47-55.1 Project "Bickle" 1948 1/2 ton 4.3 4l60e

[8man]

I love seeing all those parts! Having help in the shop is a real luxury.

[oldman3]

Kool...Jim

[joedoh]

no progress, I was sucking out the interior with the shop vac thursday and noticed the cab corners were still mostly full of wet muck. I had a bad feeling about it and changed tactics. I got the pressure washer and shot it down through the brace holes (this is a 48 so it has the reinforced inner sidewalls with what looks like a 6x9 opening in them, the only access to the cab corners).

my first inkling of trouble was that no matter how much I sprayed water would only trickle out of the 1" hole in the bottom. I wiggled the wand and eventually was rewarded with....

have you ever seen korean boba/bubble tea? it is an iced milk tea drink that has chewy balls of tapioca starch in it and a big straw to drink it all with. my daughter likes it and says I would too, but I have never tried and never will now because thats EXACTLY what came shooting out the drain hole, opaque brown water and rat poop.



there must have been 5 lbs of it in each corner, alternately plugging and clearing that drain hole, spluttering and shooting out like a malfunctioning drink dispenser. I made sure to wash it all down the driveway so it wouldnt bake and get pulverized by tires, turning into dust that would make everyone sick.

then I went to visit greg with the 52, I finished up the firewall and got the column mounted, need just a spit of closeout work on the firewall and the steering shaft u joints id'd and my part is done... but I feel badly for him because: last trip I told him to mount the exhaust manifolds so I could plan out the parts needed. his truck uses the ford style pedestal mounts, I had thought maybe it was mounted a tad low and forward because there was not trans tunnel to speak of, I expected a little bit at least. turns out the exhaust manifolds were off because they dont fit the frame, it would need a bunch of cutting. I am sad for him and I will help, but his "driving by summer" plan is getting more and more unlikely.

[twinshadows]

mmmmmmmm …….. yummmmy ………

kinda sad to here about Greg's truck ; after the body work & primer .

it does look sharp at this point .

[doowoppwer]

lookin' good. roger

[BIGglaSS]

Jeez, I take a couple months off, and you damn near built another truck. Nice work!

[joedoh]

thanks BG, I hope to be done soon. lots of work going on, spent a day doing AC at the rental yesterday.

today I tackled the bent cowl. this truck isnt very rusty but the door swang around in ks wind for a long time so the drivers cowl was smashed and the door jamb all out of alignment. I cut off the old cowl below the upper splice and then found all the spotwelds. the part under the hood had about 10, musta been a new guys first day.



i pulled the jamb back to roughly square from the 70 degrees it had been, and used poboy clecos (self tapping screws) to hold the mockup, looked ok but the jamb was still out of whack.



so I used the kansas body machine (ratchet straps to a solid object) to hold it while I welded it all up




pretty satisfying to go from wallered and banging to nice and clean.

[8man]

Ain't it! I know that feeling.

[Palf70Step]

Nice work. Never thought of that body tool, I'll have to add one to my tool box

[oldman3]

Russ, nice repair job...Jim

[Gregski]

really enjoying this thread - wish we was neighbors, ha ha

Aces High !!!

[dsraven]

ratchet straps are great, same for the cam lock style. I have a big bin full of varios types, lengths and hook designs. I use them to hold brake calipers when doing brake jobs, holding doors up (hung from ceiling) when replacing hinge pins/bushings, bringing edges together on panels when fabbing stuff up etc etc. sometimes I even use them to hold a load down in the truck, lol.
cam locks work great for light stuff you wanna hold with one hand while the other hand lets the strap release, like a brake caliper or a driveshaft. ratchets are good for holding a heavier load or taking up a certain amount of slack a bit at a time. even the old rubber bungee can be super handy at times, like keeping the shop door open so it doesn't slam shut when ventilating the primer stink out of the work area.
great use of what you have on hand Joedoh.

[joedoh]

I wish we were neighbors too, all of you guys. I ran the install bay at a car audio shop for a while and it was a hangout for the boom guys and minitruckers and even the ricers. my boss argued that theft would be rampant and to shut it down, but we self policed as a group and nothing ever came up missing, and business skyrocketed because the place looked like a car show every weekend. it taught me that most people are good, and enough good people would keep the bad away, and that having fun and making friends was the key to success. there was a lot of hard work too, dont misunderstand, but fun, friends, and hard work all went hand in hand, in the right proportions.


raven I use them all the time too. my brother got a bunch at an auction and mailed them to me, 3 boxes of 12ea, all pretty and new!

[oldman3]

[QUOTE=joedoh;8715005]I wish we were neighbors too, all of you guys. [QUOTE]

Felt the same way...Jim

[gbruce]

Nice stuff!!

If there’s a list for getting a Conversion kit but me on it!!!

I have a line on a few 83 S-10s. Any thing to watch out for?? Or reasons not to use them for a frame swap?...too old?

Bruce

[Tempest67]

Bruce, check the frame closely, just ahead of the front rear leaf spring shackle, these frames collect moisture, salt, and crud at that spot. See pic



sorry Russ, don't mean to hi-jack your thread........... and now back to 'Bickle'

[joedoh]

honestly I didnt see bruce's question, so thanks!

bruce they are pretty much the same 82-03, there are small differences in the brake lines and carrier crossmembers and frame boxing, and the early (up to about 91) motor mounts are a b and a half. I like using the 98+ donors because I use every part of the donor, like wiring and pedals and hvac, and the vortec motors are the most powerful, but really ANY year donor is good enough.

