coW52Dodge

A while ago I replaced most my brake lines except the ones in the back - they looked pretty new. Since I am about to put the bed back on, I thought I'd give it a quick check. Well, I found a bit of brake fluid bleed out of one of the fittings. It is a 1/4" line and fitting going into another brass fitting that's, in turn, is threaded into the wheel cylinder. The previous owner cross threaded them both. I went to the local FLAPs, including NAPA, and could not score a replacement conversion fitting. Could anyone tell me where I could get one? Edit: here's a picture of the fitting in question: [

I bought Mar-K's bolt kit as well but haven't taken inventory of it. So it has enough bolts for one to bolt it into the sides, then? I wonder why they didn't poke holes into the angle irons: It has holes for the area that meets up with the wood but not the sides - for them, it would be an easy thing to do..

Oh, I got it but am immune to glue jokes at this point: In the vintage aircooled VW community, of which I'm part as well, there's an ongoing joke to use Henry's roofing tar as the magic fix for everything: Leaky windows? Caulk them with roofing tar. Engine drops oil? Drop some roofing tar in the filler tube. Pin holes in the floor boards? Slather them with roofing tar. Talking about a 'lifetime' repair - it will only technically fix the car for life because it will not last long after that. I'm hoping noobies don't listen to any of this advice.

Not sure if I want to glue the actual irons because, should it ever need to come apart, it will be a nightmare. Your glue idea (epoxy?) could maybe work in holding studs to the bed sides, drill a hole in the angle irons and hold them in place with a washer and nut. Of course, those studs could also be migged in but that will very likely mess my paint on the outside up.

My originals were welded. My replacements are high polished stainless steel so welding them would mess them up, unfortunately. I'll follow your suggestion to see how they'll hold up, not attached to the sides.

Thanks! After looking at it a bit more, I'm wondering whether I should bolt the L shaped strips on each side of the wood bed to the bed sides. These Mar-K strips seem to want to float because they don't have holes on the side that's normally spot welded to the bed sides. If I drill holes and bolt them into the sides, would it benefit the stiffness of the bed or should I just leave it alone?

Okay, I played hooky from work today and took the afternoon to cut the wood to width and length and machined a rabbit into the edges. The strips stand slightly proud of the wood surface. I'm not bolting anything together until it is stained and sealed and the bed's supports are back on the truck. Its starting to come together. The bed will look way too nice for the truck, I think.

Last week, someone on ebay in my area offered a short bed with a buy-it-now price of $20. Figuring I'll need similar sheet metal at one point in my truck's life, getting it was a no brainer. His wife had been complaining so, if nobody was interested, he was just going to toss it out. The guy's tailgate has "Dodge" punched in it. Mine does not have that on its tailgate so I'm re-using that one. After looking at it, it does not seem to be in horrible shape, especially considering it's previous use was for trailer sides. It has been sitting on the guy's lawn for years. The fender bottoms are a little rough but that could possibly be fixed - they'd make for nice patch panels, should you need them. Mine is a 52 so I can't use them. The bed sites are a little pitted along the back but not in bad shape for the North East. Before I eventually start cutting, is there anything anyone here can use (besides the tail gate, of course). If so, pay for shipping and you got it. I could cut out sections, if that's what you need.

That's an incredible project. You have mad skills and it is looking great. Don't beat yourself up over not making your time line - we've all been there. For instance, I have a VW bug in the garage that I gave myself one year to do a full body off restore on. That was five years ago but it is finally getting there. When you do race, please post some video here. We would all love to see what a fast PH looks like, no doubt.

That looks beautiful, Jeff!

Since the bed is off and I've been waiting for my bed strips, I rust-bulleted the frame and cobbled up a new muffler rear pipe. The bed and cab had been rubbing so it had some surface rust in the black area. For now, I just stabilized the rust and primered it. The side that faces the cab had some dents so thought I'd bump them out. Everything went just fine until this happened: It was a hammer from a cheap HF kit but it had been with me for a while.

Thus far, it has not been a difficult job. I'm sure yours will look just as good as everyone else's, once you get to it. I cut the wood today but am waiting for the Mar-K strips to arrive to gauge the rabbit. I'd like for them to stand slightly proud of the wood. Btw, if you don't mind cutting your own wood, I highly recommend this place: http://www.hardwoodboardsource.com/. Their boards are very high quality. White oak for a new floor from that place will cost you about $200

That's^ what I looked like, less the really nice green color your truck is sporting. Some cops can be sticklers so I was worried a little bit. Luckily, the shop is only a mile down the road from me.

