52 P/U repowered & restored

Is this project in fast forward ? Your helper or helper's have to be working 24/7. Your project will be finished before I get my '62 Wagon delivered to your shop. I'll be scraping old grease and oil off of the Dana 44 axles this holiday, cleaning them up for some paint. I haven't decided on the color yet, perhaps brite-red.... This Thanksgiving I'm Blessed and very Thankful....God Bless
 
Typical on the truck cabs, the front cab mounts are rusted. Especially the passenger side, since it is under the heater core.
I fabbed a new brace, and tried to match the original best I could. The factory service manual says to reinfoece the cab mounts on 4WD trucks, and provides a diagram how to do it. I chose not to, since the truck will not see any rough stuff any more.
 

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And the final brace to match the other side
 

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Cab repairs. This is also common on the truck. The doors get opened too far.
 

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This is kind of off topic but how do you get the cool little pics to come up within your post and be the correct size and all that?

Assuming I ever have something going on worth looking at, I would like to be able to put it together that way. It makes for a very easy read.

By the way, I am enjoying the thread....thanks for sharing!
 
I have the same door jamb problem on my truck.
Any tips on getting that all straightened up prior to welding up the tears?
 
Imposter71 said:
This is kind of off topic but how do you get the cool little pics to come up within your post and be the correct size and all that?

Assuming I ever have something going on worth looking at, I would like to be able to put it together that way. It makes for a very easy read.

By the way, I am enjoying the thread....thanks for sharing!

If even one person gets something from my efforts, then it is worth it. Thanks, and I intend to post everyday.

Below the text box, there is a blue box with 2 folder tabs:
Options, and Upload attachments.
Click the upload attachments tab.
Click the box labeled browse that comes up.
A new box pops up that you need to add the picture from your computer. The picture can not be too big, so you may need to make it smaller first. By this I'm not talking too big size wise. I'm talking file size in KB (kilo bytes) or MB (Mega Bytes).
I take a picture with my digital camer, and upload it into my computer via a cable.
I use Adobe Photoshop to crop it first, then Save for web. Save for web compresses it so it is thousands of bytes instead of millions of bytes.
You lose a little clarity, but it is the only way to upload files so they are fast and don't waste space.
Once it is smaller, I attach it, and the forum Bulletin Board Software does the rest. It resizes it to fit inside the little postage stamp looking window you see in a post. If you click on the photo, a larger one is displayed. This is done so the pages load faster. They are called thumbnails.

Hope this helps. What you need to see is what photo editing software you have on your PC. If you tell me what you have to work with, I can walk you throug resizing your photos.
Eric
 
splinterguy said:
I have the same door jamb problem on my truck.
Any tips on getting that all straightened up prior to welding up the tears?

Ric,
I made a tool just for that.

I took a round bar ( the stakes you drive into the ground when you are forming for cement) and welded a small square tubing on the end. The square tubing just fit over the bar. The tubing is maybe 3" long. I cut the square tubing off at a 45° angle and rounder the sharp end.
This gave me a tool I could stick behind the kick panel and hit the end with a small sledge type hammer and pound out the dents and the creases. If you go too far, you stretched the metal, so you are better off to use a body dolly on the outside. This tool is for any dents made by the door from opening too far. To fix the hinge, I used visegrips and a hammer and dollie

If this doesn't make sense, I will take a picture of the tool. Let me know.
Eric
 
Thanks I'm glad I read your post, looks like a lot of things I have to do to my 54 P/U. I can learn as you go just keep posting please.
 
I bolted the bare block to the freshly rebuilt T90 transmission. I hoisted it up into the frame so I could determine the perfect height of the engine in the frame. I have to bolt on the cab and set the intake in place. Points of concern are the starter hitting the front driveshaft. The engine is offset 2" to the passenger side. Another concern is the Distibutor. The 4.3 liter has a small cap, and I want to make sure the distributor can be pulled out without hitting the fire wall. Another concern is the heads hitting the fire wall.
 

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Here is how I hoisted the engine into the frame by myself.
 

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I accidentally deleted all the pictures of me rebuilding the T90. If you need a good online manual, I can provide a link to one.
 

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The wifey hardly ever ventures out into the "mancave", so when She does, I like to get her involved. :lol:
 

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Finally I get to set the cab on the frame.
After a lot of trial and error, I decided I needed 7/8" of body lift to allow the distributor and heads to clear the firewall. Notice the extra body bushing in the picture. There are two per side.
It is important to me to keep the firewall original. I'm not doing any mods that can't easily be undone should a new owner want to go back original.
 

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I reassembled the engine myself. To me that is the easiest part of the build. I had a machine shop bore it .060 over, .010 under for the rods and mains. They also installed the freeze plugs, and cam bearings. Although I could have ground the valves myself, I chose not to. I purchased most of the parts from Summit racing.
 

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I trailered the chasis to the muffler shop and had duel exhaust installed. I put the headers on, they are from Sanderson. They are specific for this swap. CV-95 Shorty is the P/N. The CV-97's are the long tube headers, but they hit the starter and steering box.
 

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What are you going to do for your body lift? I used to frequent the Jeepster Commando forums and some of those guys used hard rubber/urethane boat rollers for their body lifts. Bought them from a marine supply store and cut to size with a band saw or something. I remeber a few of them doing it and never heard any regrets. Was thinking of that myself for down the road but wanted to see if anyone lese here had heard/tried it.

Tom
 
Ok, the cab is installed for the final time. Steering wheel installed, exhaust installed etc...

This brings you all up to date with where I am currently with the build. The updates will be in "real time" from now on.

I know you thought I was fast, but really!
Eric
 

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