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Building a clone of grandpa's service truck

SinclairChevy said:
After looking at the paint charts from that era, I believe you guys are correct: both Jim's daily driver and my firewall are Mariner Blue. I'm not sure what shade my truck was repainted, but it doesn't really matter... as it's GONNA be Sinclair Green and White!! :D

I think Ken is right about the grille being chrome. Jim's was shiny at some point, but is now suffering from surface rust, and the underside lip of mine has some surface rust as well. Which brings me back to the original question: if I disassemble this grille to repair the dents, is it likely that it will need re-plated?

Not much of an update to post for ya today. I spent most of yesterday's time in the shop organizing parts into marked bags and bins for storage. I wanna be able to find everything when it comes time to reassemble this thing. However, my girlfriend decided to help out and bead-blasted the components for the rear cab mounts for me, after which I primed and painted them. I may stop by the shop later today to reassemble those cab mounts.

I'm going to add a lock to the driver's side door. I've searched for a tech article on how to do it, but I've come up short. I see the parts that I need to make and should be able to accomplish it without too much trouble (I think). Have any of you guys performed this modification before? Results?

Damon
Click to expand...

Use the Aultman easy latch kit.....WELL worth the money. You can add a lock on the driver's door, just make a template from the passenger door and cut the hole.
 
Thanks for the tip, ol' chebby. The Altman's may happen in the future, but since mine are fine, I'm gonna stick with the stock latches for now. I've started to modify and fabricate all of the parts necessary for making the stock driver's door latch lockable, keeping a 'stock option' appearance. If I'm successful, I'll post a tech article on how I did it. Wish me luck.

Damon

PS. I took a week or so off of working on the cab. The plan for tomorrow is to dive in on starting to repair the cab floor, so the cab is sturdy and true for the rest of the needed toe-kick, cowl, and fender mount repairs.
 
Got a short update today. Jim and I worked on the passenger side cab floor and the passenger side door over the past couple days. I forgot my camera yesterday, but I managed to remember it today so I snapped a few shots.

The past two days represented my first at any kind of body work. Please keep the laughter down to a dull roar. :D The first three pictures detail the beginning of the cab repair. We started by remounting the cab at the rear. Both cab mounts were blasted, painted, and had new rubber installed. Once the rear of the cab was set, Jim looked up the proper "cab floor to frame cab mount" dimension in his assembly manual. Since it gave a range, we shot for 1 7/8". Once we had the cab shored up to the proper height, I removed the piece of cab floor seen missing, as well as a small piece of the top lip on the rocker panel, and the front of the rocker panel... and a bit of the inner cowl panel. Whew, that's lots of cutting. Jim had a right side cab floor brace on hand, so we used that to begin the repair process. He schooled me on how to remove spot welds, and explained how the cab was assembled, so I knew how to layer all of the parts back together correctly. The welds will be cleaned up better after all of the repairs are done and we can remove the cab from the frame. Here are a few shots of the beginning of the cab repair:

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We quickly realized we couldn't go much further without more patch panels. It turns out I'm gonna need a bunch of sheet metal to get the lower front of this cab back to it's old self. While we're waiting for parts to come, we decided to tackle the passenger side door. If you remember, the handle and the door skin around it were in really bad shape. Turns out the handle was sprung from whatever happened to it, and the door skin wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was... though it was still pretty bad.

After using Jim's stud gun, torch, shrinking disk, and various hammers and dollies, we finally got the door back into shape. There are a couple of low spots yet that need to be raised. That's easier said than done, considering there's not a lot of room to work inside of a door. Here are some shots:

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That's about it for now. Hoping to see patch panels arrive next week. My tax appointment went better than expected too, so hopefully soon I'll be able to put more $$$ into this project. Cross your fingers!

Damon
 
Damon, you and your buddy seem to be on the right way. All the work looks very good and the door skin is close to arrow straight.

Good luck with your project and keep the pictures coming, great to see other AD érs saving another truck from being junked...
 
Very Nice !

I see that once again , the DIY'er takes the time to do things right .

Few Dolly & Fender Men will take the large amount of time necessary so do this , I can't wait to see the finished truck .
 
Blueflame236 said:
Man that would be an awsame truck with that Dino logo on the side.
Click to expand...

