Building a clone of grandpa's service truck

Btw...

If I had a nickle for every time I heard THIS!

 

Ummmm~

Just FWI, I *AM* right handed, so pay no attention to the left hand here...

 

Zig,

I can totally understand wanting to do the job only once. I'm trying to follow that same mantra myself with the Sinclair Chevy project. And please keep your hands on the keyboard for the next photos...

Ken, Zig, Nate, and anyone else,

Here's some more 'old truck porn' for ya. Last week, I helped a friend get his 1947 American Lafrance pumper truck back on the road. This rig is a cousin to my aerial ladder truck. Both served the local fire department when they were brand new in the late 40's. I had to repair the officer's side (passenger side, right side...) front brake. The wheel cylinder and rubber line were both shot. We took the truck to a parade in a town about six miles away the day after I made the repairs. The first picture is before I headed out with the truck to pick up the owner to go to the parade. After we made it back to town from the parade, we stopped by the local Independence Day celebration (held early over the weekend) and I took the second shot next to our department's "new" number 2, a 1995 Pierce Dash pumper with a 50' aerial ladder. The ladder is up and spraying water to keep the kids cool in the park. If memory serves, it was 102* that day. Kinda neat to see the old generation and new generation 2's next to each other.





Next up for the '47 pumper... driver's side front brake repairs, and a rebuilt or new master cylinder... depending on what I find when I dig into it. Enjoy!

Damon

PS. Yes, I've been trying to buy the '47 pumper for a long time... 12 years. The owner isn't ready to sell it yet, but he did tell me he'd put me at the top of the list since I'm helping him keep it on the road. How cool would it be to have a matched set of classic American LaFrance fire apparatus that served the fire department where you worked... AND that your dad used to drive and operate? I need a bigger garage!!!

 

Damon, the only thing that would be neater than having twin fire engines would be twin fire engines AND a matching Chevy AD truck fire chief vehicle!

 

Ken,

A buddy of mine out east has a matched set of an American LaFrance fire engine and an AD Chevy "fire department pick-up." I was granted permission to share a photograph he took of the pair at a recent event. Here ya go!



He will be showing them at the national meet of SPAAMFAA (the Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America) at the end of the month (July 26-28). The meet is in Frankenmuth, Michigan if anyone wants to go check it out. I'm going to try to attend, but it's only a 'maybe' at this point.

Damon

 

Industrial art it is.

Wow they ar so ..... wow .... no words for it !

These are well preserved and it makes them so spesial with the all the shiny horns and bells , sirene.
Men i wished i whas born as a monkey , they like shiney items very much and put everything in there mouth to lick it . I would do the same having a truck like this .

Thanks for sharing Martinius.

 

All of those Fire Trucks are great. The Chief's Truck reminded me of Gater's 3804 Long bed

 

Truck porn !

That's very nice and I hope you're able to get it before long .

 

Those are some awesome pics of the old fire trucks!

Very cool. Thanks for posting

 

Ok, folks. I'm back with another update after a long hiatus. As I mentioned on the last page, I believe I've finally figured out the front brake clearance issue. Since the truck has upgraded to front disc brakes, and since it will be using power steering, I opted to remove the steering stops bolted to the rear of the axle. I understand the concern in doing this, but after checking out Jim's truck (which already has the same set up I will be using for my truck), I feel comfortable to allow the steering box to handle the steering "stop-to-stop" duties.

The past few weeks it's been between 100-108 degrees here, so I haven't been uber motivated to get back out to the garage to work on the truck. I know, shame on me. That said, and with a break in the heat, I installed the front disc brake conversion kit from our host today. It was a very straight forward install. Here are some photos with captions:

Here are the kit components. Just about everything you'll need is included: roller bearings, bearing retainers, castle nuts, cotter pins, dust caps, rotors, calipers, caliper brackets, pads, and rubber hoses (with copper crush washers). The only thing I had to buy were two thick washers to use as spacers between the bearing retainer and the castle nut. When I put everything together for a "dry fit test," the cotter pin wouldn't have engaged the castle nut at all once the bearing preload was established. The thick washer I added on each side took care of that pretty easy. Sorry for the poor lighting!



