Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

Another miscellaneous project for today was to replace the fuel fill tube with one I got from Mel at Classic Bowtie. Compare the old one with the new one! (Photo #1) No wonder it wouldn't seal. After I got the old one removed a couple of pieces of pot metal fell out of it helping confirm my theory that a locking cap had at some point been removed with excessive force.
Pretty straightforward job. 3 screws and two hose clamps. I was unable to find a Suburban specific gasket for between the back side of the fender and the mounting flange on the filler. I did find that an early Nova/ Chevy II fuel fill gasket is the same size but has a different bolt pattern. (Photo #2 see the small silver dots on the gasket showing the Suburban bolt pattern)
The third photo is the gasket done and the tube is sealed up so I can shove it into place and not get a bunch of crud in the tube/tank.
Of course my locking cap doesn't fit this nice undamaged tube! The tabs are two wide to fit the filler tube slots. But I know how to take it apart and modify it to work. Sounds like a good rainy day project.
I was also excited to start countersinking the replacement angle for the back edge of the plywood, but I found that the new piece I had made is not the right size. Uhhhggg!!!!
The top or long side of the angle is too short. It appears that they measured the bottom inside dimension and then transferred that measure to the top outside dimension. Or in other word's the top piece is about 3//32" too narrow. Which isn't really a deal breaker, but it isn't what I paid for, and if I was only replacing the angle and not the wood also there would be a odd gap.
So tomorrow it's back to the sheet metal shop. Yea!

[richard2717]

Coming right along.............

Screws came in yesterday, thanks a bunch. They look great.

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice job, it's a much better part. No more gas on the paint.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by richard2717

Coming right along.............

Screws came in yesterday, thanks a bunch. They look great.

You are welcome. I hit them with some cold galvanizing paint to keep them from rusting.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Nice job, it's a much better part. No more gas on the paint.

Thank you. I'm hoping it will cut down on the fumes too. I haven't had a full tank of gas in forever. Right turns at speed would leak fuel at anything above 5/8 of a tank.

[HO455]

It was a beautiful day so I got busy making sawdust. The plywood I am using is a marine plywood with non-skid coating material on the top bottom and sides. This means only the places I cut will not be coated. Not the cheapest material but it showed up on Craig's List so I went with it. I think that better quality plywood (no voids) is out there but I'm not sure if it would be better in this application.
The plywood came in 4x8 sheets so i will have to join two pieces together to make the floor. I went back and forth in my mind as to where to put the seam. Eventually I decided to put the seam as far to the driver's side as possible. Several factors lead to this decision. One was if the floor gets point loaded by something like an engine block being dropped, an unseamed area should withstand the load better than an area with a seam. The center of the floor is the most likely place for something like that to happen. Then as a secondary advantage it will be easier for me to fit up the driver's side cutouts if I'm not having to test fit a piece that is 3 foot wide. And lastly having a larger piece left over will let me use it for some steps on the front porch. So good decision or bad decision only time will tell.
After lots of measurements to make sure I didn't make myself angry right off the start I did the easy cut first. (Photo #1) Since the wood is coated on all sides I had to make a skim pass with a router on one of the long edges to make sure that the seam will have clean wood for the glue to adhere to.
Then I laid out the dimensions of the piece I just cut on the old floor piece. Once it was laid out. (Photo #2 silver line on old plywood) It was fairly easy to get the dimension of the smaller piece for the driver' side using a straight edge on the few remaining spots that had not rotted away. After cutting the smaller piece I clamped it under the old floor so I can do the layout for the wheel well and fuel fill. As you can see there is a lot of wood missing. (Photos # 2) Most of the missing areas were swept up after removal. It just fell into dust and splinters.
In order to make the wheel well I traced the one good end on to some corrugated plastic and cut a pattern. (Photo #3) Then I flipped the pattern and drew the outline on the new wood. (Photo #4)
One side note the coating material on the plywood is quite rough and hard to make pencil marks on. It just eats the lead on the pencil so the line gets fatter the farther you go. So the line is not very accurate. I tried scribing lines but found that it was difficult to see the line and even more difficult to make the scribe stay on the straight edge. I ended up using a fine ball point pen and going slow to get a reasonable line.

