46 pickemup in NJ "the Rebuild"

[CURSED GEARS]

May be a stupid question since I cant see the whole part of the frame, but can't you weld a piece of metal to each side to replace the rot? Seems a shame to buy a new frame if that's the only bad spot.

[CSHADES]

The problem with welding patches in these frames is that there is a bar that fits very tight down inside the channel. If there is any weld gobs that are in the channel it will not go back together. It is actually a pretty complicated piece for what it does.

[solidaxel]

Originally Posted by paintman

I personally think a frame that is chromed with the center bar looks the best in these trucks but that is my opinion.

It also sounds like you have no trouble spending $600+ of my money![/QUOTE]

You are correct, very easy too do!
As long as it is not mine I don't have a problem with it
I think we bought a black steel one with a division bar also and had tinted glass cut for it, let me look around and see what happened to that one

[paintman]

Time to put bump the Paintman back to the top with an update. Still plugging along. It's amazing how close things look to being done but then you look around and see 50 different little things unfinished that take up sooooooo much time.

I had to figure out a new way of attaching my front bumper. For those of you that have been following along for the last 4 -5 years, you'll recall I had to extend my front frame rails to accomodate the Scott's front sway bar (see post 11). Looking back, although Justin told me the front end kit he had was for a 46, I don't think they really ever had installed one with a sway bar. My frame rails were about 2" to give me enough room to bolt the bushing housings to the frame. long story short I just made up some extensions to the fram and welded them on. But that caused interferenc issues with the original factory bumpre horns. So I had to nix them. The solution was to just make up new 1/4 flat plates and bolt them to the outside of the frame rails. The two forward most holes will be where the bumper bolts to. I guess on a positive note these plates will help re-inforce the extensions to the frame. I certainly feel like the guinea pig for Scott's Hot Rods as I have seen others like Chizzler and SolidAxel mount there sway bar totaly different.
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[solidaxel]

I don't remember what is different, but I can tell you this that the turning radius is limited as you can tell by how polished the bar is from the tire hitting!
What size tires are you using on the front

[paintman]

With the new front bumper horns made, I decided to smooth out the front bumper bolts by shaving them off the face and welding and grinding them smooth. That was alot of work for a rank amateur. I also made up a pair of mounting plates for the new turn signals to fasten to the top of the bumper. When I bought the truck the previous owner had the turn signals mounted up inside behind the front grille. Now I not the smartest person in the world but that just made no sense. How the hell do you change the bulbs when one blows?
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Speaking og the front grille..............I got that cleaned up and painted. I know, I know, it would have looked alot better chrome but I didn't feel like popping for about $1000 to have it re-finished. Plus then I would of had to of had the bumpers chromed. NOT HAPPENING!!!!! Actually I thing the truck will look good with a white grille when it comes together with the rest of my plan for the truck.
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Got my front inards painted and hung as well.I am kind of stuck on how I am going to mount the electric fan. I know I can just use those half assed zippy ties through the radiator. But I am trying to figure out a cleaner bracket system. May just give up and use the zippys
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Also got my train horns re-installed. It's amazing I am actually starting to be able to walk around my garage without stepping all over parts laying on the floor! And yes I know the plug wires look like hell. I am trying to think of a nicer loom.
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[paintman]

Also still plugin away on the wiring harness. i got all my wires run up to the front for the lights. I decided to run the harness on the outside of the panels to keep the engine bay as clean possible.
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Also got my steering linkages back in and buttoned up.
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Christ i might just finish this thing some day! I have a couple more wire connections to make on the engine (electric choke, and T-stat) and I can fire this dam thing up! That will be my next goal. Fire up the ole 292 and check for problems befor I start bolting the reat of the body together.

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

I don't remember what is different, but I can tell you this that the turning radius is limited as you can tell by how polished the bar is from the tire hitting!
What size tires are you using on the front

Your sway bar looks much wider then mine as my heim joints that connect the sway bar to the A-arm are straight up and down as your are more tilted. I am still trying to figure out how you and chizzler mounted your bushings Is that just a piece of flat plate you bolted to the frame and bumper horns for the bushing housing.?

