1941 1/2 ton project Hannah

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thanks, here are a few more!

got my smithys and got em hung.
IMG_7586 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7616 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I moved the engine back 10" which is the same as the RCSB driveshaft length, and I got an aluminum driveshaft from a trailblazer. the trailblazer is just under 52" (the s10 RCSB is 53)


I took the leafs out to have dearched, only one of the u bolts would come off so need new u bolts too.



while I was out I picked up a new bench, the guy was asking 10 bucks just to keep from throwing it away, and when I bought it he threw in the buckets. the bench has fore/aft adjustments and is almost the right height already!
IMG_7658 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I gave the crusty belltech springs a spritz of paint
IMG_7663 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

and put one side in
IMG_7665 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

the shocks and endlinks needed cut off (like usual, I usually put heavy grease on the threads when I reinstall to make it easier to take out later) but the front end is mostly new and very tight, so some paint is all I plan. however the lower balljoint stud is spinning so I cant get the nut off. going to try clamping the arm today to see if I can get it loose.
 
SOOOOOOOooooooo. in true application of the joedoh rule, I am fish again, specifically a doom bass. I bought a set of belltech drop spindles and springs at a swap meet last year, but since I really like using springs I sold the spindles on to another guy doing an AD swap. when I cleaned up the springs and installed one I noticed that it... seemed to be almost as big a pain in the butt to install as the originals. I ran the part number and WHO KNEW? Belltech makes 1" drop springs. DOH

so I actually considered calling the guy I sold the spindles and beg for them back, because a 1" drop is going to look pretty silly with a 4" rear drop. I looked at new ones online and it offended my frugal bone. I looked at craigslist and the only semi-local pair was a cool 3 hour drive away. I went and picked up the lower control arm south of town after considering drop control arms from DJM (two birds, one bb says I) and I was about 3 miles from that salvage yard that sold me the driveshaft. hmmmm I wonder if he ever had a truck come in with drop spindles?

yyyep. :metal: A quick squirt of paint and about 200 bucks in new rotors, bearings, seals, spindle nuts, and caps plus a tub of wheel bearing grease and I was back where I was two months ago.
IMG_7671 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7674 by Joe Doh, on Flickr


I could have used all the parts I had on the stock spindles, but you know my luck with that stuff.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hannah is one, this was exactly a year ago.
IMG_4663 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_4665 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I should have the leafs back tomorrow, and the front end buttoned up too. after some more paint and some reinforcing of the mounts, its time for cab repair.
 
well I hit a snag this week, I bought a new lower arm from the auto parts store and it had a lock nut on the balljoint instead of a castle nut, progress you see. apparently its one less part in the box and one less step in assembly especially on a factory production line, and the mechanics just have to suck it up and install them. the problem with lock nuts is, they lock, and while that seems pretty obvious, when you have a highly tensed spring held in place by a floor jack as you try to compress the balljoint into the taper on the spindle there comes forth a stream of obscenities so well reasoned and spoken with such authority that all the old women praying at the local catholic church instinctively genuflect and light extra candles.

this is a photo of the process, the nut WOULD. NOT. GO. ON. ANY. GIU$Y$*(&$. FURTHER.

IMG_7676 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

you can see the hex in the top, so I schlepped out to buy the 6MM hex socket (allen wrench just bent) and a 21mm open end wrench. it still didnt budge. I fought with it like a guy who could embed wrenches in drywall at a single throw (seems extraneous, doesnt it?) and I even went to find a new nut when I thought the threads looked a little galled. when I calmed down, turns out no such thing as an M14 1.5 flanged lock nut exists within 400 miles, I just returned the arm for another.

as it eventually came out, the flange nut on the arm was the wrong thread for the balljoint, the nut was a coarse and the balljoint was fine. the new arm fixed it and I buttoned it up BOTH SIDES in about 30 minutes. I think I am going to replace the calipers too, you know, "while I am in there".
IMG_7697 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

leafs tomorrow!
IMG_7698 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

this thing looks like it will be... lower than the last one. hmm.
 
