41 chevy 1/2 ton project Fenix

thanks!

finished the passenger door up tonight. new felts from repops that have a foam center section to really seal up, I cant wait to hear the wind noise.



got the regulator installed and the new glass. which is tinted, I thought it was film but its actually tinted glass. so I will probably have to pull the drivers window I have so they match. regulator works smooth with some lithium grease


my rebuilt linkage works perfect too.

I sure like it when guys spend a little time on their doors and get them nice again. Thank you.

You gota love it when some thing old and warn out is made new again [cl
And yes, thanks for making my day. [

Nice work. I am liking the compression spring replacement. I need to do that on mine

thanks everyone. doc the compression spring is easier done than said, although taking it apart the first time can be nerve wracking. the door latch bolt is connected to a rod that comes out the back for the inside door handle rod, thats where the spring goes, around that rod and inside the latch assembly. the rod just simply unscrews from the latch bolt. wish there was a way to do it from outside the assembly!

I made my small trans bump today, if it looks like a spade shovel its because thats what I used for the rough shape.


visited a rusty impala today at the behest of my brother back east, the same guy had this tucked away



yes its a numbers matching car, with what he said about is 20% of its original sheetmetal. it was a very rusty car but looks beautiful now.

I ordered whitewalls and steering parts, closing in on this one! found the broken brake switch parts finally, the one vacuum control switch is called a "cruise release" and took forever to track down.

went to the hutch swap meet and scored belltech drop spindles and drop springs for the next truck! woot!


finished the floor repairs today. should work nicely. I pulled all the assembly screws except one accidentaly hit it with the welder and its permanent now.


whitewalls are here, man summit is outstanding for shipping, ordered late wednesday had everything friday noon! undecided on wheel color, decided to give the bronze metallic, the color I was thinking of using on the windshield frame because it kind of matches the other windows, a try. I like it


now cap? or no cap?


I love those impala poverty caps, I ran the identical cap (except they had buick emblem instead of the bowtie) on my 65 and loved the look, maybe I will get the tires mounted and see what I think. I also have a 60s set of baby moons to try, but I think the chrome acorn nut look and no caps will be what I settle on.

jeeze. with all the planning, I still make mistakes. tried out the borgeson collapsible shaft today too. perfect length, right u joints, everything good except



it only needs about 1/4" to line up so tomorrow I will modify the alternator support and take off the offending nut. it fits everywhere else just fine.

more to come! my oldest has come for a visit so I have weird work hours this week.

got the 4th wheel painted


and the frame


looks nice, yes I have overspray



pulled the drivers tinted window from the other extra door I had. it helps to have a deep yard full of stuff. got the drivers door and seals buttoned up.



I also got the steering linkage installed and working enough to ecstatically and unknowingly pump all the fluid in the box out on the ground because I was having fun swiveling the wheel. :lol: doom bass, thy have a name. it is joedoh.

here is a shot from getting the tires mounted today


I will have to trim the beauty rings to clear the weights. steel wheels, what are you gonna do?


I also need to find two more poverty caps, because this is gorgeous.


walmart used to be my go to for mount and balance, 12 bucks per tire with new valve stem. today I got charged more than twice that, almost exactly $100 out the door. never again, and I will no longer recommend them.

picked up my last cab from down south today, he was scrapping while I was there said they had taken 192 tons the two days prior and 100 the day before that. mostly combines and farm equipment. works out to something like $200 for a grain drill, insane when you say it like that. anyway he had my cab ready to go for me, I will miss going down there!

this one I think is a military 1945 cab, or has leftover military parts, the door handles are zinc painted black, and it has double wipers and a weird number plate.




it HAS a number plate but its rusted, I picked up some evaporust on the way home to see if I could recover the numbers.

evaporust worked well, I couldnt read the serial number from the front but the imprints were there on the back, woooooot. thats the difference between a $300 parts cab and a viable project here.




tackled the VA system yesterday. its the mini system with defrost


had to make my own brackets, the ones they sent were pretty flimsy, but that is my only complaint so far. in their defense its a universal system, you should expect to make some brackets



they even sent grommets for the heater hoses, good guys VA


I put a layer of peel and seal on the firewall after buttoning up all the holes I didnt want and drilling the ones I did.


started hooking up wiring and had to find new cruise release and brake switches. something tells me I am missing some sort of bracket on the brake arm, neither push button reaches the arm and the brake switch wouldnt hit it even in a t bone.


