Saturday, October 08, 2005  -  Sorry about the delay in posting an update....it's been pretty hectic around here lately, so I haven't had as much time to get anything done at the shop.

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The big news is that 4 days ago, on October 4th at 12:16 AM, my wife Mary and I welcomed home a new little baby girl!!! (Her birthday will be easy to remember...since it's 10-4!) We named her Brianna Nicole, and she weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20" long.

Everybody's healthy and happy and doing well here at home. It's obviously a bit of adjustment for our 3-year-old and 1-year-old boys, though I have to admit they're taking it easier than I thought they would.

I'll be posting a picture page within the next day or two and will update this page when this is done.

Anyway, I HAVE been getting in a little time here and there throughout the month of September, there just wasn't enough done each time to warrant a project update. However, I'll get you caught up with everything that I've been up to over the past month...but be prepared, this is a large page:

Fig. 1 - I finally got the interior cab floors coated with POR-15 and then several coats of paint.

Fig. 2 - Here's a close-up of the freshly painted floorpans. You can see where the floorpans did have a little pitting in them, and if it wasn't for them, this floor might just be to purty to cover up with carpeting!

September 8, 2005 -  It was a slow day at work, like it always is on Thursdays, so I left work a little early and headed to the shop, so I could get the cab floors done. It actually didn't take me too long....about 2-3 hours from start to finish, and that included getting several coats of Krylon on top of the POR-15 (Fig. 1). At first I wasn't going to worry about the topcoat, but I got to thinking about how they say nothing will stick to POR-15 once it's dry, and I intend to use some sound-proofing material, like DynaMat....so I needed to be able to stick it down with adhesive. So the topcoat was applied simply to give the sound-proofing material something to bite into.

As I was taking these pictures this afternoon, it suddenly dawned on me that I'm about to the point where I really need to paint the cab. I really can't begin any further cab assembly until then! So...I guess over the next few days I'm going to have to sit down and start going through my picture collection and definitely decide on a color. As mentioned earlier, I'm kinda leaning towards Rangoon Red, although since this truck is mainly being built as a hauler for the 442, which is going to be midnight blue, I'm toying around with the idea of painting the truck the same color. I could do midnight blue with some silver accents, which I think would look really sharp.

September 25, 2005 - I spent most of the day in the shop getting a lot of little items cleaned up, sandblasted and painted. I concentrated on things which needed to be mounted in the engine compartment. Actually, MOST of the day was spent on nuts and bolts. I had cardboard boxes spread out all over the shop with holes poked in them and freshly-painted bolts sticking out. In fact, there were so many now that I had to start labeling each box, just so I'd know what the bolts sticking out of each box were for. I also sandblasted and painted the power booster and brackets, the underdash brake pedal assembly, the horns, the windshield washer nozzles, jack hold-down bracket...and that's in addition to nearly a hundred nuts, bolts, washers, clips, etc.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this junkyard booster is OK, since I didn't check it first. That's why I removed the mounting brackets and painted them separately. That way, if the booster IS bad and needs replaced, I won't have to repaint the brackets. Anyway, as you can probably start to see, my aim is to make almost everything under the hood black...except the engine. Black will make everything in the 'background' blend in and be unnoticeable...and by contrast the chromed and detailed engine will REALLY stand out in the engine bay.

Fig. 3 - I separated the booster and brackets for painting, in case I needed to replace the booster.

Fig. 4 - I accidentally grabbed a can of Semi-Gloss paint instead of Semi-Flat when I painted everything but the booster/brackets, so they got another coat of the correct paint.

Fig. 5 - Here's the booster and new master cylinder mounted. I probably should have cleaned up the engine compartment before snapping this picture....you can see a lot of water spots from the last time I rinsed off the truck in the driveway.

Fig. 6 - Another view of the MC and booster. I then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the engine compartment wiring.

