68 C10/international L110 Mut

[Shaun1162]

Awsome build! The split windshield and the grille really make the truck, for me at least

[jmlcolorado]

Originally Posted by Shaun1162

Awsome build! The split windshield and the grille really make the truck, for me at least

OH thank god! You made it to page two!
It was tough waiting for that first page to load all those photos



Thanks! It's taken some time, and each step, the split windshield included, gets formed up, then it sits forever while I look at it day after day to see if it really fits the truck.

I'm pretty excited about getting this thing on the road! It should drive pretty nice and should get tons of attention
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[Palf70Step]

Great looking metal work. This is going to be a fun build to watch.

[OSM 70 C20]

Not to be a pest but, how are things going with the Truckenstein?

[jmlcolorado]

Originally Posted by OSM 70 C20

Not to be a pest but, how are things going with the Truckenstein?

Your not being a pest.
I picked up a little side work (that seems to end up being more and more side work every day) so after my normal 10 hour days, I'm working another 4-5 after work, so unfortunately not much further has been done to the truck
But rest assured, once I get moving on it again, I'll keep everyone up to speed
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[dalbers]

Looking good! I have a 50 international waiting to be worked on someday
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[NONHOG]

Wow, how did I miss this? Not sure how many lifetimes it would take me on just the welding you have on this thing.
Cool stuff!

[cayoterun]

I haven't visited this forum much except scroll thru it, so I decided to look at some of the stuff. Really interesting things going on.
When I came to your "Binder", I locked down and read about all the posts. (Down here, all IHCs are binders, so no bash intended). Great quality work and great project, and it has a loyal lurker here to watch your progress, from now forward.
As the sayin' goes, "one bead or bolt at a time". Amazing metal work. I envy your skills.
Keep up the good work!

Cayoterun

[jmlcolorado]

It's been quite some time since I've worked on the truck. The side work I picked up ended up being a second full time job! People wane rebuild their entire house piece by piece!
Also had a new baby girl join us in feb, so as you imagine, were pretty busy.
Plus, once I built those goofy looking headers, I went to fire up the SBC and couldn't get it to turn. Split the engine from the trans and tried turning it again with no luck. So out came that engine to rip apart. I quickly lost motivation at that poi t and pulled the truck outside for a while.
I ended up finding an LEDs rocket that a guy started building a while ago. He had all the machine work done already and just needs finishing touches to make it run. My e search shows that with the equipment he has in the engine, and what I plan to use to finish it up, it should be looking at close to 400 HP, which should make this little truck move right along.
Ill got through my pictures and see what I haven't already shared.
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[jmlcolorado]

Okay, so with the truck on the back burner, I needed another project to get my mind off it.
I found this ratty old bench in the dumpster so I snagged it and instantly knew what I was going to do with it.
















You can see where this is going
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[jmlcolorado]

Here's more.










And there ya have it. Quick weekend project for my butt to enjoy
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[jmlcolorado]

In the middle of this project, and the other billion projects I have going, a buddy offered me an old 350 honda to play around with.
350's are very powerful, so I figured a little errand goer would be fun.
On with the photos!
Here's captain fugly in all his glory




Apparently the truck was still in the garage during some of this, but I DOi wasn't happy with it sitting there taunting me







Don't judge a man by the cleanliness of his garage.












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[jmlcolorado]

Guess I should back up and tell some story about the trike.
I'm going to use a ATV axle, which goes against the rules because of it being a live axle, but who cares.
The plan is to keep it narrow and long, which will make the turning radius large, which should help the skip factor with the live axle.
I have to rake the neck to get the trail back in right. And rake it a lot!
So on with the photos....










The front end will have a type of leading link setup. So I got some big fat heavy tubing for it as the forks will be kinda long.





And now for the seat support.








I still got to make the plates that attach the seat support to the axle. I have rebuilt the carbs but haven't tried to fire it up yet.
The wheels and tires are for a golf cart, and the tires ARE DOT legal. No funny business there.