I looked at some brake pedal pictures online and sure enough, BOTH brake pedals I have are missing the bracket. yay me. when I got this truck he had just replaced the column and the brake switch was broken, I didnt even think of a piece being missing. DOH



so I guess its off to the salvage.

joedoh said:

started hooking up wiring and had to find new cruise release and brake switches. something tells me I am missing some sort of bracket on the brake arm, neither push button reaches the arm and the brake switch wouldnt hit it even in a t bone.

I looked at some brake pedal pictures online and sure enough, BOTH brake pedals I have are missing the bracket. yay me. when I got this truck he had just replaced the column and the brake switch was broken, I didnt even think of a piece being missing. DOH

so I guess its off to the salvage.

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I just pulled my brake pedal out and reshaped it so I could get my big foot on it. They hang so far out from the firewall in these conversions I was able to move it forward about 4", and over 2 or 3" with two notches and some bending and welding. Now it is closer to the gas pedal, and the firewall. Much easier to get to.

thanks man, the pedal is actually in the right spot for me, its just missing the little bracket that bolts on the lever for pushing the brake and cruise switches.



its that weird little bent bracket

story time!

so there is something I call "the joedoh rule" or more accurately "the dumbass constant". its like murphys law only more intimately painful to me, because it involves finding the very limit of my patience while examining how accurately I can shoot myself in the foot.

take this example. I have been trying to schedule time with LD2 (loving daughter 2) because her mini cooper is knocking and whining, the serpentine belt is the suspect. she has more important things like work and the boyfriend and things she calls "places" when we ask where she is going. so it breaks one day, and I tell her the time to schedule with me is over, use some of that work money and call a tow to a mechanic of her choosing and have them fix it, all part of growing up you see. if you cant take my gentle prodding to help you fix it preemptively in the driveway you can foot the incurred higher costs of the emergency. essentially "a lack of planning on your part isnt an emergency on my part". but I am not without compassion, so I offer the slattern (my cheapo saturn that just runs and runs) so she is not without transportation. well, she flattens the rear tire and the spare according to her boyfriend "has something wrong with it". I go to change the tire and pick up the car and promptly break two studs. oops. I pick up 4 new studs and slather the remaining lug nuts with penetrant. I get the drum off and replace the two broken studs, better see if all the nuts come off easy though since I will need a tire on that corner, and I break one more stud.


thats after pulling it apart a second time.

oh wait there is more. remember my missing bracket on the pedal? I went looking through older pictures, in fact this one on the first page of the thread.


see it?


sheesh. I have looked in the garage, to no avail. tomorrow a trip to the salvage is required.

I also attempted to run the heater lines, I had retapped the broken connector on the intake but for the life of me couldnt find the suction side. looking at older pictures, it goes to the radiator. so luckily there is a plugged port on the water pump.



got all the lines run, had to move the lines to keep them from kinking. I read about a guy who used copper pipe bent to the correct angles and a heat gun to reshape straight hoses into custom heater hose, I will try that next time I think.


found more problems to solve. this is probably from the engine fire (project name as a reminder!)


tomorrow I seal the floor up for good! no more work needed under there. I have to straighten the power steering line so it fits the front clip and then I can put the front clip on too.

did a bunch of little stuff, got the alignment set at 1/8" toe out and centered the wheels and steering wheel. pulled all the steering parts to paint. I did get the steering lines modified and hooked up.


fenix shifts! my modified linkage works perfectly. I picked up a cotter hairpin and a washer, if you remember it was hooked with a bread tie when I pulled it apart.


ugh. more new stuff. this donor was short on just about everything. learn this lesson, buy the best donor you can, people.


the rad is ready to be hooked up. the bubble flare to barb fittings for the transmission lines were only FORTY ^&*^(*& DOLLARS. sheesh. next time I will just cut them off and flare the end and use clamps.

chipping away at all this stuff, the two steps forward three steps back with all the new repairs hasnt licked me yet.