October 1, 2005 - I puttered around the shop all day today, mainly getting some much-needed cleanup done. It was starting to get pretty crowded, so I hauled a lot of parts up to the storage room above the office just to get them off the shop floor. I spent a little time mounting a new bench vice I bought yesterday...a nice large vise to replace the small one I've been using up to now. I also finished stripping down the '67 F250 chassis, because I wanted to save the rear springs and rearend, and the front springs, which were brand new when I got the truck...hadn't even had the weight of an engine put to them yet. Once it was down to the bare frame and front suspension (minus the front springs), I was able to lift the back end of the frame and pull it around to the back of the shop. Then I spent some time removing the springs from the rearend, and then got the rearend off into a corner of the shop.

I then spent some more time installing some of the freshly-painted engine compartment components from last weekend (Fig. 4). Got the brake pedal assembly mounted and then got the power booster and new master cylinder bolted up. I also got the horns and battery tray mounted.

     Anyway, I then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the engine compartment wiring. There was a few wires which needed repairs, and then I spent some time installing the black plastic wire loom on the wiring harnesses. I had to use my Dremel tool to sand off a few small areas of the freshly-painted surfaces for wiring ground wires, to ensure a good clean contact.

October 8, 2005 - On today's agenda was welding...or as close as what you can call the burning/melting of metal that I do with the MIG...I'm not entirely sure you can actually call it welding.

The previous owner had installed a snap-on boot between the rear cab window and the camper window, and since I doubted I'd ever use them, I decided to go ahead and remove the snaps and get the holes welded up. I also needed to get the fuel tank filler neck hole welded up, since I won't be using an in-cab fuel tank. There were also holes along both sides of the cowl panel, where camper support brackets had been mounted, which needed to be welded up.

Fig. 7 - Here's a view of the snaps around the rear window which needed removed and the holes filled.

Fig. 8 - Here's an example of my poor welding skills...effective, but not very pretty. It was very tricky trying to avoid burning through the metal.

Fig. 9 - However, they did look a lot better once they were ground down. A paper-thin layer of body filler will smooth these right out.

Fig. 10 - Here's a shot taken after all the welding and grinding was done. It actually doesn't look too bad I guess, but I DO intend to keep practicing my welding. You can also see that the previous owner had a gun rack installed, so those holes had to be welded up as well. I'll be installing a similar gun rack but using a different set of holes.

Next on the list was the fuel tank filler hole. I was actually a little worried about doing this, because I'd attempted it once before, a few months ago on a different cab, and ended up cutting it back out because of poor welding. I just had so much trouble blowing holes in the sheetmetal, even though I had the amperage on the MIG turned down as far as it would go. I was hoping I'd do better this time, using what I learned last time. The one thing I did different this time around was to try flange-welding instead of butt-welding. That is, instead of cutting a patch the same size as the hole, I squared the hole off (so I'd have straight edges) and then used an air-operated flange/punch tool to put flanges on the patch, thinking that if there was an overlap I'd be less likely to burn through the sheetmetal. This time it turned out a little better, but not by much. I still burned through in several places and had to fill the holes...not the easiest thing to do with a MIG. After grinding it down, I decided to use a thin coat of metal epoxy over the weld as a filler material, prior to applying the actual body filler. After sanding that down, it doesn't look too bad (Fig. 12). It definitely looks better from the inside.

However, I gotta tell you that I had to think long and hard about posting these pictures here. However, I finally decided to bite the bullet and show you my hack job, embarrassing as it might be. Hopefully with a little more practice (or a slightly smaller welder) I'll get a little more proficient at sheet-metal welding. Fortunately, I believe that this was about all the sheetmetal welding that I'll need to do.

