Kell's Two Cents - 1946 build

[gokellurself]

Originally Posted by paintman

Hey Kell! Can I ask who you bought your gasket from for your window in the back of the cab? Your flange on the outside looks alot bigger then the one I got from Steele. I am having an impossible time getting my glass in. Thanks,the Paintman!

Hey whats up Paintman, yeah I had to double check but I found it through Jim Carter. Do you have the old style rear window? I went through the 41 vs 46 comparisons and every sign points to me having a 41 cab

good luck though, here's the link
http://www.oldchevytrucks.com/cart/p...2&i=10930|||||

[gokellurself]

what's going on fellas, I got some updates

I could ignore it no longer so I finally picked up a Lokar E brake the other day on Ebay, got a decent deal on it because he bought it and ended up not using it on his project.

The kit comes fully adjustable but I still added holes to get it exactly where I wanted. This portion of the install couldn't have been easier really, but a bit nerve wracking drilling bolt holes into already painted dash lol I haven't ran any cables yet but here it is

[gokellurself]

I meant to post this a while back, but I came up with a secondary gas tank! Key's stuck in the cap so I'm just gonna leave it there lol







I really just wanted to fill the filler hole, so this was perfect.

I was at the point where my floor, steering, and brake all had to come together at once, so I enlisted the help of a friend for a few tasks because I didn't feel like doing it lol plus couldn't bare to have to own the hack job that would then ensue! After staying in his ear he finally had a few days open up for me and he came and picked it up.



Needed a minor trans hump on the floor. I forgot to snap a photo of the underside but it's super clean with rolled edges and the whole deal. I'll make sure to get it next time, I'm really happy about it.

[gokellurself]

I needed to finalize the Lokar shifter I had begun a while back so I got that pretty much dialed in. I can get the floor piece in and out with the shifter still in place, but it doesn't seem that I can get it in with the steering column in place. Oh well, here's the photos

[gokellurself]

Onto the steering.. he made me a nice little column clamp and got me all routed to the box. I understand the column saver collar is supposed to go inside the column, but we ran it at the base instead

[gokellurself]

It seems like a pretty basic linkage setup but man it's still tight in there...

It should be noted too that running a 3" drop axle like I am throws off how the power steering box to upper steering arm are in relation, bringing them much closer together. The steering arm has minimal clearance.. It will move with the suspension and only has about an inch clearance when sitting at rest. I'm going to pick up this drop arm and see how much clearance I can get and take it from there.





The brake pedal setup from Progressive Automotive (makers of the X-Member) comes up right at the steering column. My buddy gave it a quick bend and got me coming up at a nice location I can work with.







All in all these were pretty big steps for me. I have a ton of little work to do and bringing the whole thing together, but it sure feels like it's getting there. I'll catch y'all soon

[paintman]

Originally Posted by gokellurself

Hey whats up Paintman, yeah I had to double check but I found it through Jim Carter. Do you have the old style rear window? I went through the 41 vs 46 comparisons and every sign points to me having a 41 cab

good luck though, here's the link
http://www.oldchevytrucks.com/cart/p...2&i=10930|||||

Hmmmmm, I'm still confused. Your's has the inner trim piece that screws to the cab and holds the gasket in place? Is that why yours doesn't look like it has a seam and is one piece? Yours just looks alot bigger on the outside then mine. Maybe i will post up a pic over on my thread later today. Thanks Well!

[joedoh]

wow a lot of work in a short time! nice joerb

Originally Posted by gokellurself

I went through the 41 vs 46 comparisons and every sign points to me having a 41 cab

hey we could trade, my serial and title is 1941 but everything points to it being a 46 (rear glass, headliner, turn signals, dash knobs, outside key).

I think a lot of body part swapping went on in the 40s and 50s. I read that, during the war, farmers who were used to replacing their trucks every 2 years (because they didnt last much longer than that in hard use) had to keep these going, wartime production stopped in early 42 and didnt start again until late 45, so a 41 would have almost 5 years work on it by 46 when new trucks were finally available. add to that scrap drives for metal and its amazing anything is left from 41 and earlier.

[gokellurself]

Originally Posted by paintman

Hmmmmm, I'm still confused. Your's has the inner trim piece that screws to the cab and holds the gasket in place? Is that why yours doesn't look like it has a seam and is one piece? Yours just looks alot bigger on the outside then mine. Maybe i will post up a pic over on my thread later today. Thanks Well!

Yeah man I just read thru that rear window thread we had a while back and sounds like you have a bit of a mystery going on. Post up a pic when you can

For mine the screws pass through the big rear interior piece, through the cab, through the rubber then screws into the outside bezel. I know the 41 window is slightly bigger. Hope this helps

[gokellurself]

Originally Posted by joedoh

hey we could trade, my serial and title is 1941 but everything points to it being a 46 (rear glass, headliner, turn signals, dash knobs, outside key).