Got to love the kids.
[P [P [P
Torchie

yep, I love em. it tough teaching lessons like that because you just want to do everything for them, but then they never learn anything. shes mad now, it cost 8x doing it in the driveway, plus a tow, but hopefully she listens for noises and asks about them before it breaks.

I dont know where to start talking about the truck today, I walked out today and this was on the drivers side floor of the cab. nothing on top of it, just kind of in there.


I actually just sat down and looked at it for about a half hour. I didnt have anything on the floor that I wasnt using, and just two weeks ago it was completely empty while I built the missing piece of floor. divine intervention. I took the hint and installed it



I put the steering back together and yep, you guessed it, problems arose


the shifter rod was in a position that the set screw on the steering joint would hit it. only when it was in park though, so I considered just leaving it. who screws the steering wheel back and forth in park?

but then I reconsidered, even though the chances of it happening were small and there was plenty of give in the linkage to let it bump by, I wouldnt want that to happen. so I pulled the rod and shot myself in the foot by dropping it and having the bushing fly off to kingdom come. after 10 minutes modifying the rod (just added a kink) and 40 minutes searching for the bushing, I was done.



no joke, I havent ever seen that little bracket until today.

41 build

I built my 41 on a 76 gmc frame. easy and a lot less work,just my two cents . Good luck with your truck.

My chassis was from a 4-speed S10, so no linkage at all. I used the bell crank for my Monte Carlo donor car, and a straight piece of 3/8 threaded stock. Works great.

henrys47merc said:

I built my 41 on a 76 gmc frame. easy and a lot less work,just my two cents . Good luck with your truck.

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wow did the frame interfere with the running boards or fenders at all? and the "less work" thing might be my fault, I wanted to utilize all the s10 features, efi, electronic overdrive, cruise control, etc. makes for a great cruiser when done.

Skip said:

My chassis was from a 4-speed S10, so no linkage at all. I used the bell crank for my Monte Carlo donor car, and a straight piece of 3/8 threaded stock. Works great.

Click to expand...

I thought I was slick, I moved the motor back and so I moved the linkage mount back the same amount, but didnt account for the u joint set nut.

the 47-55 battery box is slightly larger than the 41-46, so my s10 battery just barely didnt fit. I could have just bought a new box, or taken one from the parts pile, especially since the one hold down bolt is broken, but waste not want not. I drilled out the rivets and gave the extra 3/8" I was missing. yes you can still get to the oil fill, its not as close as it looks.


cables reach too, thats a nice surprise.


more mr fixit, the drivers door check mounts were broken and the check was missing, but I found it in the kick panel washing out the truck. I fixed up the mount and woop


all the underhood and dash wiring is complete now except the HVAC, which is pre wired anyway, just need the big 12v tie in. well except the cruise switch, I need to find a pinout here, the guy bought a blazer column and only half installed it so obviously the wiring is slightly different on the cruise switch. if anyone has done the wiring change before maybe shoot me the info.
truck side

column side


lots more little stuff done too, like the steering is complete now, all jam nuts tight. my wife is going to a work thing for a week so it will just be me and the beeps, probably no progress in that time except what I get done tomorrow.

I have said a few times the guy I bought the truck from was in the middle of installing a new/used column. the bottom bearing seemed loose, there are three slots that I thought engaged the plastic bearing retainer but there were no tabs on it, it kept sliding out. I thought that a bit weird so I looked at columns online and found their is a cup and wire clip that should be present, but was not. I called around to the auto parts stores and no one had it in stock, the dealer wanted 77 bucks for the two parts.

It occurred to me that lots of jeeps used this exact same steering column, in wranglers and cherokees in the 90s, so maybe a jeep shop would have this part. I called the local jeepers and explained what I was looking for, of course they had it in stock (I said 1992 cherokee), new bearing included for 24 bucks! here is the part number if anyone needs it


I went to install just the two pieces I was missing but for giggles pulled off the original "bearing", quoted because it is just slick plastic and two rubber seals.


it looked pretty used and well, I had the new parts already, so



lock nuts relocked. maybe I can get the front end put on tomorrow.

Looking good and getting closer.