[solidaxel]

Man I have forgotten about all of those steps............. you will be driving in no time!
Is that the grille that came with your truck?
We would have been greatfull for one that was that nice!
What did you do with your hood props?

[solidaxel]

Originally Posted by paintman

Your sway bar looks much wider then mine as my heim joints that connect the sway bar to the A-arm are straight up and down as your are more tilted. I am still trying to figure out how you and chizzler mounted your bushings Is that just a piece of flat plate you bolted to the frame and bumper horns for the bushing housing.?

Yes a welded plate and a gussett
Why would Justin have different length bars for the same year chassis?

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

I don't remember what is different, but I can tell you this that the turning radius is limited as you can tell by how polished the bar is from the tire hitting!
What size tires are you using on the front

Solid, My sway bar measures 34 1/2" from mounting bolt to mounting bolt on my A-arms. With my tires, I can go lock to lock on my stearing without any rubbing on the sway bar. But It looks like my tires are much smaller then yours. Mine are P195/75R15 on 6 inch rims. At least i think there 6". It's been so long since I hung the front end I can't remember all the details and conversations with Justin, but I do recall sending the original sway bar back to him for some reason and he custom bent one to my specs. Excellent customer service from Justin during all the isssue I had He wase vne on the phone with me Christmas Eve working out the problems.

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

Yes a welded plate and a gussett
Why would Justin have different length bars for the same year chassis?

If I had to guess, I don't think they ever had one of their front ends with a sway bar on a 46 until mine. Again It's been so long since the issue I can't remember all that happened. But everything turned out good in the end. Justin was great during the whole process.

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

Man I have forgotten about all of those steps............. you will be driving in no time!
Is that the grille that came with your truck?
We would have been greatfull for one that was that nice!
What did you do with your hood props?

Yes that is the same grille. I just sanded and cleaned the hell out of it. Shot it with epoxy and single stage white.

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

Yes a welded plate and a gussett
Why would Justin have different length bars for the same year chassis?

Soled, if you go back to my first page and look at post 11, you will see the first sway bar he sent me with no offset. The second pic with the offset is the one he custom bent for me.

[solidaxel]

Originally Posted by paintman

If I had to guess, I don't think they ever had one of their front ends with a sway bar on a 46 until mine. Again It's been so long since the issue I can't remember all that happened. But everything turned out good in the end. Justin was great during the whole process. He likes you better than us!

He must have forgot how wide these chassis are when he made ours!
We did have a long discussion and he said there would be "enough" turning radius
I know our wheels are 8" and I think 215 or 225 tires
Next time I am under there I will take some measurments

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

He must have forgot how wide these chassis are when he made ours!
We did have a long discussion and he said there would be "enough" turning radius
I know our wheels are 8" and I think 215 or 225 tires
Next time I am under there I will take some measurments

Solid, you have a PM!

[paintman]

Solid........You have a 2nd PM.

[solidaxel]

Yea you have a BOOK !!

[paintman]

Now that was funny! Anxiously waiting for Chizzler to chime in.

[paintman]

I finally got tired of the electric fan starring me in the face. I wanted to make a nice bracket for it instead of boogering it on with those cheap zippy ties. The problem was the radiator and the core support were on 2 different angles not allowing me to mount the fan flat on the radiator.. The radiator stands straight up in the core support while the front face of the suport leans forward at about a 15 degree angle. After pondering for about 2 hours I came up with a plan.

First problem to solve was removing the inner lip on the core support. This would give me a flat surface for the brackets to lay flat on. CAREFUL DON'T NICK THE RADITOR WITH THE GRINDING WHEEL
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Next up was bending, grinding, shaping, hammering, 2 pieces of metal into some kind of something that looked like a Hot Rod builder would make, not a house painter.
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Dress it all up by putting lip stick on a pig. Then bolt it fast to the core support.
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Call it done!
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[old yelr]

Looks pretty awesome to me!

