'34 Dodge Brothers, double build.

[MercuryMac]

You know that old 'hotrod builders dance', one step forward and three steps back, then repeat. Well, --- I've had some negative progress lately, with no pictures to show on it, so, 'it didn't happen', right?
Raising the truck back up a few inches and hooking up the shocks, hasn't gone well, but I'm almost done now.
Pic one is the drivers side done.

 

[Old Iron]

That's a cool pic

 

[MercuryMac]

Thanks OI.
There was no progress today, because I got sidetracked, making a new piece for my lathe. Hopefully, I now can make snap-ring grooves in long shafts.

 

[MercuryMac]

The first picture is the gizmo that I made for the tail pedestal on my lathe. Now I will be able to work on the end of shafts, especially installing snap-ring grooves.
On the old truck, I got the passenger-side spring bolted to the rear-end, [pic two].
[pic three] is a brake line fitted in.
[pic four] is the back end fitting of the same brake line. This was a way more tricky than it appears, because one end had to fit 1/4" female and the other end is 3/16" female tube fittings. I was able to find a 3/16" ID male fitting with a 1/4" OD, so I cut the end off of the 3/16" line, slid the small male fitting off, slid the new weird bigger fitting on and re-flared the end.

 

[MercuryMac]

While I was rummaging around under my truck, I kept seeing the rusted out back of the cab, [pic one]. Not only is the back three quarters of the cab not really hooked to the floor anymore, I don't want the registration inspector seeing this and frowning. I thought I better fix it up, so I planed a hardwood two by four to the shape I wanted and mounted that new shaped board and a piece of tin in my break and made a 'reveal' patch for the bottom of the cab. [pic two] is the first bend and then I used a body hammer to bend the top little bend. I split the job in half because I want to make a driveshaft hump in the middle. The passenger side is welded on now but there are no pictures of my welding.

 

[MercuryMac]

pic one is some of the tools I used to make these cab bottom reveals. My brake is under the molded block.
pic two is the driver-side rear reveal.
pic three is the tin reveal clamped on.
pic four welded on.
pic five the passenger side finished.

 

[bob w]

As Diff (Rat Rods for Africa) would say, Nice piece of forest engineering.

 

[MercuryMac]

Thank you Bob. I don't usually work with wood, but I guess if I can shape metal with wood then I'll use wood.

 

[Old Iron]

Nice work

 

[MercuryMac]

While I am under the truck with the welder, I thought I should fix up some cracks in the crossmember.

 

[Old Stuff]

While I am under the truck with the welder, I thought I should fix up some cracks in the crossmember.

Looks good. Ain't it great to cross stuff off the list like that?

 

[MercuryMac]

Yup, OS, that one's done but I still have to check for other cracks.

 

[lowbudget50]

Take lines look good. One of my favorite parts of a build!!!!

 

[MercuryMac]

Thanks LB.
Today I finished up the back cab reveal line, and welded up a couple of more cracks all the while adjusting up my welder to do thicker metal overhead welding after doing new tin to rusty old really thin tin. I had to put out a fire that I eventually caught on to, on the front of my coveralls, near my ----- well, on the front.

 

[Old Stuff]

Thanks LB.
Today I finished up the back cab reveal line, and welded up a couple of more cracks all the while adjusting up my welder to do thicker metal overhead welding after doing new tin to rusty old really thin tin. I had to put out a fire that I eventually caught on to, on the front of my coveralls, near my ----- well, on the front.

I hate it when that happens.

I love my Miller 210. Almost 10years ago I lost my mind and bought a Millermatic 211- the 110/220 small box. I ended up keeping 23 gauge in it for the thinner stuff which is nice (though a luxury).

 

[gene49]

Coveralls on fire "on the front" get your attention pretty quickly.

For years, the only wire in my Mig was .035. After a while, you get pretty good at welding thin old stuff.
Now that I've closed the welding shop, I switched over to .030 wire, its much easier to weld thin old sheet metal now! Sometimes I weld 1/4" stuff, .030 wire is as small as I want to go.

 

[MercuryMac]

I'm using .023 wire but I have to adjust the heat and the voltage where the Millermatic does some thinking for you, I think.
Anyhow, quite a few social activities were taken in over the last few days and then I got back to the truck. I lowered the box again and was putting the ratrod mounting pedestals for the box in when I realized that that nice little driveshaft dimple that I made in the cab reveal was now covered back over with the box pedestal. I took it back out and cut a notch in it to correspond to the notch in the back of the cab. I could see the rub marks of the driveshaft on on this pedestal block, so it needed some changing.