Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Ok, one more post. I mentioned earlier, there were some "issues" with my approach and setup. Mechanically, everything is fine. I have a reason for wanting to use the Escalade latches. They have a few connections in addition to the motor for the locking and unlocking. They have a ground sensor for when the door is ajar and opened. I'm considering using those to my advantage for the alarm.

As luck would have it, the weather connector for the latch was about 1/4 inch too wide so I ended up cutting the body of it away and soldering the wires to it. This in it's self isn't that big of a deal, but I will need to put some epoxy at the base to seal it. Replacing a faulty latch later will be a pain, and potential vibrations in an automobile, could fatigue the connection points. They are also very close to the window channel. So, I'm going to role the dice since the miles on the truck will be low. I've taken them in and out enough now to know how to replace them with a new part if needed. I will put a connector behind the door cover to make replacement "easier". Just wanted to put this out there for those who might want to go down this path.

More to come...

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

That's some awesome fab work you are doing there. I have to deal with latches soon and you've given me some nice ideas. Excellent pics and descriptions! Keep posting.......

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

WOW! That is not only great work, very informative too. Thanks for sharing.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nicely done....By the looks of it, your not afraid to tear right into things.

Marc

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

very impressive....... another 'Metal Magician' and this one is an Engineer as well.

Thanks for the posts, and I love the Miata door handles

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks everyone for the reply's. I'm certainly not a Metal Magician. I've seen a lot of metal artist on here and other forums that surpass my skills, but I appreciate the compliment.

The last couple of weeks have been cleaning up some little things, welding in the latch pockets and extra holes in the doors, correcting the strikers, rebuilding the passenger door hinges, and starting on the door bottoms.

I solved the mystery of the missing striker. I forgot that I pulled the striker from the Escalade's liftgate. I thought it was for the doors, but it wasn't.

So I ended up re-working the striker area of the door jambs and making a recessed pockets out of 16 gauge 1x2" tube. Then I repeated the process on the driver side.

The mounting holes are oversize to allow the striker to move up/down and in/out to final adjustment of the door.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I had to cut the arm off the strikers as they were about 1/4" too deep and would have cut into the rubber seal area inside the cab. I ended up welding the strikers on the backside of the plate. They were only a press fit and held primarily by the arm.

Some pics

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Finished welding in the latch pocket on the doors and welding up the 4 holes left from the internal brace along with welding up the lone hole from the original door handle.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

With the latch metal work done, I started on the door bottoms. I would weld a few spot welds across the door, cooling with air, and then grinding and cooling again. Eventually, I stitched a continuous weld. One door took me a full day.

I put the skin on first so I could access the back for hammer and dolly work. I worked the seam as I welded. Even with the attention to detail, I still ended up with some rippling that I can feel with my hand. I think it's good enough that the body work will take care of it without a lot of mud. I ended up with some rippling on the inside seam also.

This is my first time replacing door skins and I'm unsure how much metal work is "good enough" to move on. Any comments from others with more experience than I?

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Inside of passenger door. I also took the time to get some POR-15 inside the door while it was open. I figured now was the time because the media blaster wont be able to get inside very good.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I started on the drivers door today, but quickly realized that Brother's Trucks sent me two passenger side patch panels for the inside. It's my fault for not checking each one. I looked on the receipt and it clearly shows a left and right, but I got two right panels. :waah:

Hopefully, next weekend I'll be done with the doors. I'm so ready to be done so I can move on to the cab corners.

More to come. Thx

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Time for an update. Got the inner door bottom panel in and finished the driver door. Some pics of the work.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Hung the doors to check the bottom of the door and gaps. Overall, things lined up well. It's close enough for now. I will do some slight tweaks and clean up once the doors are media blasted. The passenger door for some reason is rubbing the rocker panel at the bottom right. I may have been off my measurements about 1/4". Not sure, but will probably need to grind the edge down and weld the seam.

Next up on the metalwork list are the cab corners now that I have the doors re-hung.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

While I was waiting on the driver door panel, I decided to work on the brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel and seat belts.