[S:mad:[S:mad::mad:[S:mad:[S:mad::confused::eek::eek::cool:
After reading your post, I used all these smilies because all the laughter that came out of my mouth was unexplainable with words.
 
haha thanks, I can wax poetic sometimes and a project thread might be the perfect place to complain.


the other thing that slows down progress is sneaking another job in. my wifes pilot has been an amazing car but the valves were getting a little ticky. It was about time to change plugs too so might as well have it done at the same time, since getting to the rear cylinder bank is easier while doing the valves.

Honda didnt see it that way, $120 to change plugs with or without the SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR valve adjustment. thats a cool grand with shop supplies and tax. how about NO?

so I did it. check out the color difference between front and rear cylinders, that is because the rear cylinders are the VCM (variable cylinder, turns off while coasting or not under high load) so literally the rear cylinders have half the miles. also note the bridge assembly of the VCM on the rear bank. to adjust the exhaust valves you have to lay over the engine and use a mirror. it took 40 minutes to adjust the front bank and the intakes on the rear bank, and another hour and a half to adjust the exhausts on the rear.

IMG_7703 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I got it done though, honda said 4.5 hours, I took about 7. still, with new plugs and an oil change, total spend was $124 bucks, even though I broke a valve cover gasket and a valve cover bolt (special on honders).


I got the leafs back in too, rolled the truck out and the cab in to do the floor repairs. I am going to pull the leafs again though, the pass side is a little high so I will swap em and see if I can combat the chevy lean
IMG_7710 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7713 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7712 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
 
When I put the lowering blocks in the back of my '39 (also on an S10 chassis), I left the overload leaves in. Did you? I have been wondering if I should have removed them. I know I will never need the extra load capacity.
 
no prob!

I REEEEEEEEEALLY didnt want to do rust repair and I figured the sure way to make me do it was to beauty up the cab a little. I didnt like that it was more rust than paint, I dont mind rust but it was like 80% and more than that after pressure washing. I found a green (charleston green) that was really close to the original juniper green, but it didnt really look close when I put it on, and when I sanded it the blue in the juniper green really started to show.

I watched some patina videos and didnt really like what I saw, painting the whole truck several times. I decided to break down what was wrong with the charleston green and make a plan to fix it. I ignored flash times and laid down a wet black, a wet navy blue, a wet hunter green, and then topped with the wet charleston green. it was really runny and thick, I was aiming to let it mix as a miasma instead of distinct layers, knowing I was going to sand it back.
IMG_7724 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I sanded it back with some 120 grit then some 320 when I started seeing color

53223155830__2C23AA26-CC3B-4F22-A369-619E15EF3D8C-1 by Joe Doh, on Flickr


I like it. the door is the original color and I think after some wet sanding I will be there.

so today I started on the floor. my temp brace was still holding so I cut back to good steel and started by making the brace for between the door jambs and mocking up the first floor piece
IMG_7725 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

one brace wasnt going to cut it for the seats, so I added some support.
IMG_7728 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I drilled a million holes, going for the monocoque strength tie to the original cross bar and floor.
IMG_7729 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7731 by Joe Doh, on Flickr


so tomorrow I will get some pipe for a pass through of the rear body mounts and make a tie in to the back wall. I over lapped the pieces in the center so its already super strong, gonna be stronger, without adding a bunch of useless tube.

supposed to rain a bunch tommorrow, maybe I will have it back on the frame and working the pedals. maybe
 
Hey Joe, not trying to screw the pooch in your build but where did you find the info for the color...juniper green? I can't find that in the original colors. Did you id the cab to a 1941 for sure? Some of the colors change for different years.
Mine is a 46 for sure and I'm planning on paint for this build. Mine was what they call Export Blue originally and I plan to go back to that, but I am looking at the other original colors to see if I might not like other colors better. I just can't find a Juniper green listed. I've got info from 37-46 for colors and more for just 46 only, but I don't have anything for 41 alone...
Keep up the good work. Truck is gonna be killer...[cl
 
juniper is my descriptor, not the paint chip color from chevrolet. its a darker ivy green with some blue in it. they had two greens in 41 and this is the darker color. I am not having paint mixed to match, I am using rattle cans to get close.

