47 Step van

[youngrodder]

Shannon -

I hear you on the baseball thing. I coach as well. Currently my two sons are in travel soccer, baseball and they each take lessons for different instruments. That has eaten into my garage time as well....It's all good.

Marc

[99 to Life]

cant wait to see your post shannon, being a dad is most important. A little time off of anything can be good, a fresh start will keep the motivation there, not that you have that problem.

[xpickup]

Oldman3, yes everything is good and we do enjoy doing it together. I wish it was that easy on the clone thing. Haha

Youngrodder, yes these sports take a lot of time. Last week it was 3 out of the 5 days. 2 games and 1 practice. Everyone could not believe that I was going to help because I never was in any sports except karate. It is fun, more of a chore keeping them focused.

99 to life, yes it is good and the time off is good too. But the bad thing is it takes some time away from the truck and I am trying to get it back to Ken soon.

Now picture time. I have all the fuel lines run from the tank to the motor and also have one run to the rear of the truck for a generator if needed. I made some aluminum exhaust tips for the rear at work on the lathe. Good thing for working in a machine shop.

Shannon

[xpickup]

Exhaust tips

Shannon

[xpickup]

Next was mounting the shifter and the emergency brake. The emergency brake lever is an American shifter company one. It is there taller one and was a nice piece. The shifter is a cable operated Lokar which is the double bend shifter. The cable operated shifter was needed because of where I ended up having to have it mounted which is back behind the dog box. I also had to rotate the handle 180 degrees so it came forward. It matches the angle on the dog box really well along with the emergency brake too. I had to move the exhaust over an inch because I was planning on using standard Lokar shifter and it's linkage is on top. The cable stuff was just touching the exhaust and now it had a little room. The bad thing is I did not take any pictures top side so I will post them next time.


Shannon

[xpickup]

I am using Lokar emergency brake cables and I made a few brackets to hold the cables. The double ones are the rear brackets back at the axle , the one single one will be mounted to the cross member where I will bring them together and the high one is where the adjusters go.

I had to make defrosts vents for the truck because it never had any. I used shop vac ends. Then made an aluminum box for them. I wanted to make them look nice because there is no way really to hide the because the dash sets so low. I made them in a few pieces and welded them together. Then cut a slot in the angle part so it shoots the air up on the wind shield. The vent part was a little small for the hose so I had to use some PVC as a spacer from the hose to the vent. Then they got bolted to the dash.

The blue panels in the one picture are the panels that will become the bulkhead to cover the wiper assembly. It will all be remove able that way you can get to the wipers. I have the main pieces made and have to mount them before making the corners that will rap around to the door opening.


Shannon

[xpickup]

More defroster pictures.

Shannon

[xpickup]

Now what I am currently working on is the front edge by the door on the body. It was bad and Ken cut out the bad because it was rotting. It was one of those difficult profiles to bend/ make. So I figured out how to make it and that was with aluminum box and 1/4 x 1" bar. It worked out really well. I made them for both sides because they were both bad down low. The upper pieces are 55" long and the lowers are 28" long. I will cut the angles where they will come together on my miter saw. I first cut them to length on the miter saw. They consist of 3 pieces to get the profile. One piece of box tube, a piece of c channel and a piece of bar. The c channel was made out of box tube. I cut it on my router table. I used wd40 as the lube and it cut great just one hell of a mess from the chips flying! Then I also used the router table with a 45 degree bit to cut the chamfers for the weld prep. Way better then grinding it on. The TIG welded the pieces all together. I welded the shorter ones first and ground them up and it worked out great. I am now working on the longer ones. It is a boat load of TIG welding but that was my easiest way. They will them be drive riveted on like the rest of the body.


Shannon

[xpickup]

Some more.


Shannon

[oldman3]

Shannon, everything looks great, nice job as usual. Be glad you DON'T live close to me, I'd be at your house wanting things made all the time...Jim

[99 to Life]

the animal is back!!

[lower50's]

This thing is turning out real sweet!! Anything new?