1957 Chevy 3100, meet 1994 Dodge Ram 1500

[Kim57]

Coming along nicely.
Kim

[Purcell69]

No new pics today, but I did get a bit more done with reworking the bed. First off, I called Steelco about 3/16 plate for the bed floor. They only stock 4X8' sheets, so I will need to add in that extra inch for the 97" long bed floor. Flat plate is $124 and tread plate is $149, so I am working on scraping up surplus funding for the floor. At the same time, since I will be working in the neighborhood, I'm going to scrape up a bit more cash for this, so I can do it all at the same time.



My plan is to mount the plate flush with the bed floor. It will still be bolted to the truck frame, but I want to weld the perimeter of the hitch plate to the bed floor as well, for a cleaner fit.

After moving cross sills about for clearance around the gas tank, I found the back of the bed was sitting a bit higher than the cross sills. It turns out there are two "shoes" spot welded to the rear sill of the bed that were holding the bed up about 1/2". I drilled the six spot welds per side and knocked them off the sill, to be relocated in the near future. With them removed, the bed now sits on the cross sills front to back.

I also discovered that, after moving cross sills around, I need to weld a bed mounting tab on the passenger side frame rail for one of the bed bolts. I had done all of this a long time back, when I was working on the frame, as the Dodge frame is a bit wider than the Chevy, so there was nothing to mount the bed to. 3/16" plate was used, however, I did not go full length on both sides. Just my luck, with the cross sill moved in consideration of bed support and fuel tank clearance, I now need an additional tab. Perhaps later this week, work permitting.

My shopping list still includes the factory service manual for the 1994 Ram 1500-3500 trucks, so I can address the wire harness. I need the schematics to sort out what stays and what goes from the factory harness so I can keep the EFI on the 360 Magnum V8. feeBay has them starting around $60 before shipping. Meanwhile, I have a new set of freeze plugs to install before swinging the motor, as the plugs on the back of the Dodge heads are a pain in the ass to install with the engine assembled, in the vehicle.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Got a bit further today. The new master cylinder is installed for now. The AN fittings and braided line should arrive later this week. When they arrive, I will remove the bracket that holds the proportioning valve and rear ABS motor so I can clean it up. Then I can finish the brake plumbing and get the system bled.





^^^When I bought the donor Dodge, the master cylinder for the brakes was missing the cap. Granted, the hood was closed and the front end was complete, but who knows how long it had sat open and exposed. I bought a replacement cap to keep further contamination out, but the sludge in the bottom is what was left when I capped the system.





Here we are with the new master cylinder installed. It still needs to be bled, which I will do when the braided lines and -3AN fittings arrive. The new MC didn't include tubing for bench bleeding, so the braided lines should suffice. The rest of the system seemed to have decent looking brake fluid in place when I took apart the lines. I'm hoping there isn't any real signs of rust in the calipers and wheel cylinders, or the rear wheel ABS motor. If all goes well, I can have functioning brakes soon.

-Joe

[Kim57]

Looks real good.
Kim

[Purcell69]

I started to finish up the brake plumbing yesterday. It turns out I forgot about the block that splits for the front brakes at the frame. I ordered a -3AN to female 3/8 24NF inverted flare, but I needed a male -3AN to male 3/8 24NF inverted flare to make the last connection. It's going to be a few more days until the brake plumbing is complete.





I still need to get my line clamps to run the braided line down the firewall and keep it neat and tidy. When I get the -3AN fitting I need, I will bleed the master cylinder and I should have an operational brake system.

All in all, my days off this week were productive. I had a list of tasks that needed attention, most of which didn't include the NAPCO build. With all the rain we had last month and the high temps, I needed to finish cutting pastures, so that was completed first thing (well, second thing), Tuesday morning. Once I had the cutting done, I needed to do some work on the old Jeep ZJ. It has had a case of death wobble for the past few years, around 40-45 mph. I've changed the track bar and the stabilizer, but I was never able to cure it. I did notice that the outside temperature seemed to affect it, so I suspected the control arm bushings on the front axle were the most likely culprits.

The bolts on the Jeep control arm suspensions are notorious for rusting to the sleeve inside the bushings and having to be cut for removal, so I wanted a day or two where I could have things partially disassembled if I ran in to that problem. Meanwhile, I'd been soaking the hardware for the lower arms in PB Blaster and the new arms arrived from RockAuto. With the Jeep firmly supported on jack stands, I started with the passenger side arm, being sure to mark a reference point on the cam bolts that adjust the caster. Everything went good taking the first arm out, no frozen bolts. Once the front end of the right arm dropped out, I could see why I had death wobble issues.



Instead of being somewhat solid, like the bushing at the rear of the arm ^^^^, I had this v v v.