[HO455]

The fuel fill cut out took more quite a bit more figuring to make the pattern. I started out making a pattern of the metal cover's footprint by cutting a notch in the pattern board and holding it in place against the inner fender well. Then tracing the half circle with a Sharpie.
I then measured the width of the bolt flange on the fuel fill cover. It was 1" 7/16" wide. I laid out this measurement on each sided of the pattern (Silver writing). I measured the distance between the two marks and divided that number by 2 to get the radius of the inside of the fuel fill cover.
As there was only a small bit of the fuel fill cut out left in the old wood I took a compass and put the point on one end of the remaining wood and made an arc. I did the same on the other end. (Photo #2) The point the two arcs met was my center point for the radius of the cut out. Once the arc was drawn I connected the ends to the edge with a tri-square.
Once the two cutouts were laid out I did some measuring to compare my layout to the inside of the truck. Everything seemed to jive so I made the cuts. And after a bit of sanding to clean things up I slid the new piece into the cab and with a couple of taps it was in place. (Photo #3 & 4)

[HO455]

Next step was to joint the two pieces together. I used little wood Dominos to stiffen the joint and to help line things up when glueing the pieces together. Liberal application of glue on the joint before assembly. Tapping the two pieces together and clamping them together and down to stiffeners to keep things flat.

Earlier I had stated I was going to wait until the floor was reassembled to get the new rear shocks. But after taking a second look at the suspension I realized that it wasn't going to make a difference as the bumpstops didn't deform when I bounced on the tailgate. So the shocks got installed. Here is a photo of the new shocks installed in their more vertical position.

[04ls1gto]

Originally Posted by HO455

Next step was to joint the two pieces together. I used little wood Dominos to stiffen the joint and to help line things up when glueing the pieces together. Liberal application of glue on the joint before assembly. Tapping the two pieces together and clamping them together and down to stiffeners to keep things flat.

Earlier I had stated I was going to wait until the floor was reassembled to get the new rear shocks. But after taking a second look at the suspension I realized that it wasn't going to make a difference as the bumpstops didn't deform when I bounced on the tailgate. So the shocks got installed. Here is a photo of the new shocks installed in their more vertical position.

Looks nice, that plywood was in tough shape

[HO455]

Thanks. It didn't look nearly that bad before I started. At this point I'm pretty sure that if I had gone down 5 miles of bad washboard dirt road I wouldn't of had a floor when I stopped.

[HO455]

Maybe someone could help me as I don't have much of a pattern left. (See photo before it fell apart during disassembly) In regards to the "Key" piece that goes in the front passenger side corner. From what I have been able to learn from some of Vectorit's posts (Thank you sir!) is the piece has a tongue or groove that has a mate on the main piece. It makes sense to me for the groove to be on the main piece and the tongue on the "Key" piece. If this is true then how long is the groove on the main piece? Do I need to make it twice as long as the "Key" piece or is there enough wiggle room to only have as much groove as the"Key" needs?

And the second inquiry is about the blue sheet metal piece in the photo is there suppost to be a corresponding piece on the driver's side too?
Thank you in advance.

[richard2717]

I guess I have been asleep at the wheel on your floor postings. Had I realized your wood was in that bad a shape I could have made you a paper pattern of the entire floor and sent it to ya.

To answer your wood groove question the groove in the main floor section is just about an inch longer than the tongue in the edge board. Here are a few pics, let me know if you need any more or measurements on anything. I have two complete floors sitting here that are pretty complete.

As far as the metal strips they hold the original side panels from going to far in. they should be all the way around the floor perimeter anywhere the panels make contact. I have a whole bunch of extras if needed either for purchase or just for measurements. Probably less costly just to bend some up vs shipping cross country.

Richard

.

[HO455]

Once again thank you Richard.

[HO455]

I did a couple of final prep items before the floor gets reinstalled. Rebent one of the fuel line lines from the tank. Inspection of the body mounts showed the lower side has deformed (photo #1). I will back up the mount with these perfectly sized little plates I had sitting around and that should fix the deformation. I also took sometime to pressurize the air system and look for leaks. I did find what appeared to be a defective push on fitting fortunately I had a spare used one and it solved the problem.
I drilled as many holes as I could off of the old wood. 26 out of 56 total. Then I clamped the underside supports down and lined them up with holes that I had located from the old wood and drilled them. Now I have 34 holes done!
In order to get the holes as accurate as possible I made some bushings that fit the holes in the old wood that kept the drill bit centered in the hole. For the body mount bolt washer I inserted the bolt with the washer on it and traced the washer. (Photo #2). I had drilled the same size hole in a piece of scrap wood to make a jig then clamped it over the traced washer. (Photo #3 I marked the depth of cut with a Sharpie on the outside of the hole saw. In addition I left the plug I had previously drilled in the scrap piece inside of the hole saw as a safety to make sure I didn't accidentally drill too deep. (Photo #4)
Photo #5 shows the finished washer hole with the offset for the body mount bolt.