Thanks Mario. Let's meet up some time soon, maybe grab some lunch. This weekend isn't that great for me but next weekend would definitely work. When I took my bed off, I found two stress cracks in the frame, one on each side, right behind the cab where the cross member mounts. It looked like an old crack, something that had been there for a while but figured it should be fixed up. My welder is too tiny so rolled it to a shop to get them to throw a fat bead on it. (It felt very illicit, rolling it around without the bed and thus without rear fenders, but luckily the cops ignored me.) The guy did it for $25 - whattadeal! I'm painting the rear of the frame with RustBullet over the little time I have over this weekend, putting the bed frame back on and start putting the wood on. I'm excited.

While I like my original grill, that^ one seems to make the front grin, which is never a bad thing.

Same here. A couple of weeks ago, she was nosing around the truck, commenting how bad the cab smelled. In the truck's defense, it lived on a farm for decades and its previous occupants, generations of field mice, had made quite a mess of the seat. After I mentioned that I tried cleaning it, She suggested I get it re-upholstered, which only needed to be said to me once: I got it^ back last Friday - she since commented how the truck has a nice new car smell. That looks great, Ed. I bought various stains and sealers and will soon be experimenting with the colors on some scraps.

I'm in the process of replacing my truck's bed, since it had totally rotted out. Last week I received some really high quality white oak and hardware: I'll have to rip it with width and cut it to length, along with cutting a rabbit into it. I guess I'll wait with the holes until I lay it on the bed. My wife, after walking around a car show a week or two back, wants me to stain it light. I was going to stain the wood black but who am I to argue with her? With the aid of some lumber and other redneck best engineering practices, I wrestled the bed off my truck last weekend: I want to paint the frame and some of the bottom of the bed with rustbullet - that's always served me well for protection. In the process, I did find two cracks in the frame, right behind the cab, where the bed's cross member rests. There's a notch to accept a frame cross member that must have slowly tore. Had they radiused the notch, it wouldn't have been a problem, I suspect. That will be fixed before the bed goes back on. It must have had an issue at one time because someone patched that section of the frame. It is straight and looks good, though, so will leave that alone. In the process of drilling them out, I found out that angle strips are attached with tons of spotwelds. My wife, always the voice of taste, talked me into using stainless steel bed strips - bling-bling. If it was up to me, they would have been painted black. Shiny metal looks too nice and thus out of place for an old farm truck, imo, but she's the boss, right? The supports frame that the bed lays on were also bent a bit so boxed them in - I would have replaced them but couldn't readily find a square steel tube of that size.

Thanks again, Mike: I went looking for a vent hole and finally resorted to this site as to where to find where it. The jiggly cap on the bolt that hold the brake line "T" was badly gooped up so that may have been my problem. Knowing that, I may hold off on replacing my rear end until later (it still needs shoes and cylinders).

Thanks - good advice. I was wondering where all that gunk came from. I actually have a 3.54 rear from a deSoto that I may bolt in while doing this work.

Thanks for that, Mike - I would hate to have made that mistake. Maybe I'll put a C-clamp under the pedal's rod, just in case. Heavy grease like caliper grease? This is a picture of the ujoint near the pumpkin prior to cleaning the thing. As you can see, it appears to have an inner c-clip of sorts, along with four bolts that seem to let me take it apart. I'm leaning towards taking the bolts out, unless there's a good reason for not doing so.

There was a load of gunk all over it, but after powerwashing the pumpkin, I found that mine appears to have these large inner cerclip-looking things that hold one side of the u-joint together. One side of the clip looks like it was deliberately bent such that it can't come out accidentally. The other part of the u-joint has four bolts that hold a 'cup saddle' in place. I'm working from memory now but my bed is off so can easily take a picture of the arrangement later.

Thanks, Merle. Do both ends (i.e. pumpkin and transmission) need to be disconnected?

Thanks for Mike Fowler here, I now have what seems to be a solid transmission in my possession. It is a drop-in for mine so would like to replace mine soon. Mine has some issues with the synchros and has considerable slop in the stick. Are there any tricks I should be aware of? When disconnecting the propeller shaft do both ends need to be disconnected? On the transmission side, it looks like I can just unbolt it from this flange-looking-thing. If I need to disconnect it from the pumpkin, there's a similar arrangement with bolts. Do I just unbolt it from the pumpkin's knuckle or do I remove the two spring clips? Looking at the drawing, it seems that all knuckle's 'cups' hold roller bearings. Besides being careful to not drop and lose them, is there anything I need to do to them before it is all put back together?

That's how it is in CT: They don't even look at the truck if it was previously registered in state. If it was previously registered out of state, they do a VIN check of plate of the vehicle, to make sure it isn't stolen.

To run the electrical parts on a basic car/truck, it doesn't make any difference what your ground looks like. Without going into great technical detail, I think the decision to change from positive to negative ground has to do with the design of modern radios, their antennas and designing things to be immune to high frequency noise. This is much more difficult to do with a positive ground.