1952 1 Ton Rebuild

[joedoh]

cute helper! GSP?

[mechanixman]

Thank you Joe!
I'm not sure, but there is definitely some GSP in there somewhere. I picked her up at the humane society, and they don't label breeds anymore. We're thinking a german shorthair-spaniel mix with just a touch of collie. One of these days I'll get a dna test but some other things are taking priority *cough* the truck *cough*.

[mechanixman]

I started fitting the altman lath to the driverside door.
If anyone reading this is considering buying an altman latch kit, I strongly recommend to not use their template when cutting out the door section. On my first door, I paid too much attention to the template, and I was left with a hole that stuck out past the cover plate, and still wasn't quite big enough to fit the latch perfectly. While the template is a good reference, I would first trace out the cover plate, so you know where not to cut for sure. Then hold the latch mechanism up to the door to understand how much you need to cut, then trace out a cut line. Doing it this way came out with a better result.

[mechanixman]

I got my boat filler neck in the mail today, I'm pretty happy with how this will look on the keg. I couldn't decide between this guy and a flip up gas filler cap, and this one was $9 on ebay.

[mechanixman]

I also got the other door mounted, and latch installed. the plan is to have both handles for the passenger done by thursday.

[mechanixman]

Hey Folks,
Sorry for being gone so long, i guess it's time to fill you in.
The truck was street legal and driving by June of 2019, with plenty of problems to sort out. (it might have caught fire once.) We're finally getting to a place where it's comfortable to drive regularly, and I might have gotten my dad a 52 gmc suburban, and myself a 1969 F*RD flat bed tow truck. We'll see how many posts it takes to get up to speed.

So at this point, in early march of 2019, I'm still finnicking with the altman door latches. i found out one of the bolts on the passenger side actually hits the paddle, preventing the door from opening properly. So far, i still haven't clearanced the paddle or found a bolt that will clear. I'm planning on eventually welding those plates in...when I have time.

My dad and I were planning on using the original seat frame and had that beautiful leather cut and stitched to fit the frame, but hadn't gotten around to adding foam and securing it to the frame.

And finally, that's the overall look in March in my workshop.

[mechanixman]

Next, I was working on the vent window frames, I used a pneumatic die grinder with the 3 inch cut off wheels to grind down the rivets that hold the window track in. Then I punch out the old rivets and remove the window track and vent window gasket. To prep for paint, i use a scotch brite wheel on a 90° die grinder.

[mechanixman]

Luckily for me, I was able to find a blue rattle can that matched my paint rather spectacularly. it's a valspar color, I forgot the name, but it made painting these smaller parts a breeze. I spent about $500 on Steele rubber products, for the window gaskets on hank, and I'm glad I did. Installing the vent windows, and window track were a breeze.

[mechanixman]

Next step was the corner windows.
I purchased the lisle weather stripping tool, which made quick work of installing the corners and back glass. The first window maybe took 30 or 40 minutes, the second took 15 or 20.

You'll see some writing on the protective film on the new crank window, I purchased every size glass bedding I could (I forgot the name, but can look it up). You can buy the stuff in the orange truck catalog. I measured the glass and the channel to figure out what thickness rubber i needed to use to install the crank window glass.

[mechanixman]

I shouldn't be up this late right now. But I felt bad neglecting this page for so long. I'll keep posting progress pictures in the coming days and weeks, but in the meantime, here's a spoiler. That was taken about 2 weeks ago before the car show at work.

[mechanixman]

Well oops.
I guess updating got put on the back burner. Sorry about that.
I figured I can at least post what I've been up for the past couple weeks.

I was at a car show in septemeber talking shop with another AD truck owner when the topic of headliners got brought up. He showed me what he was running, which was a foam with a perforated vinyl covering. He has a basic black vinyl that he glued to the roof of his cab, and it was slick. Not to mention it actually quieted down the cab a bunch. I asked where in the world he found such a good lookng, cheap, and fairly easy solution for a headliner. He said this was used in the cabs of locomotives and a friend gave him a piece so he wasn't sure where to buy it. I looked around and none of the typical industrial supply places carried anything similar to that insulation.
THEN I found this place:
https://www.tractorinteriors.com/
The had bulk foam of what exactly what I was looking for, and just about any color to boot. I was looking for which color I wanted until I came across Wester Brown. That was the ticket.