most of the trucks I buy are the lighter green that seems to be on every truck from the 40s/50s, so this color was a welcome change


forgot to mention after 2 months got the registration straight

IMG_7726 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
 
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Oh OK! That's cool! I was just wondering if you found another color that was original. The darker of the two greens I've found for those years is called Brewster Green The lighter green was called Apple Green.
 
brewster green, good to know! thanks

here is the stock coloring on the doors vs my added color on the roof. you can see all the colors represented.
IMG_7734 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7733 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

the rear of the floor was next today. it has this weird multi layer sandwich of metal for the body mounts and only the top layer was rusted, but what I DIDNT want to happen was for the layers to collapse when you tighten the body bolt down. I devised a plan to cap the rusted part with some 11ga, and use tubes to weld all the layers together, making it crush proof and give a good tie to the rectangle tube I put in yesterday.
IMG_7738 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7739 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7740 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

instead of welding the patch in the back way I decided to screw it in for now, in case I need to adjust some of the floor I made. that hole was convenient to get to some areas I wouldnt have been able to otherwise.

IMG_7741 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I would have put the cab back on today but I took a long time designing the repair for the front body mount, so tomorrow.
 
well it aint gonna fix itself. after staring at the body mounts for a couple days I decided to jump right in, complicated planning wasnt going to fix it. The problem was the mount was a channel and the outside of the channel had rusted off, so the body mount was just flat steel, and the weight of the cab twisted it this way and that. I looked at cutting it all off and rebuilding it but I will be honest, that was a lot of work for a truck I just pieced the floor back together on. so I went simple, flat steel under the mount with a hole for the bolt to pass through, and rebuild the outside channel by welding it to the cowl for support. now the repair is under compression (instead of tension if I had cut the old mount off) and the bolt clamps the repair together just like my rear mount repair.
IMG_7765 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

quickadiddle and done. I broke my tacks and put the rear body mounts in the correct place (they were 2" off) and dropped the cab on again.
53265410022__4A06A139-F0B2-4142-9290-3A0700E8DD13 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

the engine move worked out perfect, the dizzy has room, the valve cover is an inch off the firewall, the shift lever is in the perfect place. I dont think this one will even need a trans bump.
IMG_7767 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

and the state was quick as usual, tagged it monday, title in the mail friday. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. the DMV appreciates it
53265482534__4B0ED89F-5FA0-4924-94BF-8D075259A336 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
 
I regret not replacing it with a good cab but I dont regret fixing it though.


well lets just make some more steel upgrades to this frankencab shall we?

pedals day! I started by marking a bunch of dimensions for the dash and center of the original steering collum then whacking a fresh section of 76 year old steel from the firewall.
IMG_7797 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I wanted to see if my offal cut from the s10 firewall had a chance of lining up.

well I'll be dipped
IMG_7798 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

that triple hole on the left is the clutch master hole, and it looks like it will fit. there may be something to this...

IMG_7800 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

the steering column needs to be at 12.5" to be centered on the gauges, its at 13", would YOU notice the 1/2"?

IMG_7801 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

I dug out the angle grinder and roloc discs. but I was out. I went to "the yard" to pick some up and they had these for a buck each.

IMG_780G by Joe Doh, on Flickr

they work amazing, worth the buck!

IMG_780F by Joe Doh, on Flickr

drilled the holes for the clutch master and popped it on for a look

IMG_780E by Joe Doh, on Flickr

started making the jigsaw pieces to close out the firewall and I cant believe how nice this is working.

IMG_7806 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
IMG_7807 by Joe Doh, on Flickr

that torch cut is ancient, they must have cut it to get the trans out? or the engine? I dunno.

more this week, I am not cooking thanksgiving for the first time in a hundred years so I can work all day thursday and even some friday
 

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