I dont sell or plan to sell mount kits, lots of companies do though so look around.

I did more work on a 98 pedal setup, thinking of going to a two piece setup because cramming the pedal box in is a fiddly chore, with a two piece the joint will be part of the dash brace and will use the column as a stressed member.




the little brace that will get welded on the bottom side is actually cut out of the upper window, waste not want not.

harbor freight has been keeping weird hours, I need to go pick up a roller stand for material on the table but this works too



I like helping out local guys with kits though, dan is killing it with his, almost roadworthy. the rear wheel looks too far back but its because there are no spacers, the wheel is sucked in about 3.5 inches.



anyway, more has been done but I dont have pictures, I will take some though.

[Tempest67]

that is a slick looking pedal set up Russ. nice

looks like you are having fun with that table.

[OutlawDrifter]

Russ, that is a work of art my friend!

How are things down south? We are in one of the few counties that has no reported cases...knock on wood!

[Rusti]

Wow man. That fabrication is more than perfect. Just amazing work.
So long
Arnd

[joedoh]

thanks rusti!

marc the rona is not much at all here, only the really elderly are getting sick and the great majority recover without hospitalization.

I started laying out my plan for the column mount on the pedal bracket. unlike a normal GM "through column", the 98+ stuff is 100% mounted inside to dash brackets, a two point mount with an upper (roughly) horizontal mount like older GM columns and a lower (roughly) vertical mount. only the DD shaft goes through the firewall so no bottom bracket for stability. the top bracket doesnt quite mount to the lower dash, so no loop mounts.

I decided to see if I could break it up in two parts, have the upper mount interface at the dash and the lower mount on the pedal bracket, using the column as a sort of stressed member (not really under any stress, but thats what they call such an arrangement) between the two mounts. I whipped up a folding mount and cut it.




the hole in the middle is because the column has a "bump" there, it mounts more than flat. you can also see I offset the column 0.75 to center it on the gauges.

unfortunately, I couldnt get any angle on the column like this, and it was too low and far out of the dash. time for prototype two.

I wasnt having any luck with my "wings" on the pedal bracket mating to the dash, because of the original column cutout only one side really hit the dash, and a redesign was needed. I decided that I would make a receiver mount at the dash that the pedal bracket would bolt to, then a third bracket with the column mounts that would bolt to both.




success! the pedal bracket needs the matching holes drilled, but I have to put in the booster angle plate I designed first, the pedal bracket is still a couple degrees down. for the future I will make the holes integral to new parts, but for this one, trimming and drilling to match is a nice return to my roots haha.

you might have noticed the little finger mount on top, its to pick up the dash brace. it may seem overkill to add another attachment point but I have been in a lot of trucks where the steering column felt like it was attached with marshmallows, and pressure would wiggle it in its mounts. I dont like that feeling, and this also stiffens the brake pedal bracket so pushing on the brakes doesnt go through the firewall.

more soon! Oh I cleaned out the dash, getting the gauges out was a super treat.

[olcarguy]

Sweet!

[LT7A]

I'm enjoying watching and I marvel at your spaceships, robot faces, and Transformer parts that you cut on your table. I found my way here courtesy Gregski from the shout-out he gave you in his thread. I spend most of my time on the Square side, but like seeing cool trucks of all types being built so thanks for posting.

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by LT7A

I'm enjoying watching and I marvel at your spaceships, robot faces, and Transformer parts that you cut on your table. I found my way here courtesy Gregski from the shout-out he gave you in his thread. I spend most of my time on the Square side, but like seeing cool trucks of all types being built so thanks for posting.

hey you are welcome, I have fun for sure and I am glad people like to read my scrivening.


so I share my garage currently, I get the majority of it but there are things that have to be in the garage and there is a small amount of traffic. I run a usb extension to the table and if I am set up after bedtime I leave it hooked for the morning.

well in that short overnight, someone caught the usb cable with their foot. it was probably me, as I was sleeping, because everyone else is denying all knowledge. in the morning the table wouldnt 'jog', which is moving it slightly with hand controls, here is why.



I thought about calling for a replacement breakout board, but I spent about 10 years fixing electronics so what the heck, I found an old dvd player with a USB port and desoldered twice and resoldered once. good to go.



mom in law has been demanding work at the rental. she didnt like the siding primer color so now its blue with white trim, and she didnt like the tiny deck so now its a 10x10. garage door installed, HVAC hooked, more gravel and more everything really.

in between I have been on V2.0-V6.0 of the pedal bracket. I really want this to be a couple hour thing to install, pedals and column are the long pole on the swap body is relatively easy comparatively. so I am trying to make it as close to plug and play as possible. moving the pedal through bolt around to make sure its far enough from the firewall for a good stroke, low enough to be close to the floor so your foot doesnt go under it. my last version has a couple problems, least of which was that, with all the other changes I had made, the booster rod was at an angle coming to the pedal. usable, but still unacceptable. this is the best pic I have of the problem.



the pedal is also not far enough from the rod, needing a height change and angle-to-firewall change. so here is pedal assembly V6.1, hopefully the last one I design from mostly scratch.





and here it is with the stackup, including the firewall insert that makes it all possible.




it all bolts to the dash bracket I made earlier, so tomorrow I will put it all together for a MOCK up, and if 'alles es gut' I will weld it up.

[8man]

I wish I knew more about CAD design. Maybe in another life...