I then decided that I'd better get the air-conditioning system mocked up, since I was going to have to drill some holes in the firewall for the hoses, and this was the time to get it done, while I had easy access to everything. I was planning on using a small dealer add-on underdash A/C setup (Fig. 13), but when I dug it out today, I noticed that there appeared to be a piece or two missing from the main underdash component. While scrounging around the storage room looking for them, I started eye-balling the three factory A/C heater setups I had (Fig. 14). I do have all the parts for installing one of these behemoths in my truck, although there are some disadvantages to using one of these. I actually spent a great deal of time this afternoon weighing the pros and cons of each different setup, trying to make a decision, and wasn't able to. Here's some of what was going through my mind:

Just so you know, the radio opening in the dash of my '67 has been butchered by a previous owner (Fig. 15), so I'd have to make some modifications to mount a radio anyway. I was planning on just cutting out the perfect radio area from the '68 cab I have and using that, not only because the radio ears  were still intact, but because the radio opening on the '68-up trucks is larger. Since I'd want to mount some kind of aftermarket radio/CD-player in the dash, I'd have to cut the '67 dash out a little more anyway. But then I got to thinking that if I were to install the factory A/C setup, I'd also need to install the special '68-'72 A/C dash controls, meaning I'd also need the lower part of the '68's dash to mount them. It was then I decided to just cut the '68 dash out completely and bring it into the shop. I figured it might be easier (and cleaner) to replace the entire dash than graft in the middle of the '68' dash into the '67. I didn't have a spot-weld drill bit to drill out the welds along the front lip of the dash, where it's spot-welded to the window frame, so I just decided to drill them out with a regular bit (Fig. 17), and if I chose to use the entire dash, I could weld the holes up. Removing the dash from the '68 took about an hour and it really wasn't that hard. I learned for future reference that using a spot-weld bit would definitely have been the way to go, and would have made the job a lot easier, and the installation would have been much cleaner.

However, after getting the dash removed and setting on the shop floor (Fig. 16) and doing a lot of thinking, I decided to go with the original plan of just using the center portion of the dash. Since I still hadn't decided on whether or not to use the '68-up A/C controls however, I sectioned out the entire middle section (Fig. 18), which can be trimmed down in the future if I decide to use the dealer A/C and keep my '67 heater controls.

I do not intend to try grafting this section into my '67 dash by welding...I've already learned that I can't weld thin sheetmetal with my MIG. Therefore, I cut the '68 panel large enough so that the top edge would be hidden underneath the dashpad, and the lower lip would wrap around the bottom of the dash, and can be secured with screws. After painting to match the dash, the edges would be nearly invisible, and will suit my needs just fine. Should I decide to keep my '67 heater controls and have to trim this patch panel however, it'll be a little more obvious, since the bottom edge of the panel will be visible below the radio, but I don't think it'll be obvious enough to be unsightly or annoying.

So this is where I'm at right now. I have to decide for sure which A/C setup to use, as each requires a different set of holes in the firewall to route the hoses, plus if I decide on using the factory setup I'll have to install the whole patch panel in order to use the dash controls. Decisions, decisions.....

Fig. 11 - Here you can see my horrible metal-melting. I believe the Hobart Handler 175 MIG that I'm using is just too big a welder for light sheetmetal work, especially for a novice like myself.

Fig. 12 - It looks a little better after grinding it down and using a small amount of metal epoxy as a filler, and then sanding it down. It'll still need a coat (or two) of filler.

Fig. 13 - This is the dealer-installed A/C setup that I was planning on using.

Fig. 14 - Here's the pile of factory A/C setups I have now. These could be combined into one good unit, and provide me with years of spare parts, too.

Fig. 15 - The '67 dash was cut up by a previous owner and will need repairs.

Fig. 16 - After an hour's worth of work, here's the '68 dash with unmolested radio ears and provisions for the factory A/C heater controls.

Fig. 17 - You can see the holes along the front lip of the dash, where I drilled out the spot welds. This dash was removed from a cab that I completely sandblasted, but decided against using and set outside, so that's just a little surface rust you see...nothing to worry about. It'll clean up fine.

Fig. 18 - Here's a shot taken after sectioning out the middle section of the '68 dash...

Fig. 19 - ...and here's a comparison of the two. The difference in the size of the radio opening between the '67 (back) and the '68-'72 (front) is very apparent.