Foam was cut to the shape needed to fit the cab. 3M 90 was the adhesive I used. I also prepped by masking off the inside of the cab. I'll tell ya, $7 on visqueen sheeting goes a loong way.

[mechanixman]

The backside of the foam was cut 1" longer than necessary for the back of the cab. This is done so the foam can be cut out and the vinyl wrapped around the edge. Their website has a little tutorial on how to do it. I only did it for the back adge as that seemed like it would be the most visible. A few coats of adhesive were applied to the foam, and a coat or two were applied to the roof. Normally you would wait till both surfaces were tacky, but I tried to stick them together while they were as wet as possible; so that maybe I would have a chance of sliding it around if it didn't line up perfect. Just FYI: The two surfaces still ended up being tacky considering I was using one can to spray 16 sqft at once. The girlfriend and I practiced installing it before using the glue several times to make sure we wouldn't get bubbles/wrinkles. A couple used aerosol cans made for a good roller to smooth out the foam too.

Next step was to finally make some door panels. I bought the stainless trim a year or two ago, but I never bought the cardboard insert...until last week. The reason i finally got around to it was the nice folks at Tractor Interior Upholstery were willing to sell just the vinyl so that I could make my own door panels.

I glued the vinyl to the backs of the cardboard inserts because the "fronts" were textured and I wanted a smooth surface to glue to. Fortunately, the pieces are mirrored so that didn't make any difference. Here I cut the vinyl big, glued it to the cardboard, then trimmed the excess off/cut the holes out.

Same story as the roof, except we let both pieces get really tacky before sticking them together. A rolling pin made this one real easy to put together.

[mechanixman]

Here you can see how it all turned out.
I think it's looking pretty spiffy if I do say so myself.
The pictures really don't do the pieces justice.

I still need to figure out how I want trim the gaps where the original headliner went, and if I want arm rests/how I want to upholster them.

[mechanixman]

Next step is to finally rejuvenate the dome light.
A while back, I saw someone use a COB led to light their cab and I was sold.
A little note: As LED's aren't really made in the US, it's handy to keep measurements in mm as that is what the manufacturers use.
I found out I would need a 36mm x 60mm LED to fully use the original light cavity. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a board that fit those dimensions. So I took a gamble and bought a 36mm x 120mm long board instead and thought I would try cutting it in half. I tried to stay in between the two middle rows of LED's to make sure I wouldn't short the board. I'm not sure if I was successful in that or not....but it doesn't matter because both halves still work!
Way back when I also cut and roughly sanded it to fit in the glass. By itself, it looks awful. But man the whole thing together is just great. I think it probably helps that I sandblasted the inside of the glass dome way back when in an effort to diffuse whatever light went through it. Now it just makes everything look clean and even.
At 12v the LED's are blinding by the way. I found that 10.8v is just what I'm looking for in terms of light output/color.
Speaking of color, I did choose the warm white option because I liked the idea of matching the look/feel of an incandescent bulb. i just wanted more of it.

I just got the LED board tonight. So this is more of a mock up than anything else. I think I'll post the details once I actually put it together. To give you a hint, that little silvery package in the bottom right corner of the pictures is a buck converter. They can be had from $1-$2 a piece on the jungle site. Normally they come in packs of 10. I'll be using that to step the 12-14.3V to the 10-11 I'm looking for for this LED. I'll also need a heat sink so as not to fry the LED and figure out some way to make it all fit. maybe a simple bulb is better. Ha ha

[6DoF]

that light will be super nice, i really like that distributed glow vs the harsh point source of most LED replacements.

[Father&son56project]

What a slick and simple way to deal with a headliner!!! I know what you mean about practicing your moves before sticking the pieces together. I am currently building my interior and I spent yesterday with my brother gluing vinyl to masonite boards. We did "practice runs" prior to spraying glue each time, cuz there is no going back once those surfaces touch!