I think a lot of body part swapping went on in the 40s and 50s. I read that, during the war, farmers who were used to replacing their trucks every 2 years (because they didnt last much longer than that in hard use) had to keep these going, wartime production stopped in early 42 and didnt start again until late 45, so a 41 would have almost 5 years work on it by 46 when new trucks were finally available. add to that scrap drives for metal and its amazing anything is left from 41 and earlier.

That's interesting to know too cause getting the truck back from my buddy the other day he's like "hey you know you have a 47 bed right?" I found the specs online and sure enough he was right! The beds are nearly identical with the exception of the tailgate and the 47 bed being an 1 1/2" wider. In practice however it's a PITA because it throws off how the bed, rear fender and running board all come together... I'll post some pics too but I can't switch the bed because it would throw off the whole patina... lol after 75 years it'd be a surprise if any of them were truly all original

[gokellurself]

So I was over at the house today messing with the truck a little bit.. I gotta say, I looked over my "to purchase" list today and for the first time ever in this build it finally felt like "hey, not bad!" Every time you knock something off the list you add 10 things to it. I've got a lot to do, but really starting to get down to the end here

I had my guy over at the hydraulic shop make me some transmission cooling lines for the 700R4. I could have bought them pre-made but I only found them in 7' lengths and didn't like the idea of coiling up all the excess. I was so juiced to see how they fit that I never got photos of them before installing.. they look close to the exhaust but that's just an angle, there's plenty of room

[gokellurself]

In other news I was back over at my favorite old timer's junk yard the other day and pulled a complete set of headliner trim pieces out of that orange truck that he had (grille is still there btw). Nice to find it all in one place.. I'll strip them down and get them in black before getting them in

Brake pedal showed up so I messed around with the little bracket and got it to a spot that I think should work. Getting the pedal kinda finalized I finally pulled a definitive measurement for the connecting rod to the brake booster and am getting that thing going, so standby for updates. Ran the brake booster vacuum to the back of the carburetor.

Also, I had my original battery tray and figured I'd get it to work but finally sacked up and ordered this nice little set up. Gonna pick up a battery and get this thing mounted finally.










Small update but moving along... catch you guys later

[gokellurself]

alright alright, solid day on the truck and more to come. here's a few updates

Spark plug wires were on the headers, so I went with an ounce of prevention and threw these heat shields on.

The 700R4 had electronic speedo so I found some guys on Ebay who sell the full mechanical conversion kit for $90. They verify with you what gears you need and also give you one free gear trade in the future if you ever change tires or your rear end. The gear on the tailshaft was metal and pressed on, so once I was able to pull that off the rest is pretty straight forward.

I promised some photos of the metal work my buddy did for my floor so while I had it out today I got a few pics. I'm really glad I had him do it because theres no way I could have pulled out a clean final product such as he.

[gokellurself]

The other week while underneath the truck scoping out the speedo gears I noticed the trans crossmember that came with the progressive X-member was sagging. Really threw me off cause I mean this truck hasn't even seen use yet.. I haven't called to see if they've been experiencing this with others but I decided to try strengthening it myself a little bit. I pulled it and it straightened out pretty easily, and stitched strips of plate on. I'll keep an eye on it but seems a lot beefier now

I really want to get the truck ready to be wired so while I had the welder out I welded the battery tray on. I really think it was the best spot for it, any where else on the truck seemed really out of place so this was perfect. Not imaged, I also tacked a bolt to the frame for a good grounding spot. Of course all this means stripping the frame down and recoating it once I was done welding... I think I fully understand now the benefit and value of building to mechanical completion before doing a final tear down and getting everything out to get coated... I guess you build and you learn

Speaking of learning, I knew soon as I saw my big ass aluminum driveshaft that it wasn't what I had had in mind, but I went with it anyways. I didn't like it and the clearance seemed too close for comfort so I took it back to the shop and had them just build me one using my yoke and U-joints that I already had. Went from a 5" aluminum to a 2 3/4" steel and am a lot happier with how things are looking.

















I'm hoping to be back on it Sunday and should have a few other updates by then if that ends up happening. Things keep moving right along

[solidaxel]

Have you given any thought of tac welding the 90* adapter for the brake pad to the brake arm. Under VERY hard braking you may be able to twist that pad up and lose your effort on the brakes, just say'n

[gokellurself]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

Have you given any thought of tac welding the 90* adapter for the brake pad to the brake arm. Under VERY hard braking you may be able to twist that pad up and lose your effort on the brakes, just say'n

Yeah man I definitely think that's what I'll be doing once I finalize the rod to the booster. As part of the kit Progressive builds the connecting rod for you once you hit them with a dimension, so I'm waiting on that then I suspect that I'll be needing to trim the brake arm back a little bit once I see exactly where it's going to end up. I'll throw a little weld on it at that point. Thanks Solid, nice catch

