1940's International Crew Cab Diesel

[TubularFab]

I have had no luck finding a place willing to put this block in a wheelabrator. Nor have I been able to find a local shop to vat it. So I soaked it down with naval jelly and got most of the rust off inside and out. But - I wasn’t happy with it - it did not not want to clean off afterward! So, on to plan B. I had a heavy plastic barrel that it seemed like the block would fit in on end. I mounted an electric heating element from a hot tub in the bottom then made a stainless platform to sit just above it. The block just fit... Filled it with water and 5 gallon bucket of Zep purple cleaner ($36) from Home Depot. It’s a strong base - sodium hydroxide. The heater easily gets it to 150 degrees and it wasn’t long before all the naval jelly residue was gone. This is cleaning the air box carbon that the vatting I had done years ago didn’t get!

 

[Bamamav]

Now that's using your noggin! Buddy of mine did sorta the same thing, he used a large stock tub and Purple Power, and he used the element out of a hot water heater. He also used an aquarium air bubbler pump to keep the mixture moving a bit. He cleaned a V6 Chevy block and heads and they came out looking like they had just been forged.

 

[05snopro440]

It's amazing how well a concentrated Sodium Hydroxide solution cleans. At my last job I had some glassware that you could not clean for the life of you, concentrated NaOH solved that problem easily!

 

[TubularFab]

I'm back to doing the frame rails in round, mandrel bent tubing. Mandrel bending is the niche that my fab shop specializes in, so I have to utilize it some! Looking at doing a pair of 3" OD tubes per side, doubled up to basically make a 3 x 6 rail. I am going to channel the outside of the cab so it sits down into the frame, but leaving the frame exposed to the outside. By bending the tube I can match the contour of the cab very close.

Here is a screen shot of the frame I'm working out in CAD. I wish I could keep the overall length a little shorter, but it's just not happening with a longish engine and trans plus the cab extension.


For scale, the top of the "sleeper" is about 58" high and the wheelbase is 146"

 

[Skip]

Interesting design. Looking forward to seeing it live.

 

[TubularFab]

The home brew block vat was quite successful! It came out very clean and now has paint on the outside and WD40 on the inside. This is major progress towards assembling it!

After pulling the block out I set a front timing cover in the hot vat. It had grease 1/2 thick on it (diesel grease - very black!) and old paint. The tank was at 150 degrees. After 5 minutes the grease was gone and 1/2 the paint, too. I need to make a small parts basket and put this thing to work on the rest of the parts!

Here are a few pics of the after and one from before.

 

[kenny c]

Looks real nice.[P

 

[Torchie]

[cl [cl
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Torchie

 

[TubularFab]

Tubing has been bought, cut, and bent. It’s officially under construction now!

It’s a less conventional design for sure. Using 2” schedule 40 pipe (2.375” OD x .154 wall) and mandrel bending it. It will fit around the outside of the cab. Doing some of that engineering stuff tells me that the way I’m using it it’s more than twice as strong at the weakest point on the chassis than a 2” x 4” rectangular tube, but only a little bit heavier per foot. It’s bending really nice!

 

[soltz]

Nice

[[[P]]

 

[kenny c]

Wow! nice bends. Just curios, do you use sleeves at the joints? [P[P

 

[Old Iron]

Good grief man, now that's a bender [dr[dr[dr
Nice work [cl

 

[Burgerman]

Like your build TF. Your bender rocks. Keep the photos coming. [cl [P

 

[TubularFab]

Kenny - I will be using sleeves at the joints, and hide a bit of a fish plate on the back side as well. My bender only has about 10' of travel for the indexer, and things fall apart quickly when you try to do this without the indexer. In fact, the rear tubes are just a bit too long, and I'm seeing how much a tiny rotational error translates across the length of them. I may give in and add a second joint to each tube.

This bender is actually a homebuilt made to copy the original Pines mandrel bender. It can do some pretty big tube - I've bent 4" OD x .125 wall mild steel tube on a 6" center line radius with it. If I remember right it will do 2" solid bar if you wanted to. I need to make some tooling to bend 2 x4 tubing in both the hard and the easy way. I have a small side business doing mandrel bending and associated fabrication. In the last couple of months it's made tow bars for Coast Guard helicopters, subframe braces for Mini coopers, and resonator tubes for marimbas (musical instrument). It's a niche, and I enjoy it.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to work on it any more over the weekend...

 

[TubularFab]

Well, I’m afraid paying work had to take priority the last couple of weeks, but I finally got a little time to work on the international this weekend. A lot of time was spent dismantling the hastily tacked together “test fit” I created a few weeks ago. I now have the short spacer tubes (like ladder rungs) and the sleeve tubes for the joints. So, I broke it all back down and then started re-assembling it for real.

While it was in a minimal form I decided to see how it would fit under the cab. I’m quite pleased with the fit - just as intended. Here are some pictures of the current progress.

 

[lowbudget50]

Love the tube work!!!

 

[DozerII]

[P[P[P[P

 

[kenny c]

Awesome![cl[cl[cl[P[P[

 

[BillM]

That frame looks awesome! It must be difficult to keep it symmetrical though isn't it?

 

[Old Iron]

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