Starting the Cab

A lot of play. The bottom hinge is similar.

I have finally started on repairing rust in the cab, and there's a lot of it.

A week ago Thursday I removed the drivers side door, removing the hinge bolts from the door, and then setting it out of the way. I held the door up with a block of wood and a jack during this process. Once the door was off, I confirmed my suspicion that the hinges had a lot pf play in them.  Thanks to some shiny new pins and bushings, I'll be able to take care of that!

Front/rear hinge adjustment.

Inside the door pillar there is a movable plate, which is free to slide back and forth. This is what the hinge bolts to (each hinge has its own plate), allowing for forward/rearward adjustment of the door. Upward/downward adjustment is made possible by the vertically slotted bolt holes in the hinge itself. On this door, the top plate is free to move (shown at right), but the bottom was welded in place during some previous owner's repair.

I removed the top hinge and proceeded to drive out the hinge pin, which was a challenge. No matter which way I clamped it in the vise, either the head of the pin was resting on something, or the whole hinge would just rotate in the vise when hammered. I ended up driving it out on the anvil of the vise, a process that really required three hands (one each for the hinge, punch, and hammer). For the bottom hinge, I'm going to try a different approach- I'm going to bolt it upside-down back on the truck. I'm also going to try beveling the end of the pin, so in case it gets mushroomed by a misdirected blow, it will still fit through the hole. But first I'm soaking the hinge in PB Blaster for a few days. Can't hurt.

Which brings us neatly to this past week's efforts. I removed the bottom hinge and removed the previously mentioned repair by cutting the added patch off. Then I could get a feel for the condition of the door pillar. I decided to try to remove the rocker panel to see if I could work out where one of my patch panels go, and it just went from there.





The only other effort I have to report is some sanding down through old paint layers. I really just wanted to see how much paint is on this thing. It turns out that the drivers door is not original (what a shocker), because it doesn't have any of the factory green paint.

The door's got black factory primer, brown, orange, grey primer, white (color at time of putchase), and blue.














The cab's got some factory primer (which I didn't bother to sand down to), factory light green, orange, grey primer, white, and blue. There's a lot less paint here than was on those '68 rear fenders that were on the truck before. (One of them still is, I guess.)










From here, I plan to do some repairs to the door pillar so I can re-hang the door. Then I can fit the other patch panels (floor panels, rocker panels, latch pillar, cab corner, etc) around the door, so it operates correctly. It would be pretty frustrating if the door didn't close.

Bigger picture, I'm keeping the truck in the garage until the back fence is built (should be done by next weekend) and I get the garage cleaned out and new cabinets installed (maybe a months project). Then the truck will have to be evicted to the driveway with plastic over it so I can do some much needed repairs to my daily driver. I hate to do it, but I need my car. Hopefully the repairs won't take more than a week- I'm going to hold off on a full restoration until after the truck is done. So maybe never.

April 26th, 2009

Looks like I haven't mentioned in any of my posts that earlier this year, I took a weekend and pulled out the old sheet aluminum that some of us had installed on the floor ten years or so ago, when the truck was in operation. It was the remains of an old sign, cut up, banged into rough shape, and affixed over the worst areas of the floor with screws and pop-rivets. Hundreds of pop-rivets. At any rate, I took it all out, mostly with an angle grinder, to assess the damage. Have a look.





Left- This was taken looking in the passenger side window. Yes, that's daylight. Looks like the bottom of the door post is gone, as well as the top of the rocker panel. Well, I guess because it is.

Below- This is between the drivers side seat and the door. The seat mounts are further inboard, resting on more solid metal.

....Mostly.

 

Before I installed the aluminum, people were actually afraid to ride in my truck, for some reason. The plan is to get a MIG welder (since the fine Craftsman stick welder my roommate scavenged from his dad's garage tends to blow holes in thinner metals) and buy some replacement floorboards from my LMC Truck catalog. This is an excellent source of parts (I have used them before). Plus, the exploded diagrams have offered a few clues as to how the truck was put together, though it's no substitute for a real factory or shop manual. I intend to get one, they tend to run around $30 online.