[HO455]

Late last night my buddy Karl came by and this (Photo #1 ) became this (Photo #2)!
I spent this morning wrestling the 2 back underside supports into position. This became quite the battle until it dawned on me that I had replaced the body bushings and had tightened them down on 50 year old rotting wood. Once I had loosened the 6 mounts for the rear of the cab and jacked it up 1/4" everything easily slid into place.
I forgot to get photos of the router work to get the "Key" piece to fit up properly. I used a tongue and groove bit set to try and match the factory work. Thanks to Richard2717 for confirming how the factory did it as I didn't have much to go by. (Photo #3). It took me a little while to figure out what was supposed to be bolted to the indented rectangle on the bottom edge, but finally I realized that was the end of the front underside support. ( Which actually is the second row seat and seat belt plate and not a support piece.) No wonder I had to loosen the body bolts with that much crush in the wood.
The last photos are the "Key" piece.

[HO455]

I drilled out one of the old bolts to make a bushing to drill the rest of the perimeter holes. The idea is to keep the drill bit from damaging the new paint. In order to finish the holes I will need to get a extra long bit to do the bolts along the fender wells.
The last steps of making the "Key" piece were started. Using more of the corrugated plastic board I made a pattern. (Photos #1 & 2). Then it was a matter of transfering the pattern to piece I had previously started. And the last photo is the finished "Key.

[HO455]

Good weather today so I got the rear angle piece drilled, countersunk, and painted. First step was to make another drill guide out of one of the old bolts to be sure I was getting a centered hole drilled in the square hole. As I marked the holes from the old piece I noticed that they are not all the same distance apart from each other. From the right the first four holes are the same distance apart. Then there is an odd distance and the last two holes are yet a different distance apart. Also the first hole on the right is not countersunk and is for a 5/16" carriage head. The first picture shows the old piece upside down on the new piece with the drill guide. The second photo shows the set up to drill the last holes. The arrow shows the index pin used to ensure everything stayed lined up as the holes were drilled.
Once marked I drilled each of the countersunk holes with a 3/16" drill and then used the countersink die I fabricated earlier. On this material the countersinks were not as crisp as before but completely acceptable to me. (Photos #3 & 4)
One side note about the countersinks is that they do cause the angle to get a slight curve to it. The last photo is supposed to illustrate that.

[HO455]

I ran a tap through all the holes that have fixed nuts in the spare tire well. When I was wire wheeling and chasing the threads on the bolts for the spare tire well I was pleased to see all the bolts had a good coating of POR-15 on the end of the bolt. (Photo #1) This was a result of the void painting I did during the first pages of this repair thread. It was one of those things that you hope it did what you wanted it to but unless you cut it apart you don't know for sure.
Then I had to countersink the holes in the new plywood so the rear angle would sit flush. I couldn't find any countersink bits that matched the angle of the countersinks. So to get as close of a fit as possible it was mostly carved by hand. The first step was to draw the outside dimension. (Photo 2 red circle) Then drill a smaller countersink of the wrong angle to the needed depth. (Photo 2 green circle) Then I used a box knife to carve the rest to the proper shape. (Photo #2 blue circle). Photo three is the best photo I got of a finished countersink. It's not much of a picture. The same goes for photo four. It is the countersink bit that has too steep of an angle. From what I was able to find locally countersink bits all seem to be 45 degrees and the countersink on the rear angle is about 35 degrees.
One last step was to shave the sharp 90 degree edge off the corner of the plywood. The angle doesn't have a matching sharp bend. It is more of a very small radius. To get the angle to fit flush the top edge needs to be rounded off. I rounded the edge with a couple of passes with a small block plane. My first try was to sand it off with some 150 grit sandpaper, but the non-skid coating just laughed at my sandpaper.

[HO455]

Long day yesterday on the C-10 Ab Blaster. With all the pieces finished it was time to bolt it all down. First thing to do was jack the body back up off the mounts about 1/2" in the rear. This allows the underside support channels to be moved about easily. Then it was time to put bolts in all the holes (with the nuts and washers loose) and make sure everything lined up. Then I installed the spare tire well with the bolts loose.