So if you haven't noticed, I'm a bit ADD. Part of that stems from the fact that I have lots of ideas for things, but rarely do I have the right tool to do it. Other parts come from something big getting in my way and I get discouraged. So I bounce around projects a lot. But it makes it fun for the friends and family since they never know what I'm working on now

With that said, the trike got put on hold with the new engine in hand.
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[jmlcolorado]

So NOW I'm back on the truck. I needed to get the new engine mounted so I could keep working around it.
Last night I built a Hurst style front motor mount. I never really liked the universal tubular crossmember mount. Maybe because the word universal was in the name, or maybe cause I didn't make it, who knows.

Here's the idea.




It'll sit on the rubber biscuits, have a through bolt through the crossmember and through another biscuit below. This SHOULD eliminate some engine vibrations while keeping the engine in place.















The engine sits about 4" lower in the frame now, which I like. Gives it a better down low look and feel.
NASCAR guys are always wanting to get an engine as low as possible and as far back as possible for better weight distribution. This up engine has the best of both worlds, even though its not a NASCAR truck it should handle pretty good I think.


I will be rebuilding the headers, and they will very likely be going outside the frame, under the cab, through some mufflers and exit behind the bed somewhere.
With this much room, I suppose I COULD get the exhaust inside the frame rails, but then I'd have to go through 2 crossmember's (trans and rear control arm cross members) before trying to go over the top of the axle (zero room with a c notched frame anyways) before exiting out the back.

Well, that's it for now. Sorry for the zillion posts to catch up. Ill post more as I make progress.


*maybe I should have named this thread "JML's random projects blog" since I bounce around so much
** and I am sorry about the vast amount of misspellings and strange words. I blasted through the posts without proof reading, and apparently after so many posts, you can't go back and edit.
So for some clarification, 350cc's AREN'T very powerful, and the engine in the pickup is an Oldsmobile rocket
Lesson learned I suppose.
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[Palf70Step]

Originally Posted by jmlcolorado

Here's more.










And there ya have it. Quick weekend project for my butt to enjoy
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Very NICE!

[cAlvis165]

I've never been a rat rod fan, but you might just change my mind. You got skills man!

[jmlcolorado]

Originally Posted by cAlvis165

I've never been a rat rod fan, but you might just change my mind. You got skills man!

Thanks man!
Most rat rods I see are kinda tossed together. I feel like their proportions are way off and goofy. But then again, that's the nature of the beast. Their ment to just be tossed together with whatever you have laying around. But for the most part, I don't have much along around, so I get to figure out what will work/look best. I've spent a lot of time staring at the truck, trying to get everything to kinda look like it was ment to be there. I'm sure if I blasted through the build, it wouldn't look as well as it does. Taking my sweet time has allowed me to see things I never would have otherwise seen before.
I appreciate the kind words.
Hopefully one day it'll be on the road. There are stilla couple big things I see in the overall design of the truck that I really don't like, but they probably won't change.
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[jmlcolorado]

Anyone following this still?
I have kind of forgotten to update this thread. Lots of Hingis changed. It now has a cummins 4bt and dodge 47re trans. Full accuair e-level system.
Workin on buttoning it up know and it'll be on the road this summer.
Just curious as to if there is interest. If so, I'll post more detailed updates.

[Palf70Step]

I am. Just waiting to see what you come up with next.

[ERASER5]

Very interested.

>>> 4BT? gotta see that!

>>> Need more info on the "brassing" thing.

>>> But mostly, just MOARRRRR!

[jmlcolorado]

Originally Posted by ERASER5

Very interested.

>>> 4BT? gotta see that!

>>> Need more info on the "brassing" thing.

>>> But mostly, just MOARRRRR!

Well alright then

The brassing is an interesting process, though not totally to my satisfaction.
Basiclly heat base metal till hot, and rub brass onto it. I was using a brass wire brush and it worked well. It only applies a thin layer, but it sticks. It also gives you a brushed brass look.
The truck has sat in the weather for an extended period of time and the brass has patina'ed to a greenish color. It's kinda neat really.

I think I'm going to try brass electroplating next though to try to get a more consistent, even look.

I'll post some updates including the 4bt (actually 2 or them). Bummer story on the first one.

[jmlcolorado]

Okay guys. Two years worth of updates coming so bare with me. I'm a little (a lot) ADHD. I bounce around a lot, get distracted, get pulled away, so this all could be a bit of a cluster, but here it goes.
Back to 2013:

Ah yes, I also need to share my other addition. This one is not a garage toy, worth MUCH more then anything I've got in the garage.