[gokellurself]

alright fellas, I was back at it

I got into running all new E-brake cables today. I thought I had a slam dunk with it until I realized that I don't seem to have the right clevis for the hand brake? It threw my off because as I was mounting it under the dash a couple weeks ago I was messing with it and thought that I had everything I needed.. Today I start at the back and work my way forward and by the time I'm in the cab about to finalize the brake lever I realized it wasn't right one. I gotta look around one more time to make sure that's the only one I have, then a call to Lokar's in order. Otherwise the cables went alright

I got a few parts coated, steering column, transmission mount, and got all those back in. The transmission mount really seems a lot sturdier so I'm thinking I'm going to be ok with that. I mounted the gas pedal, mounted and ran remote reservoir for the brakes, installed some seat belts, threw in my battery and installed the driveshaft.

Seems like a bunch of minor stuff on the to do list, gonna keep at it and try to get this thing going. Let me know what y'all think

[gokellurself]

[gokellurself]

ok so I spoke with Lokar today and they were happy to send me another clevis bracket if I just sent them over some batch information off of the box. I stopped by the house to get photos of what they needed but I just wanted to look all through my stuff and confirm I didn't have it before having them send it out. And sure enough I found it at the bottom of one of my parts boxes. I knocked it out real quick so I could finally get the check mark on my to do list

[paintman]

Kell you have pm from the paintman!.....................

[gokellurself]

Hey guys, so I'll be slowly going thru and converting my thread to Flickr... there's just too much work here for me to forfeit a loss to PB so F em. I've started but it takes some time. Now let's hope Flickr doesn't change up in any short time as well

Anyways, I could really use some input today. I have all my windshield stuff finally. I've had my glass for a while and it had some real nice rubber seal around the whole edge, but now that the frame is here I find that it won't slide into the frame along with the seal to save a life. What is the rubber sealant stuff that you guys use? Is there a write up or anything?

The frame is bare metal and I don't know what to do... Get a fresh coat on it? Leave it bare metal for now? Scuff it up and rust it out with muriatic acid? Honestly I was open to getting a good patina on it with the latter option but with a brand new frame I don't know if I can quite bring myself to do it.. Similarly, I'm not sure if I want a nice patina on the truck and then a freshly coated windshield frame... What do you guys think? Idk which way to go

Also Paintman thanks for the wiring info. Looking at all the options I ended up going with American Autowire as well. They were a bit more expensive but it was such a thorough kit that I think by the time I gathered everything else that it came with it really it would have been about the same amount, and it's just so simple how they have it set up. Standby for the wiring walkthrough, I'm looking to spend a good long weekend on it and enjoy taking my time on it

Anyways, thanks guys let me know what you think. take it easy

[CSHADES]

You need to make the frame fit the truck first before anything else. I would suggest painting it. You can always do some fake patina on it if you really want to. I don't remember what color your truck is/was but what I would suggest is spraying some primer on the frame then whatever paint is close to what you want, then after it dries just scuff the paint until you break through to the primer. it will have protection on the frame but still look older than what it is.

[paintman]

Hey Kell! check out post 349 on my build thread before the pics go down. It details how I did my windshield. Originaly I took my frame and glass to a glass shop here in town to see if they would set the glass. They took one look at it and ran for the hills! They did give me some pointers though. First thing they said was don't try and use glass setting tape around the entire piece of glass. You will never get the glass to slide in. Just use 3-4 small pieces to space the glass out away from the frame.

[gokellurself]

Originally Posted by CSHADES

You need to make the frame fit the truck first before anything else. I would suggest painting it. You can always do some fake patina on it if you really want to. I don't remember what color your truck is/was but what I would suggest is spraying some primer on the frame then whatever paint is close to what you want, then after it dries just scuff the paint until you break through to the primer. it will have protection on the frame but still look older than what it is.

CSHADES man thank you, idk how I blanked on the fauxtina idea but that's gotta be the way to go. I appreciate that sir, thank you

Originally Posted by paintman

Hey Kell! check out post 349 on my build thread before the pics go down. It details how I did my windshield. Originaly I took my frame and glass to a glass shop here in town to see if they would set the glass. They took one look at it and ran for the hills! They did give me some pointers though. First thing they said was don't try and use glass setting tape around the entire piece of glass. You will never get the glass to slide in. Just use 3-4 small pieces to space the glass out away from the frame.

Paintman always coming through! I remember when you originally posted the windshield posts and thinking how valuable those were gonna be to me, then I up and forget all about them 11 months later! That's perfect man, thanks so much

Updates to come, thanks again fellas

[joedoh]

I ran for the hills when I saw how much work putting a windshield together was too, bought mine from bowtie bits completely assembled except the seal. props to you for assembling one yourself, I paid as fast as I could for the assembled unit.