For the most part things went well, a couple of holes weren't perfect and I had to run a drill down to get things to line up. The biggest error was on the rear angle piece. The non countersunk hole on the passenger side has a square hole and it has to line up with a square hole in the spare tire well. Not only was I off in location I was 45 degrees off in orientation. (Photo #1 red arrow) I didn't realize the two holes shared a bolt. (The green piece needs to slide down so all three holes line up) huh

Now the main piece of the floor was located it was time to test fit the "Key". It is supposed to slide from inside the fender well forward in a groove in the main piece and a sheet metal channel on the outboard side. Hopefully the photos will explain this better than I am. The last photo shows it in installed. I did have a bit of modification to the Key as there was an odd bit of sheet metal in the outboard channel that interfered with how the piece fit. I'm assuming it was some poor fit up issue from when the truck was assembled. Adding to my feelings that I have a Monday or a Friday truck. Ten minutes with a chisel and it was good to go.

After everything was finally right so I worked my way around (like it appeared the factory did) inside of the perimeter applying the sealer. I used Dap 230 in Almond as it seemed to be a close match to the surface color of the plywood. By prying the flange up with a thin pry bar it was easy to squirt the sealer in the gap. The spare tire well got sealer on all seams. When I did the final install on the " Key" I put the sealer on the lower half of the tongue and groove. I didn't want it too "glued down" if I ever have to remove it. I also coated the insides of the holes for the underside support channels and the holes for the body mount bolts with the sealer.

Then it was time to dive underneath and tighten all the nuts. It was time consuming but it sure was nice to have the nice light colored floor. It makes it so much easier to see things from below. Too bad it won't stay that way.
I did manage to twist off one of the 1/4-20 wide head carriage bolts. I know I bought a spare of each bolt but it was nowhere to be found when I needed it.
Now the wood was in place I replaced the body mounts and dropped the body back down on the frame and tightened the bolts up. My bright idea to put a doubler on the back of the lower half of the mounts fell through as the bolts were not long enough. I did find some extra heavy duty thick washers to replace the ones the mounts came with.

[HO455]

More photos of the installed floor.

[HO455]

You may have noticed that I did not have the front angle piece installed. That's because I am also replacing the factory second row seat with a second row seat out of a square body Burban.
Here are some photos of the squarebody seats as I removed them.
The idea is to be able to haul stuff like plywood without having to remove the second row seat and stash it somewhere when I need the extra cargo space. Just fold the seat bottoms forward and the seat backs flop forward and are flush with the rear floor.

[HO455]

First off the new seat needed to be centered in the truck. (Photo #1) When I measured the width of the seat backs when mounted on hinge, the latch loops stuck out too far. About 65 1/2 inches and the door frames (real and imaginary) are only 65 1/16 inches (Photos #2 & 3) Fortunately the loops have about 7/16" of shims under each side and after they were removed the seat backs would then fit between the door frames. (Photo #4)

Now that I knew the seats would fit I measured the hinge and found it's center point. Then I measured the distance between the door frames and marked the center point on the edge of the new floor just before the drop off. I then lined the two center points up and screwed the hinge down with two small screws. I now needed to know the exact center between the two seat backs so I could line up the center base piece that the seat bottom bases sit on. By measuring the gap between the two pieces of the hinge for the backs (see photo #1)
I now was able to mark the floor knowing the center base would be centered on that mark. There was a bit of head scratching as the center base piece is in now way square or true. So a close approximation of its center line was decided on. And that was lined up with the mark on the floor. (Last photo red arrow)

[HO455]

Now the problem is making the center base actually bolt to the floor. Our Burbans have a pair of bumps in the floor pan for body mount bushings and the one on the passenger side is where the base needs to bolt down. (Photo #1).
Photos #2 & 3 show the bump and the center base and the issue of getting it bolted down. The last photo shows the area to be removed on the right hand side of the photo.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

Now the problem is making the center base actually bolt to the floor. Our Burbans have a pair of bumps in the floor pan for body mount bushings and the one on the passenger side is where the base needs to bolt down. (Photo #1).
Photos #2 & 3 show the bump and the center base and the issue of getting it bolted down. The last photo shows the area to be removed on the right hand side of the photo.

Looks like the new floor should quiet things down a little bit.

After you remove the metal on the seat bracket can you weld a flat plate across that area?

Lookin' good.....

LockDoc

[HO455]

Thanks Leon. Quieter would be good. I can hear a difference when I shut the doors at this point. I hopefully will get it out on a test run today or tomorrow.
Here is what it looks like trimmed off. (#1 photo) And I made this little block to bolt to the floor and to the bolt hole on the bottom. (#2 photo)
I hadn't planned on welding a plate. I only see the bracket as holding the seat base up. Am I missing something?