The first thing I had to do was remove the steering stops from the back side of the axle.



Then the king pin retainer bolt was tapped out and reinserted it from the back of the axle.



Then the lock washer and retaining nut were installed on the front side of the axle.



Next, the top two spacers/bolts/nuts were installed into the caliper brackets to aid in lining up the drill to enlarge the bottom rear spindle holt to 1/2" diameter.



To be continued...

Damon

 

Continued...

Here's another shot of the caliper bracket as a drill guide.



Then the bottom hardware was installed, and everything torqued down.



Sorry, I didn't get any photos of packing the bearings with grease, but you've all seen that before. Here are a couple of shots of the driver's side finished up.





The last shot is viewing the end result as seen from above. Had to concentrate real hard not to fall while taking this photo...



Well, there ya have it. I think the next step will be assembling the engine. Does anyone have any recommendations for engine paint? I know there are a lot of choices out there. I'm thinking I'll probably go with gray, possibly the 216 gray, even though this truck will be powered by a 235.

Hope you enjoy!

Damon

 

Simply FANTASTIC!

That really does look GREAT!

Did you use the roller bearing kit or stick with ball bearing? If you used the roller bearing kit, how'd that work?

BOY, I can't wait to get a set of those on my truck!

someday~

 

Thanks, Zig! The kit came with the roller bearing conversion. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. The kit from our host already had the correct cups pressed into the rotors, so all I had to do was pack the bearings with grease and install them. When I got the first kit from Speedway, it came with extra cups. The end user would need to press out the cups in the rotor, then press in the replacements. Our host took care of that issue.

As I mentioned before, the only thing I had to change was to add the thick washer outside thethe bearing retainer under the castle nut. Pretty easy install. The thing I was most disappointed with was the scratched up calipers... which is pretty minor.

Damon

 

Looks good Damon! Just a little better than them old huck brakes!

As far as engine paint, go with Chevy gray! Truck engines were painted that color back in the day even if they were 235's. With that said, remember our credo! You're paying the bills, do it how you want to!

 

Thanks, Ken!

I've pretty well decided on a color (Chevy Gray). I was asking for preferences more along the lines of paint brand name. Sorry, I wasn't very clear on what recommendations I was asking for. Is one there Chevy Gray out there that's better than another? Whattaya think?

Damon

 

Brakes upgrade !

Thanks fore sharing Damon . I love the work your doing . I Know the grey engine paint color from Bill Hirsch are great and have the right tone. But our host have the paint aswell wich most likely is good aswell.
Do you actually have to take the stops away on the axle when installing the disc brakes as i am not planning the power stearing ? Could you show me the disc brake kit referanse page at Classic parts ?

Martinius.

http://www.classicparts.com/searchprods.asp

http://www.hirschauto.com/departments.asp?dept=1

 

Martinius,

This is the kit from our host:

http://www.classicparts.com/1947-59...-Slotted-Drilled-Rotors/productinfo/71-975W5/

Click the 'brake rotor option' and choose 'plain rotors'. This will take the image away. It's the same kit, but the rotors are not drilled for cooling. Since you are not going to add power steering, be prepared to have to modify the caliper brackets and/or the steering stops so there won't be any clearance issues. I suppose you could try to mount the calipers to the front of the spindles instead of the back. Or... you could move the steering stops from the back of the axle to the front. I would be interested to see what kind of solution you came up with to the problem. If you're going to stick with the six-lug hubs, maybe there wouldn't be a clearance problem in the first place, I don't know.

Best of luck!

Damon

 

Looking Good !

Damon ;

That's a nice clear & concise writeup of the disc brake up grade .

I don't think most folks do know how to properly pack wheel bearings , I found a few How-To's on Poo-Toobe , it's important to do correctly .

 

Does the right way involve a dollop of grease in the palm of your left hand, assuming you are right handed?

 

Bearing Packing

Yes .

I'm left handed so it's reversed in my case , this comes in handy when doing the bearings on my British (RHD) cars..... .