Martinius,

I will be keeping the original Sinclair HC Gasoline logo on this truck's door... but I will probably have a Dino on the dashboard riding shotgun with me.

Still waiting for sheet metal to come in, should be here in a day or two I hope. In the meantime, I took my leaf springs to a local spring shop. Ordered new top leaves for the rear springs, as the bolt eyes were starting to wear, even wore through the bushings. Also ordered shackles for all four corners. I'm hoping that I don't find any cracks in any of the leaves once I get the spring packs apart to clean them up and paint them. When more work gets done, I'll post some photos, of course.

Damon
 
Greetings folks,

For those that are interested in the project, I apologize for the delay in getting another update to you. It's been a busy past couple of weeks here, and I haven't been able to put the time in on the truck that I'd like. Add that to having to sit on my hands til parts came in the mail, and...

Anyway, I have a few photos to share with you. The first one shows the removal of the driver's side floor pan and cab floor brace.

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Like the passenger side, we also had to remove the front of the rocker panel and make a repair patch for it. The second photo shows the rocker end removed, as well as another small piece of sheet metal (rectangular shape) near the lower door hinge pocket.

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The third photo shows the badly damaged rocker panel end. Next to that is the patch panel Jim and I made. Above those two panels is the new rocker panel for the passenger side of Jim's 1947 project truck. I gotta thank him again for taking time away from his own project to help me out with mine.

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This photo shows the little rectangle patch welded into place. Not the best welding job, but I'm new to welding sheet metal. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :D I had to go back and weld shut the holes I blew through the thinner original cab sheet metal.

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I neglected to take photos of the finished rocker panel patch in place, sorry about that. Nor did I take photos of the new driver's side cab floor brace in place. Dangit. I will do that when I get back to work on the cab, hopefully this week.

Damon
 
Here are a couple more photos. The first is the cab up off of the 3/4 ton frame. The frame is now out of the shop and out of the way for Jim to work on farm machinery and implements. That hoist is HANDY!!

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The last photo shows the cab on the dolly Jim built for his project trucks. If you look closely, you can see the rocker panel patch welded into place. Also visible on the cab floor are the rebuilt and repainted rear cab mounts. You can also see that the seat riser has been removed. That was a pain. I made neater work of it with a hammer and chisel, but it was a bit slow. I fired up the air chisel and was able to get the passenger side done faster, but I'm gonna have some patching to do where the air chisel got a little carried away... Jim's 1947 project truck is behind my cab.

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I received a laundry list of parts from various suppliers last week, including our fine host. I now have a new set of king pins for the front axle, a front disc brake conversion kit, and a rear axle conversion kit to mount the S-10 pick-up axle to the stock leaf springs. The leaf springs are back home, but I'm going to swap the top leaf off of one front stack with a spare Jim had laying around, the new bushing I received from the spring shop falls out of the leaf if it's tipped to the side.

The plan for the next week or two is:

1. Finish cleaning the front axle (paint, rust, grease, etc.).
2. Paint front axle.
3. Paint spindles.
4. Install new king pins into front axle/spindles.
5. Mount rebuilt/repainted leaf springs to frame.
6. Mount rebuilt/repainted front axle to leaf springs.
7. Paint rear axle kit and mount up the rear axle.
8. Install the four free junk yard tires/wheels (thanks again, TJ) and have a rolling chassis!
9. Continue cab rust removal/patch panel installation.

We'll see how it goes...

Damon
 
Oversize measure King Pins.

Damon

Admire your courage and efford starting with a project you have. I love to watch the progress following your work. You have come a long way in a shotr time.

Now i wanted to mention working with the king pins;
I had to press the old once out like yours and bought a pair of oversize pins to make it tight and getting the steering pattern correct. Not a big job but using a hydraulic press is required. Remember to look carefully at your old onces for damage and wear before replacing with new pins. Measure the top and bottem hole of your spindle and compare left and right spindle for internal wear. Have some lubricant on them when pressing the new onces in place. It might give you a clew elsewhere weather the other steering components are in good shape or have to much wear? The draglink/tie rod and the shock absorber link are mostly showing signs of wear to ? Our host sells all of them or chevs of the 40-tees or The filling station in Labanon OR.