There wasn't much bushing left to keep the axle from pushing backward. In all, once I got the Jeep in the stands, I had the right lower arm changed out in 15 minutes, with the help of my HF porta-power to help align the axle back into its mounts.

The fun came when I pulled the bolts on the left side. The rear came out with little resistance, but the front was rusted into the bushing sleeve, just as I had feared. Of course, this one has to be the one hidden behind the pumpkin for the differential, so no whacking it with a hammer to break it loose. Cheapass Harbor Freight porta-power to the rescue again. With the right ends and attachments, I was able to get just enough onto the exposed bolt to break it loose and push it flush. From there, it backed out with the wrench. Low and behold, another worn out bushing.



Before I put everything back together, I cleaned the rust from the bolts and greased all of them to help keep rust to a minimum. This my not be necessary, as the stock arms were 23 years old with 275k miles on them, but in the event I need to drop out the front axle, it will be one less thing to fight.

How does all of this relate to the NAPCO? Well, the front suspension on both is a similar design, coil springs and control arms, which was the whole reason I used a Dodge chassis in the first place. Before I swing the motor into the NAPCO, I'm going to replace ALL the control ams/bushings in the front.

And for the record, the $100 for the Harbor Freight 4 ton Porta-Power was money well spent ten years ago.

As far as the project goes, I did accomplish a bit more work on the bed on my days off this week. Since I've owned the truck, the fenders have never been off the bed. Best as I can tell, they've not been off the bed in more than 20 years, for that matter, they weren't removed when the truck was painted white.

The bolts holding them on were not the OEM clutch head fasteners, at least, all but one. The rest were slotted pan head bolts, all of which had the nuts rusted on. I soaked the all with PB Blaster for a few days, then tack welded the screw heads to the bed to aid in one person removal. As usual, the right fender came off without issue. The left fender, not so much. Two bolts on the left side broke, two more broke the tack welds. Send in the cut off blade.

Guess what? This truck is now worth 20x what I paid for it, as seen in the pics below.





It has patina!

As you can see above, I notched the lower part of the bedside, inside the fender, to make room for the filler neck. It still needs a bit of dressing, but the opening is below the bed floor and will work well with a 45* filler tube from the side of the fender. There will be plenty of drop to keep the gas pumps from shutting off while trying to fill the tank at anything less than a crawl.





Now that I have the fenders off, I'm going to sand and prime the inside and prep for paint. Ultimately, the inside of the fenders will have tinted Monstaliner to match the body color and prevent damage/road noise.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned...



No more patina. Suck it!

I don't care if the sheet metal on the bed sides is 16ga, I can't stand rust. I was going to get more done, but the rain began to loom overhead, so I hit the bare metal with Afterblast and a coat of rattle primer to cover it up for the night. If I get a chance, I will clear coat it to seal it, but it is a start if nothing else.

-Joe

[Kim57]

Coming along nicely.
Kim

[lower50's]

Good find on your Grand Cherokee, did it fix the death wobble? Wow that box looks good and solid.

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Good find on your Grand Cherokee, did it fix the death wobble? Wow that box looks good and solid.

Yes it did. Surprisingly, it drives like new, even without looking at the upper control arm bushings.

The box is very solid. The truck was an Arizona truck when I bought it 20+ years ago. I am really surprised at how thick the bedside metal is. There was some work done to it way back when. The angle strips had the bolts cut flush and were welded and ground smooth where they bolt to the bed sides, but overall, aside from paint, the box is pretty well untouched.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

I made a big step today. I cut out the rotted piece of passenger side floor pan and started tacking in the patch panel for the floor. The patch panel is needing a bit of finesse, but it will do. The pan is a Tiawan repop, so the fit isn't the greatest, but then this was never going to be a concourse build either, just clean, straight and solid.







^^^ Checking the fit before I clean up the edges and start tacking.





Well, the floor is in. I still have welding, grinding and filling to do, but it is solid. I shot primer on it for protection since my weekend is over and they are calling for rain.



-Joe

[Rickysnickers]

Nice job!!

[Kim57]

Came out real nice.
Kim

[Purcell69]

I have a small update, but photobucket is being a PITA right now. The long and short of it is I found a pin hole on the driver's side floor and I'm going to use a left over piece trimmed off the passenger side patch panel to fix it. I also scored some Grand Cherokee seats for $20 each. They don't have the power bases and could stand to be recovered at some point, but the foam is in good shape and the upholstery is serviceable for now.