Brooke Rozlyn, born Feb 9th at 5:00 am!

[jmlcolorado]

Anyways, I have not made any progress on the truck lately. The kid has been occupying my time, and the garage seems to be collecting crap each day, making it not-so-motivating to work in. That on top of my endless side jobs for everyone else.

Today I decided to take a break from side work and focus on cleaning the garage out. Spent the whole day doing that so now I can walk around in it, and I'm not as embarrassed to have the door open.

Once everything was clean, it just didn't feel right, and motivation was there, so I HAD to dirty it up a bit and find something productive to do.
I have many many projects laying around, but since the rat has been neglected, I opted to do something with it.

On another thread (can't remember exactly which one now) we were talking about vintage heaters, and someone posted a link to an article restoring an old heater, and it really got the juices flowing!

I wasn't really planning on using mine, and in that thought process, I filled those holes on the firewall. But now that it's winter........again, I feel the cold, and decided to bring the original heater back to life for the truck.

I want the interior of the truck to be nice and maybe shiny, so the heater needs to fit the bill.

The heater has a 6 volt motor who's wires were completely gone and the motor didn't work very well. So I had disassembled the heater some time back to look I to it. For fear that a replacement motor would be very tough to come by, I tossed the thing asside to collect dust......until today.

Pulled it out and looked at the motor again. Took some measurements and searched the web for a suitable replacement. That process took a whole 3 minutes, so now an exact fit, 2 speed, 12 volt motor is on its way.
Since the credit card was out, I figured I better pice a powder coat color for the heater, so off to Eastwood I went.

Now that a motor and powder is ordered, I wanted to get ready to get it all back together.

Broke out the stripper (yes, I keep strippers on hand in the garage, just in case) and dumped all the parts in it to soak.

Began pulling each one out, flushing, then wire wheeling to get the remainder of the paint/rust off to clean metal.
I was quite surprised, and frankly, dissappointed at how much rust (including pitting) was found under the paint. Figured that with the heater being inside the cab all these years, there wouldn't be any. Guess I was wrong.

With that said, all the parts are set asside all cleaned ready for powdercoating.




















I've never attempted a 'restore' on anything, with the idea in mind that it will look nice, so this is kinda exciting to me. I'm looking forward to getting it all back together all pollished up.
Hopefully it'll provide good heat in this little cab

[jmlcolorado]

So at disassembly last night, I realized there is a door missing. This thing must have been pulled apart once before cause the tabs for this door were folded over the mesh. I assume the door was lost last time it was removed so they just left it open.
I'm not sure what this door does, but it appears to let heat out. But it's pointed right at the passengers door, which seems to be a waste to me.
I thought about welding a filler to close it off, but until I get the motor, and see how much air flow comes out of each location, I don't want to permanently close it off.
So I figured I'd try my hand at making a door.
Now be easy fellas. I've never ever attempted to fabricate anything like this. Usually it's cut and weld up a billion templates to make complicated shapes (to me, this is a complicated shape).

So I grabbed the first piece of scrap I had laying around, turned out to be 16 gauge.

All I have is a hand grinder, a hammer and an oxy torch with cutting tips, so I did my best.

P.s. I'm really getting tired of cutting metal with a grinder it's messy, loud and fiery.

Factory door in place on one side:


Missing door hole that needs filled:


Scrap for the new door:


Here's the attempt at the door:







And how it fits:



Certainly not a fancy stamped factory piece, but I think it'll do for now.

[jmlcolorado]

Not much to update on. But I stumbled across a stop motion app for my phone I wanted to play with.
It's kinda fun
http://youtu.be/K5hve6T6Qxk


And a little more info on the brassing
Here Ya go
http://youtu.be/mFK9H4AG_Ww

This reminds me, get a brass brush with wooden handle.....NOT plastic. Plastic will melt and you'll loose all the bristles. Ask me how I know

I had a hard time finding the brush locally (Home Depot and harbor freight are steel coated in brass)
I think I ended up buying online and even that took a lot of communication asking sellers if it was real brass or not. It was amazing had no idea what they were selling. Darn middlemen.
I found jeweler supply places were best.