I`ll advize not to buy the power stearing kit for this truck as it is`nt well made and makes the steering pattern nervously /understearing. There are some threads that tells you about it.
However the aftermarked shock absorber kit is a good investment.

Thanks for sharing Martinius.
 
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Wow, it's hard to believe it's been over a month since I've updated this thread. I promise I haven't been sitting on my hands! I have been busy with other things, but there has been some progress made on the truck.

All of the leaf springs are rebuilt, painted, and assembled to the frame.

The front axle and spindles have been painted, and new king pins installed.

Before I bolt up the front axle to the leaf springs, I have a question: How is the rubber bump stop attached to the cast retainer? I cleaned out some gunk on the back side of the rubber, and there appears to be machined threads in there. I'd like to remove/replace the rubber bumper on each side, as well as clean and paint the cast retainer... before finishing the assembly of the front end. I've also been told that installing a second set of 3* shims between the front axle and leaf springs helps give the truck better geometry for holding the road. So I'm taking the shims off of the three-quarter ton frame and I'll be installing those along with the original shims from the half-ton.

After all that's done, I can install the front disc brake kit and the front end will be finished. I still need to clean up and modify the rear axle for installation, but that won't take a lot of work, as I'm only going to mock it up so I can move it around the garage. Final welding/assembly/painting will take place later after the drive line is installed.

Hopefully I can get some photos posted in the next day or two as work progresses.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Damon
 
Caster Shims

You only need the original two shims , I assume you're going to run radial tires ? .

Trust me , once it's all buttoned up and you come whizzing 'round a downtown 90° corner ,just let go the steering wheel and stamp on the throttle , smile as the spokes of the steering wheel turn to a blur as it straightens out in 1/10th of a second as you roar off and grab Third gear again.... :cool: .

Too much Caster makes the slow speed driving too hard & stiff going off center .
 
Thanks for your opinion, Nate. Maybe I'll wait 'til a few more folks chime in here before I make a final decision on the spare set of shims.

Damon
 
Front disc brake kit install.

I would be very intrested to see some install pictures of your disc brake setup Damon. What make did you buy ? Planning in the future to do the swap but i have to wait as time is much to short now.

Martinius.
SinclairChevy said:
Wow, it's hard to believe it's been over a month since I've updated this thread. I promise I haven't been sitting on my hands! I have been busy with other things, but there has been some progress made on the truck.

All of the leaf springs are rebuilt, painted, and assembled to the frame.

The front axle and spindles have been painted, and new king pins installed.

Before I bolt up the front axle to the leaf springs, I have a question: How is the rubber bump stop attached to the cast retainer? I cleaned out some gunk on the back side of the rubber, and there appears to be machined threads in there. I'd like to remove/replace the rubber bumper on each side, as well as clean and paint the cast retainer... before finishing the assembly of the front end. I've also been told that installing a second set of 3* shims between the front axle and leaf springs helps give the truck better geometry for holding the road. So I'm taking the shims off of the three-quarter ton frame and I'll be installing those along with the original shims from the half-ton.

After all that's done, I can install the front disc brake kit and the front end will be finished. I still need to clean up and modify the rear axle for installation, but that won't take a lot of work, as I'm only going to mock it up so I can move it around the garage. Final welding/assembly/painting will take place later after the drive line is installed.

Hopefully I can get some photos posted in the next day or two as work progresses.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Damon
Click to expand...
 
Here are a few teaser photos. Not much to show, just all four springs in place on the frame, with new stainless steel hardware holding the rear leaf mounts in place. The last shot is a picture of the front axle. It's nearly ready to bolt on, just a few minor things left to do. It's not very visible, but the candidate rear end is shown in a cradle to the rear of the frame.

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Martinius,

The disc brake conversion kit I bought came from Speedway Motors. They blew everyone out of the water on price... by a long shot. I've seen the kits go anywhere from Speedway's price of $240 all the way to over $600. This is a complete kit and includes:

Bearing conversion from ball bearings to tapered roller bearings (and seals)
A pair of brake rotors
A pair of brake calipers (with brackets)
A set of brake pads
Both flex hoses
All needed hardware

This is a complete kit at a great price!

More to come soon, I hope.

Damon
 
Now

..Is the time to add the VIN that's on your title to the left front frame rail.....
 
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