-Joe

[joedoh]

getting there! patch work looks great

Originally Posted by Purcell69

I have a small update, but photobucket is being a PITA right now.

soapbox:

I have noticed that they are trying to upsell memberships, they did away with automatic resizing of photos (to save space) and you can only upload at full resolution now (you can still choose to display at a lower resolution, but can only upload at full res) and when you get to 85% they start hounding you to upgrade. even if you go delete 30 photos, it only gives you an additional 3% of space and your next 3 uploads will trip it at 85% again. I have deleted 200 photos and only gained 8% space, and I resize to 800x600 before uploading now and it only takes 10-12 pictures to trip the 85% again. its a shame when companies act like this.

/soapbox

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by joedoh

getting there! patch work looks great


soapbox:

I have noticed that they are trying to upsell memberships, they did away with automatic resizing of photos (to save space) and you can only upload at full resolution now (you can still choose to display at a lower resolution, but can only upload at full res) and when you get to 85% they start hounding you to upgrade. even if you go delete 30 photos, it only gives you an additional 3% of space and your next 3 uploads will trip it at 85% again. I have deleted 200 photos and only gained 8% space, and I resize to 800x600 before uploading now and it only takes 10-12 pictures to trip the 85% again. its a shame when companies act like this.

/soapbox

The part that annoys me the most is when they are doing some form of maintenance (I'm guessing) and you try to log in, but get a user ID/password mismatch message. It usually takes me a few times to remember this is what is going on.

I get what you mean about the resolution and storage space. To date, I've only used about 24% of the capacity for my account, and I do upload a lot of pictures beyond what is in this build. I've gotten in to the habit of uploading from my phone or iPad, as the pop-up ads that open in a separate window really seem to wreak havoc on my PC. I'd cut Photobucket loose if it weren't for all the linked images.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

When I installed the passenger side floor panel, I didn't need the full length to the seat riser, so I trimmed off a few inches, not realizing it would come in handy later.

While clearing out the cab for welding, I spotted a pinhole on the driver's side floor board. After hitting it with the wire brush, this is what it looks like...






I figure there is enough left over metal to replace what is thin and call it good. In the long run, the underside of the cab floor will be covered with Herculiner and the inside of the cab will be POR-15 under the insulation.



On a side note, I finally got the driver's side wheel well stripped and primed with a clear top coat for now. The paint under the white is roughly six layers, as best as I can tell. There is whatever the factory used under the original turquoise, the turquoise paint itself, a cost of primer over that, followed by red, followed by primer again, followed by the white top coat. I have a lot of prep work ahead of me.

Here is the driver's side inner wheel well in primer.



It's been too steamy outside to want to mess with the driver's side floor. There is no breeze right now and the rain the other night has turned my work area into a sauna.

In other news, I did get an early start and scored some decent seats the other morning.




They're in decent shape and came from a 1996 Grand Cherokee, so they have adjustable headrests. They don't have power bases, yet, but for $20 each they were too good to pass up. It must have been destiny, because they were already unbolted and ready to go.

-Joe

[Baldeagle SR]

nice pickup on the seats. The truck is coming right along. Rich

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by Baldeagle SR

nice pickup on the seats. The truck is coming right along. Rich

Thanks Rich. I'm really pleased with them. Initially I had been looking for a set from a 1993-1995 Grand Cherokee, like I have in my Jeep, as they are comfortable on long drives. They only come with a fixed headrest unless you go leather, which I really don't want. In 1996, they offered the darker gray interior and adjustable headrests for the cloth seats, so I jumped on these. The covers need some attention and the frames are known to have some issues, but nothing I can't handle if the need arises.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

I started in on the driver's side repair today after unloading the MIL's rental truck into storage this morning. It's still hot, but the wind is up today and it's not overly uncomfortable in the shade.









It's another step in the right direction.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Brown Santa arrived yesterday with some goodies, like a new carburetor for the riding mower that has been vexing me all summer, a can of Evercoat Rage Gold, and this goodie:



This will be absolutely priceless when it comes time to sort out my wire harness.

-Joe

[Kim57]

Floor patch looks good.
Kim

[lower50's]

I love when the brown truck shows up.

[Purcell69]

I admit it, I've been slacking since the new goodies arrived. Between other commitments and late summer heat, I've gotten little done.

My blank cowl panel and cab corner arrived a few weeks ago. I did pull the old rust and chrome cowl panel out and vacuumed out the area inside to remove as much debris as possible. Even with the louvres, there was a surprising amount of twigs and leaves deteriorating health n the void between the firewall and the engine compartment.



This piece had been chromed, (poorly), by a previous owner some time in the past 59 years. In spite of the rust, the remaining metal is still in decent shape. Still, I wanted a blank panel, sans louvres, to keep debris out and minimize future rust issues.