I found a 92 S-10 at the pick and pull and got the brake pedal assembly. Modified it according to the well documented process I found in the S-10 conversion sticky.

The brake pedal seems a tad high for my liking. I will likely extended the length and inch or so. What have others done with the S-10 bracket length?

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Pics of the brake and gas pedal. The gas is going to be drive by wire. It's easily moved. I will likely mount the pedal to a "ramp" on the fire wall to push the pedal closer to the floor once I get final placement of the seats.

One other thought I had on the brake was to swap the pedal pad for a wider one off a 90 full size truck. I've got one laying around the shop already.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

For the seat belts, I used the ones out of the donor escalade as they are already attached to the seat. One think I like about them is the shoulder height adjustment. This makes it nice for myself and to boss to drive. I used 1/4" bar stock about 3" long as the mounting brackets in the b-pillars. I tapped them and welded a nut on them. Finally, I radiused the edges (not pictured) to match the inside of the pillar incase of an accident, they don't act as a cutting edge.

I will bolt the seat belt spools in the cab corners on the inside wall. I'm waiting to do this work when I open the cab corners for better access. Hopefully that will be done on the next update.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Glad to see another mate fight the good fight with the HOAs ha ha (I can't wait to move out of their reach) enjoying your progress/build, concerned that the donor was not wrecked which makes me wonder why it made it to auction

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nice work, and that is a good looking Bronco sitting next to the truck.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks. I can't wait to get out also and have more room/freedom.

It was wrecked although not that bad. You can't tell from the pics, but the rims were trashed (broken inside lips) and the back bumper gone. It likely jumped a curb at high speed and ripped the bumper off. Also the rear door panels had been removed as if it was being searched. I had a person that wanted the frame before I hauled it away, but when he had his insurance run the vin, they said they wouldn't insure it. It had been turned in for fraud.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks. The Bronco was a restomod several years back. I enjoy it a lot. It was my dad's and had ~ 23K miles when I started. It required a ton of metal work after sitting outside it's whole life.

It's got a 393W stroker with Explorer top-end and 94/95 mustang computer driving the engine and 4R70W, PS and power disk front and rear. It will cruise down the interstate at 75 like a dream. I need to get it out now that it's finally spring here in Colorado.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

It's been a few weeks so I should do an update. The cab corners were the only major sheet metal work left on the cab. Each had pencil size holes rusted through them. I started with the driver side first.

I ended up having to fab some of the inner corners that had rust issues.

While I was in there, I took the time to add a bolt mounting point for the seat belt retractor. I welded a nut to a 14 ga plate and bent it to fit the curve and welded it in just below the reinforcement bracket behind.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

More pics of driver side. I ended up with some shrinkage along the weld seam. A small amount of body filler should do the trick I think.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Next up was the passenger side. Same exercise, except this side had more rust issue to the inner corner. The right side of the truck has had more rust than the other side. I guess it might have to do with how it was sitting in the weather?

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Still had some shrinkage on this side too. I also took the time to Por-15 both sides while it was open and easy to get too.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Getting a little tired of sheet metal work. Decided to get the steering wheel mounted where it will end up and built a second bracket that I welded to the brake pedal bracket (will show a pic when I pull it back out for final welding). Also, while I was walking the junkyard the other day, I noticed a nice firewall boot that I thought might work. I still need to weld up the original factory hole below it, but it looks like it might work. It's flexible, so I'm hoping I can get it in the right position to get around the headers with the next section of linkage.

I'm going to start working the brake system, steering linkage and gas tank with behind the license fill. I got a start on them this weekend.

More to come. Thx.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Lots of great progress there. It is always great feeling when you get all of the rust/rot taken care of.

Marc

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nice work.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks for the comments guys.

Probably time for another update. Looks like it's been about a month now.

My headers finally came in so I was able to get the steering linkage put together. Made a short double D shaft for the end of the stock shaft to the second u-joint and attached it.

