFreak69]

Ron,
The guy looks like he has been doing it for quite some time, you know the kind, permagrit all over him. Anyway he said he will use aluminum oxide on the curves and plastic on the flat sections. He quoted me $75 for the hood and $35 for each fender so I will take them on over to him when he is finished with the cab, saves me from having to strip all that crap myself, quite a timesaver. He said he will probably use plastic on all of that stuff save for the compound curves in the front of the fenders which the aluminum will do a good job at.

The Germany trip is something the wife and I try to take every year. My wife was born and raised outside of Frankfurt so we try to get back to visit her parents and other relatives that live near that area. Since it is such a long flight we dont try to get everything in in one or 2 weeks. We usually to for a minumum of 3 weeks just so we can have time to visit, take care of business she may have and still get some sightseeing in. God I love seeing all that old stuff virtually EVERYWHERE over there. The old castles along the Rhein are what peaks my interest lately, but this trip looks like we will be heading down to Venice. We will start out heading toward Berchtesgaden, heading south from there to Venice and then making a loop back up through Switzerland and into Germany again.

Tracking back to the project, my old man is working on getting the dash torn apart on the frame donor truck (he is taking the extended cab off the truck to put on his regular cab cab/chassis truck and I am taking basically the rest of it) so he can yank out the heater box and get down to me so I can start fitting that to the truck. It looks like it will fit pretty well, may have to take some of the firewall bulge out but having parts in hand is the only true way to tell.
I am going to have to take 16" out of the frame to bring it down to my 118 wheelbase truck, which actually works out pretty well because my old man needs the 2 rear cab mounts for his truck/swap/project. The immediate weekend after I get back I will probably drag the frame down and get the '59 cab sitting on it and see what I am going to have to do to get them to play nicely together. Sure would be nice to have an A frame for lifting that cab on and off the frame.

[MoparFreak69]

Seats are here

I ordered a set of leather buckets for the truck yesterday. After some pricing around for getting the seats I purchased already recovered, I determined it would be cheaper, and nicer, to just order a set of leather seats. For $320 I got these shipped to my door, vs $550-600 for having a set recovered. Cant beat that deal huh?
Sorry for the poor photo, took it with my cell phone;

[Ron in Indiana]

The picture is fine as are the seats. What year and model did these come from? I'd like to have those in my 01 work truck. I'll be waiting to see how they fit and install.

[MoparFreak69]

Got the cab back from the blasters today. Found a couple hidden dents and a bit more rust on the floor than I had anticipated but overall I am quite pleased. I may be able to get it in primer by the end of the weekend and be finished with the bodywork part of it.

Found a small dent in the drivers door, not that big of a deal. The extra fuel filler hole will be filled, however I will leave the stock rubber plug for the lower fuel filler hole which I see in every truck I come across. A couple other minor dents and some cracks to repair and that is all to this side of the truck;


Passenger side is a bit better off. Just a bit of bump work and finish work is all;

[MoparFreak69]

A few rust pinholes showed up after blasting, but I dont think they are serious enough to warrant floor pan replacement as the rest is still quite solid. Since its the floor and I wont be painting it I will just braze the holes up. Biggest thing is to get the cracked cab mount straightened out and welded up to give the front of the cab some more support.



Drivers side is a bit worse off in the corner with plenty of pinholes. I will probably cut and replace that section. I am going with a cable and pivot accelerator pedal from a newer vehicle so I can basically cut whats left of the floor around the stock pedal and just full it.

[Ron in Indiana]

Boy I've been there, done that when it comes to the floors and cab mounts. There is a second heavier plate under the cab mount to reinforce that area. The extra filler hole with a plug is due to the two wheel drive gas tank being mounted below the cab. The 4 wheel drives are in the rear of course. The plug was the easy way out back then. I have a 59 with an extra hole for a cab mounted tank that I closed up also. Outside of some smoothing you're looking good. How many holes in the firewall will be filled? Did you notice the knock outs on the right side of the cab for the right hand drives? I've always wondered how many were made for those places that drive on the wrong side of the road. lol

[MoparFreak69]

Yeah Ron, I saw the many markings for holes that correspond to a right hand driver setup. Sure makes for a funky setup with all that stuff jammed on that side of the truck doesnt it?

Spent the day pulling dents, filling holes and trying to get the support behind the door handle hole back where it belongs. Finally got it to a point where I could do some smoothing with a bit of filler. Put one small batch on, sanded it smooth, put a bit more touch up filler on and noticed the sky getting aweful dark. Decided it was about time to finish up and tarp the cab for the night. Well, the 50+MPH gusts of wind decided the tarp wasnt a great idea and that it would prefer the nice freshly blasted cab be exposed to whatever rain feels like hitting it. My hot tub cover that was clipped down and also held in place by several healthy rocks went flying across the yard too. Gotta love sudden thunder storms rolling through.
Sorry, no pics for today. It got dark in a real hurry and its too crappy out to try to take some.

[MoparFreak69]

Well, a little more progress now that I am back in the country. I was finally able to clear a spot in the garage for the cab on the trailer to sit where I can work on it in comfort. I finally got the last of the frozen hardware removed from everywhere and removed the last pieces of the old accelerator pedal assembly to make room for patching/modifications.
I had planned to find a way to modify the wiper assembly to give me a 2 speed wiper motor, found an almost perfect setup that I started putting together today. The wiper motor came out of the frame donor truck (97 Ram 2500). The motor bolted right to the bracketing with no mods to either. I will have to do something different for the electrical connector or the cowl vent arm because they both try to occupy the same space, which I dont think will be too kosher. Didnt get any further than bolting the motor to the bracket at this time.
Before I left I snagged some sun visors out of a mid 60's D truck thinking that maybe I could modify the mounts to get them to fit into my truck. The ones in my truck consisted of brackets and that is it. Well it turns out the rods that stick into the visor are the same diameter on both series of trucks, so I pulled the mid 60's rod/mounting bracket out of the visor and stuffed the '59 rod into the visor and Viola, Got a visor. They are blue so they might get a coat of vinyl paint to make em charcoal, but that is down the road with the final details.

I was afraid that I was missing the passenger side window channel (the bottom one) as all the windows had been busted out of the truck. It wasnt attached to the regulator anymore so I thought they had just disappeared some time ago. While removing the 6" of debris out of the bottom of the door, guess who decided to show up to the party! So now I just need to get wing windows cut, one door window and rubber for everything and I have all the glass taken care of.

[JStinson]

This thread is great. I'm really enjoying following it. Looking forward to the rest of build!