Each side of the cowl void had its own nest, down in the hing pockets for the doors. This area supplies air to the kick panel vents, though with the blank panel in place, there won't be much air coming in to the cab there anymore. These nests are less than two years old, as I had flushed this area out somewhat recently.



Here is the blank panel in place. The fit isn't stellar, made in China, but it keeps the debris out. I may see about combining this piece with the OEM part for a better fit. For now though, the operation is as desired.

Now that the State Fair is in town, the weather should be starting to turn. I'd like to get my cab corners done in the next month or so and maybe a bit more, assuming all else goes well.

The other morning, while trying to get back to sleep, I had a moment of brilliance. The idea of how exactly to mark the steel plate for mounting holes in the bed floor was a bit sketchy, initially. I was going to mark the location of the cross sills inside the box and take measurements to draw a grid on the floor to mark the hole locations. This could work, but if one measurement was off the slightest bit, at least two holes would be out of alignment with the mounting holes in the frame. Likewise, it isn't possible to drill from the bottom-up, because there is no room inside the frame for the drill and bit.

All of the sudden, there it was...since a previous owner has bonded the angle strips to the side walls of the bed, and the angle strips are punched for bed bolts and cross sills, I can use them to locate everything. My plan it to build two saw horses about 40" tall. Then flip the bed over on to the saw horses so it is resting upside down. I can then lay the 3/16" plate floor on to the angle strips, though I expect they will require some support in the middle. With the flat plate in place on the angle strips, I can work from the under side (inside) of the bed, drilling through the punched holes in the angle strips. Then, I can mount the cross sills and drill my mounting holes for the bed to frame bolts.

I have no idea why I didn't think of this before. As long as I keep the cross sills in the same orientation as they currently are, it should be stupid simple. I feel really dumb for not thinking of this earlier.

Okay, it's been a while since I did anything with the project. The summer heat has finally broken and I ended up with two days off that didn't require me to be someplace else. I decided to finish off a small project that I started last year when I was working on the frame, the winch mount.

I have a good sized piece of scrap 3/16" diamond plate steel that I had already intending on using to attach the winch, which I have yet to purchase. I pulled out the tape measure and marked off a 9" wide, 35" long section to cut and went at it with my Skil saw and a metal cutting blade.



I've had this saw for 22 years now and have used it to cut everything from lumber to tar wrapped gas pipe and concrete. Today, five inches from completing the long cut, the Magic Smoke leaked out and the blade quit turning. :cry I ended up having to finish the cuts with my no-name backup saw.

(Pic pending)

I welded two pieces of 2" 11ga steel square tube between the stub extensions that are bolted into the frame to attach and support the diamond plate. The front piece is on a 45* angle to match the cuts on the ends of the stubs. I bent the diamond plate down to match the contour of the square tube to minimize the chance that the winch cable would drag against the leading edge.

(Pic pending)

Once everything was done, I covered it in a coat of gray implement paint today.

(Pic pending)

(Pic pending)

Getting the tow hooks mounted this afternoon. I think these were in the donor Dodge when I got it. There were only two mounting bolts of proper length, so I'm going to hit Tractor Supply up tomorrow for four matching bolts. I also started finishing up the flange around the transmission cover, since the patch panel didn't include the flange. No pics of that yet. It's something small, but will need to be done.

Two more days and a bit more done. When I put the floor panel in on the passenger side, I found the flange for the transmission cover was not part of the patch panel. I salvaged part of the old floor section with the flange and got it welded in.

(Pic pending)

Once that was done, I used a touch of filler to finish it out and rattled on some primer to keep the rust away while I'm still working.

I also cut the hole for the transfer case shifter in the transmission cover and installed the inner dust boot.

(Pic pending)

Finally, I filled a hole in the trim line on the cab that I kept forgetting about. Somewhere back in time, a previous owner drilled a hole behind the driver's door, most likely for an antenna cable of some sort, based on the size of the hole. It was behind the double wall, but not so far that I couldn't reach inside with a welding spoon. There are no pics of the before or work being done, just the end result.

(Pic pending)

No more rain water getting in through that little hole. Now I just need to cut a proper steel patch for the old filler neck hole so I can weld it shut. The aluminum piece is doing a decent job of keeping the bulk of it out, but I really need to finish it right.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Here's the 3/16" diamond plate with the back-up saw having finished the cut.



Forming up the winch mount.



Assembled and painted industrial gray.



Recovery hooks being installed. Just need four proper bolts from Tractor Supply to finish the job.



Tacking in the salvaged flange for the transmission cover.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

The modified transmission cover with the shift boot in place for the transfer case.



The welded hole, finished smooth, primed and painted, for now. This should do until its time for final prime and paint.

-Joe

[lower50's]

Panel looks good. Do you still get fresh air? It sucks when your almost done one task and it dies.