The ID for the stock shaft was slightly larger than 3/4" so the ends are slightly different sizes.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Next was the steering shaft support bearing. Pulled out some 1.25" bar stock cut it to length, drilled and tapped for 3/4 - 16 and tacked it into place on the frame rail.

I tucked it up close the header to keep the angle down, but it still ended up about 35 degrees. It doesn't bind, but I may need to revisit it later once I get the power steering hooked up.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

While I was working on the steering, I pulled out the brake pedal assembly and change the pin size for the push rod and BOO switch. It's a larger pin so I knocked out the old one, turned down another one to the correct size and welded it back in. The push rod end will be sleeved and welded to the S10 rod end once I set final pedal placement. Also added a piece of angle iron for the bottom bracket of the steering column to attach to with weld in nuts.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Moved my attention back to accessing the next phase of the metal work. ALL of the panels, hood, cab, and fenders will need some hammer and dolly work on the larger dings and dents. I've been looking at my bed and decided that I didn't want to invest the time to bring it back to life. Over the years, tie-downs for various loads had ripped the stake pockets open along with the top metal. It had been welded up several times, but didn't hold. After accessing the bed with several large dents, rot and very thin rust areas, and a tailgate that appeared to have come off and been run over a few times, I decided to start with fresh sheet metal from Mar-K. I upgraded to the hidden latches for the tailgate. I gave the old bed to a 16 yr old in Kansas who is working on his project. Here are some pics.

Also, you might notice the rear roll pan clamped in on one of the pics. I don't recall the brand, but I wish it was 3/4" wider to meet the edges of the stake pockets. if I "pull" the bed ends in to make up the difference, the tailgate is too tight (and the bed isn't square). I guess I'll cut it in the middle and add some metal to widen it. I'm getting better at metal surgery now, so I guess it isn't a big deal, just another thing on the list. But that discussion is for another day. If someone has done this, let me know how well it went and the approach you took.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I decided to start on the driver rear fender and take out several large dents and fix a stress crack and some rust that I found. I started on the large dents on the top. Once I stared working the dents, I ended up with some smaller highs and lows. I tried my hand at a shrinking disk for the first time. I was surprised at how well it worked after a few passes. You can see the fender progression in the next few pics.

I continued to work it until I could feel minor highs and lows with my hand. I have a new appreciation for people who work these panels back to perfection.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Some pics of the rust and stress crack repair.

After it was said and done, I spent an entire day on this fender. It could be body worked at this point without a lot of filler build up. But, I'm going to spend a few more hours on it later to work a few more spots. I don't have the patience to work it all at once. :waah:

My hat goes off to the metal artist who take the time to get these panels perfect and only require a small skim coat. This is not my forte' and is just a necessary evil for my goals....

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Doing some really good work there....
The guys that are really good at metal work are amazing..MP&C and the astronaut have several builds down in the alternative tinkering section...always good to see what they're up to..and I've started watching pro metal workshop on utube...another master at his trade..

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks. I've seen the Pro Metal Workshop guy. I bought his shrinking disk after I saw one of his videos. I didn't even know what a shrinking disk was a few months ago... :lol:

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

that stuff is an artform and takes patients, looks good.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I like your build, I'm in the finish

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Time for an update I think. I've been focused on some other things lately and Elk hunting season is approaching in a few weeks, so the distraction will likely last into the fall. :ito:

My focus of late is cleaning up a few loose ends with the cab and doors. Much of the time of late has been fussing with the doors on final gaps and alignment before I welded in the door strikers. I've got the doors now ready for the media blaster and will likely drop them off this week.

First, I wanted to close the hole over the transmission. Here are some pics of the transmission cover that I fabricated.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nice!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Finally welded in the door strikers. I fussed with the doors for a couple of weekends going back and forth with depth of closure to get minimum amount of filler on the doors themselves and keep it on the cab and also tweaking gaps. For some reason, I didn't get final pics of the door gaps and contour alignment. Go figure. I'll snap some late once I get some epoxy on them and remount them. Here are a couple pics of the striker pockets.