wendleburger

And here it is...

On it's way to my house now

I used Steele's and it was perfect. First time I have ever installed automotive glass in my life and it went in dead easy

LPG is very common here in Australia. It is less than half the price per litre here as compared to standard unleaded fuel. My Pilothouse runs straight LPG, although unfortunately, his flathead is long gone. It's a great fuel, around 105 octane from memory. Loves high compression, also loves advanced timing. You can run a lot more timing without detonation as compared to unleaded petrol/gasoline too. Short term problems are really limited to cold starting, which can easily be solved by wiring up a primer circuit to shoot a tiny bit of LPG under the diaphragm, straight into the manifold. Long term problems tend to be valve and valve seat related due to the drier fuel. Stainless valves and stellite seats seem to be what gets used on rebuilds here to combat that. There is also "valve saver" kits out there that trickle a tiny bit of lead or graphite based lube into the head. They seem to work OK on OHV engines, a flathead engine might be an interesting experiment.

I did this and I'm still not completely sold on it. I think the bumper really does add to the overall look of the front of these trucks.

Head room = plenty. Leg room = not so much

In Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior in the US), the scene where Max is driving the Semi back into the camp and all the bad guys rush to their cars to give chase, the flat black truck that falls off the stands and crushes the guy's legs is a 51-53

Cool, thanks for that. All the other glass in my truck is marked "Armourfloat Safety Glass" but the corner windows are definitely not marked at all. Actually, my drivers window is marked "Armourfloat Safety Glass - Antisun" and has a slight green tint to it, which is interesting.

Cool, thanks. I'll give him a call when I am ready to get the rest of the rubber down the track. It was only the windscreen I needed to do urgently.

I emailed both Roberts and Steeles about a windscreen gasket a week or so ago. Got a reply back from Steeles straight away with a quote, the deal was done, and the gasket posted within an hour. Haven't heard back from Roberts yet

Thanks! Rough kind of before/after photos are below. I'd like to find one in better shape and do a proper restoration, but this wasn't really suitable for that. Seized engine, snapped and stretched chassis, ruined front axle, cracked steering box, completely rat-eaten interior, etc. I did think it was pretty much rust-free until I pulled it apart and cleaned it, then I found it was rotted out everywhere It's turned out to be a nice, comfortable, reliable, old-looking truck that drives real nice and keeps people guessing. Couldn't ask for more

Cool. Thanks heaps for that. Always good to hear straight from the source. The engineer is more than happy with the glass if it has security film applied to the inside face. The problem is going to be if the RTA accept it, but it's been done before and passed, so I should be OK. I'm in Canberra. The truck is far from standard, unfortunately the only original Dodge left is the body. Thanks.

There's a couple of niceties about our system here which make it worth persevering with. The first is that there is no inspections after the first one. If I register it interstate I have to get it inspected every 12 months. The second is that we don't have to have continual registration. I can register it for 3 or 6 months at a time. So if I don't want to drive it over winter, or need to pull it off the road for an engine rebuild for example, I don't have to pay to keep it registered while it's not being driven.

Thanks all for your comments. Sorry, I should stop using the word toughened, it's just local vernacular for tempered. Same thing As for all the questions on why it is a problem registering it when there are others in Aus registered, I live in the Australian Capital Territory, the city is basically set up around being somewhere for the government to operate, it's like it's own little country (think Vatican City LOL). Everything here is way more difficult and beauracratic than it needs to be. On the upside there's always plenty of work for a tradesman like myself, because all those politicians and public servants make and spend a lot of cash. And yes, the car was originally sold in Australia, but it came from interstate and from a completely different set of rules. The problem I had is that they won't accept that the glass is tempered without a label on it like the rest of the glass has. However, I've now been told that I can apply a security film to the inside face of those windows and I'm all good. Ridiculous but true. Thanks.

Interesting. Thanks. I might have to get some new rubber so I can pop them out and have a look...

Hi, I am having a few difficulties with compliancing and registering my Pilothouse over here on the other side of the world. One of our regulations requires that all automotive glass be preferably laminated, but at a minimum, toughened. All the glass in my cab other than the curved corners is labeled as toughened, but the corner glass has no markings at all. Does anyone know for sure if they are toughened? The engineer doing the paperwork told me that if I had a spare one I could break, showing it was toughened and photograph, that would be acceptable as a substitute for the proper markings. Anyone got a damaged one they can hit with a hammer and get a pic This is the car in question.

I'm a bit slow, but finally got around to my first drive, did a shakedown run of about 6 miles + fueled up. Nothing fell off, no other major incidents

Mine was pretty straightforward. All done in 16-gauge zinc-annealed steel. I don't have any pics of the inside after the welding was all finished, but it is quite neat. I plan on coating the floor with some sort of spray-in bedliner type product to seal it up for good and hide the old/new transition..

This was just a "use what's on hand" conversion, but worked really well. There is a piece of 5/8" plate welded into the opening in the jamb that the striker is screwed into. This opening used to house the alignment wedge. The door mechanisms just slip into the door cavity and bolt up to the panels that I made to house them. The mechanisms were from a 1970's Holden, quite possibly a Chevy of the same age would have the exact same mechanisms. I don't have any pics of the rods, but they are just 1/4" threaded rod with female threaded heim joints on the ends. The "axle" on the back of the handle is cut off short and has a piece of 1/8" steel shaped like a cam lobe welded onto it. The end of this lobe has a hole to bolt the heim joint to. I haven't installed the key locks as yet, but plan on using the same hardware to make up the rods. I'm sure there is neater conversions out there. These are just safe, strong and free

On my '49, that fitting is mounted to a plate that screws into the a recess in the jamb. If you can find a donor with that style of fitting you could probably retrofit it into your jambs.

I didn't think this deserved it's own thread, but I wanted to post it somewhere. For the first time since the mid 80's my Pilothouse moves under it's own power. This video was just a little test to find the right line to get over the bump in my driveway without grinding the bottom of the doors into the concrete

Congratulations. It's a good thing you have done, like adopting a dog from the animal shelter Hopefully it can once again become the proud machine it once was.

Just made up rods to connect to the original handles. I had to shorten the 'axle' and weld a lever point onto the outside handle. I also ended up moving the original internal handle to lower down on the door, this isn't a problem in my application as the door trims are missing and I have to make new ones anyway. My striker is fitted into the cavity in the pillar where the 'wedge' that aligns the door vertically as it closes used to be. They work really well, I need to get some photos if others are interested.

I have complete door latch mechanisms you can have for the price of postage (from Australia) if you can't find a better option. I have put bear claw latches into my 49, so they are not needed. Once my truck is finished I plan on listing everything I have left over here for the restoration guys to grab if they are interested. A lot of the stuff on my truck has been changed from stock to more modern stuff to satisfy our registration requirements, so there is a bit of gear left over.

I want to put it back on, only problem is that it is broken in half