Just another old truck.

[Clarance J]

Thanks Kim and joedoh.

Put the tailgate on the bed just to check it out. Yeah, it was worth the effort.

Grants Pass's "Back to the Fiftys" is coming up at the end of this month July 30th. I've watched the cruise for a bunch of years and I finally got CJ done enough to join in this year. So what I'm doing for the next couple of weeks is trying to get him at least mostly one color ,which is primer. Taking all of the old yellow off down to metal and rattle canning self etching primer on. Not doing any repairs or welding, just strip and spray. There is only one coat of paint to deal with so it comes off fairly easily. There's the old body filler too.

[Clarance J]

I'm glad that there is alot of big flat surfaces. Taking notice of what has to be repaired so I can plan for them. The paint stripper works good. Clean up is easy. After I scrape off the paint on to the floor just wait till it dries and vaccume it up. Hit the rough spots with the 2in roloc discs, wipe down and spray. Rusty areas are a little more work.

Earl

[Advanced Design]

The tailgate came out really well!

[Kim57]

Tail gate looks great.
Kim

[Clarance J]

Ok, here we go again. On my last post I was getting CJ ready for the cruise. I got him put back together and was all ready for Saturday night. I called my grand-daughter and told her that I needed my co-pilot for the cruise that night which is Ali, my great grand daughter.

Photo 1
CJ all set to go.

Photo 2
In stageing area.

Photo 3
On the street. Up ahead is the first slow down and stop and wait in traffic. That is when the temp gauge starts to tell me all is not right in this universe. I knew I was in trouble when I heard a kid on the curb holler "Look that trucks leaking something". The temp was now 220 and climbing. We made it around the corner and pulled into the first parking spot I could find. To make a long story short that is where we spent the rest of the cruise. It was just one of those days.

Now even though my truck was not having a good time I was having a great time because I had my GG daughter with me and I truly enjoyed the time with her. Don't often get one on one time so that was great. With her there the cruise was secondary.

After the cruise I called a friend to rescue us with water and a jump. I got Ali home after a quick stop at McDonalds.

Earl

[Kim57]

Nice looking kid.
Hope it's nothing serious on the truck.
Kim

[Baldeagle SR]

The truck is looking good. Yep the grandkids do make your day. Rich

[Clarance J]

Hey Kim and Rich, thanks a lot. Enjoyed that day with Ali. She asked me "Papa what is a co-pilot". I told her its someone who takes all the pictures and helps with the driving. She said Ok. So we were good to go.

As for my truck it was not serious but I knew that I had to rethink the shroud and fan situation. So this is what I ended up with. An almost complete change. The fun part was how I got there. More fab work.

[joedoh]

looking at your first shroud, it looks like you just blocked off your radiator! no wonder it didnt work!

the second one looks great! ducted fans work best.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work Earl. How did you get the shape in the shroud?

[Clarance J]

Hello joedoh and AD. Thanks very much. Yeah that's exactly what I did. So that had to change. Here is the way I did it.

I decided that I had to go back to my old style and system that was on my motor before. The pulley and belts are from Summit and do not use a mechanical fan. First thing was to make the fan work with the pulleys.

[Clarance J]

At first I went on line and looked at how to form sheet metal using a rectangular to round pattern and formula. That just totally confused the heck out of me. That lead me to the full size buck. This I could understand.

[Advanced Design]

Awesome. I figured there was interesting fabrication involved and there was. Nice work. Looking forward to the rest Earl.

[Kim57]

Great fab work.
Kim

[oldman3]

Yes great work...Jim

[Clarance J]

First thanks Kim, AD oldman3. Well here it is the 1st of October already. Ran out of prepared pictures and time last night.

You can't see it but the material goes under the 3/4" sq. pieces and is trimmed off on the outside. Those are where the edges will be folded over so there won't be raw edges and will add strength to the shroud.

[Clarance J]

OK so now its time for the sheet steel. I had to think about this and see what I had available. The material had to be,
1) thin
2) steel
3) strong enough to keep it's shape
4) could be welded
5) low cost
6) easy to form
so with that in mind this is what I found and used. I traded the scrap steel/metal man about 50lbs of scrap for a refrigerator door. The door is real close to .025 thick and meets all of the above. Cutting out the parts was easy with 3" air tool.

[Baldeagle SR]

Earl nice work on the shroud. You make for interesting reading. Rich

[Clarance J]

Rich Thank you for that.

As you can see in the pictures I use only the best high precision tools.

Looks like I need to do a little bit of shop cleaning.

[Clarance J]

With the top half fitting good its time to cut out the bottom half.

[Clarance J]

The next 5 pictures just show how the shroud is forming up.

[oldman3]

Very nice, need to book mark this for future...Jim

[Clarance J]

Thanks Jim.

Well I will finish this shroud fab with this last bunch of pictures. In the first picture you can see the square holes where I used carriage bolts to mount the radiator and shroud.

On to the next little project. I'm done for tonight. Thanks all.

Earl

[Advanced Design]

Very nice work and outstanding explanation! Thanks for taking the time.

[Kim57]

Great job on the shroud.
Kim