[solidaxel]

Great bracket !
I take it you had no room on the engine side of the rad?

[CURSED GEARS]

Cool solution for the electric fans.
Just a thought on your grill. I had a set a pipes for a bike I built nickel plated. Wasn't very much, (about 78 bucks as I recall) It was way cheaper than chrome, and as always, it was a budget build. Just a thought, the paint looks great on the grill.

[paintman]

So I have been getting tired of fabricating stuff for the truck. I decided to take a break from working with metal and get into something that's in the Paintmans wheel house, bed wood! At some point the previous owner put a brand new Mar-K bed and wood kit on the truck. Great you say? Nope, instead of doing a nice job on the wood with stain and clear coat , he used old motor oil every 6 months. Hence over the years the wood had taken on a dull nearly jet black finish.
Soooo, with nothing but a whole Saturday and Sunday to waste, the Paintman set out to re-claim 7 pieces of (of what would cost $400 new), oak boards
1. soak with lacquer thinner and wire brush the hell out of the boards
2. proceed with paint stripper and more wire brushing
3. follow with a good soaking of 50/50 bleach and water
4. Proceed with hours and hours of sanding
And you end up with this..............................
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All in all the boards look damn good considering. However, there are a couple of boards with some small splits at one end . But, I have had the perfect solution sitting in my garage for about 3 years . Battery box!
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Not exactly sure how I am going to re-finish the boards as of yet. I was kicking around the idea of staining them the same mango tango as the truck, with white strips. Or pickling the boards white with mango Tango strips. The reason I say painted strips is because they are a DISASTER! But that's another story we are working on.

I kind of nixed those 2 options in favor of just a marine varnish. I kind of like the old weathered look of wood anyway. Or possibly a golden oak stain first followed by varnish. Stay tuned.................Either way this is the varnish I will be using. As a self employed house painter and a log home owner, I stand by all Sikkens products. Applied properly the damn stuff is nearly bullet proof!
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Hell if Mr. Magoo approves...............
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Regardless of what I do with the tops, I did the bottoms with Por15 as this (believe it or not), produced the best results in Mar-K's testing.
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In other news. I started the re-assemble of the windshield frame. Not to re-hash this entirely, but there was some question as to what to do. By new, go one piece glass, or try and re use this one. I opted to try and save this one for now. The first thought was to paint the frame white to match the grille but I opted for black thinking it would blend in with the gasket.
Then after reading a bunch of horror stories about trying to get the glass in with setting tape, I went to the local glass shop to see if they would do it for me. Well, after offering the guy $100 bucks and a night out with my wife, he still refused to do it! He told me it would be best to just silicone it in. So he was nice enough to give me some pieces of setting tape for alignment and a couple tubes of silicone, and tech advice for free.

So here's how I did it. To keep the glass centered in the frame so I could get an even amount of silicone on the front and back side of the glass, I wrapped and then taped small pieces of setting tape around the glass in 3 spots, top, bottom, end. Then I put a small dab of grease on the very bottom portion of the tape to help it slide into the frame. Even with this small amount of tape on the glass it was a BIOTCH!
[/URL]Then I just repeated the process on the other frame and bolted it all back together.
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If you look close, you can see the tape wrapped around the glass inside the frame. This left an even gap on both sides of the glass, between the frame, for the silicone to go down into.
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Here's the silicone the glass shop gave me.
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Originaly, the biggest concern was the small amount of steel that was missing due to rot at the butt joint of the frame. Fortunately the new center divider I bought was slightly lager then the old one and covered the gap with no problem! Just waiting on a new outer gasket from Steele and back in she goes!!!!!!!!
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[paintman]

Considering how boogered up these boards where from the last guy, I say they look pretty good. Show quality? No, but for what i am doing, perfect. Especially when it saves $400

I didn't use any stain, just 4 coats of Sikkens Marine varnish....................
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