49Bseries

Thanks so much for going to the trouble of working with Steele to get this one correct 1952Gary. This will be a great help when I replace my windshield soon.

I test fit mine today and the bulge or relieved area factory pressed into the firewall appears to be there specifically for the radio. This is of course on the left side of the interior in the States. I had to cut the pad out of that area in order to even mount the radio - it was a tight fit. If I understand your paint spots correctly, then I think you should use the outer rod mount rivet as a guide rather than the inner one. The strap shown in the earlier photo should be rotated downward to mount the radio and the stud will penetrate the firewall just beneath the firewall bulge as shown in the first photo. It may not take much hammer work to tap out enough relief in that area for the radio to fit.

My grandfather next to his Dodge truck circa 1948 and me next to mine circa 2008 before I got the Pilothouse:

Thanks for all the great suggestions and the link.

I am also getting ready to repaint and detail the interior knobs. I have been experimenting on a couple of knobs, and while I can get the black paint to look good, I have not yet perfected filling in the letters with white paint. I am thinking of trying a white paint stick. I made this stand out of scrap wood to hold the knobs while I spray them. I finally assembled a complete set.

I sheared this one off and cannot find another in the specialty fastener bins at ACE. I can trade some extra small items maybe if necessary. This is the phillips type at the bottom near the door.

Good looking start! The front stainless pieces can be very expensive, but you got into the truck at a great price. This forum is great - nearly every question about your truck that you can think of has already been answered and posted here. Your mentioning the kid reminded me that I had a 1960 Ford truck in High School - vacuum wipers, unsynchronized granny gear, leaky drum brakes. I loved that old truck. At 16 I was double clutching three on the tree and driving up hills in rainstorms with no wipers. It was painted green so of course my girlfriend hated it. One day the brakes failed and I crashed through the garage door and nearly killed my Dad, but hey who lets their 16 year old drive around with no brakes? Good times then.

Hehe, well the roads are bad, everything is closed and the local authorities are on TV begging everyone to stay home (so they don't have to pull everyone out of ditches).

Well it does not happen much in Georgia - had another 7-8 inches this morning. Hope the Dodge roof holds up....

Good recommendations Hank. I'll give them a try. Thanks.

That is basically what I plan to do since no one has the length, but I hope the extra weight pulling on the front two knob posts do not damage the radio. I might make up a mock cardboard radio. That may be overkill, but the radio seems fairly hefty for the knobs to support by themselves. I will have to pull off the firewall pad and guestimate the location. I will post the length if anyone is interested. Thanks everyone.

I have some of that duct/plumbing strap, but it seems a bit flimsy for the weight of this radio, so using the photo as a reference, I located some thicker metal strap and I was planning to replicate the original. It is difficult to guess the length from the photo and also I have no mounting hole on the firewall to measure from. Guess I was hoping someone would know off hand.

Thanks 49Dodge1ton! Anyone happen to know the length of the mounting strap?

O.K. I need some advice please - My dash originally had the radio block off plate (a B2) but I purchased an 802 Radio without the mount. I have searched the forum and see the proper type of mounting bar/strap for the 802 Radio, but I have been under the dash looking and can find no evidence of where to bolt it. Does it attach directly to the firewall? Just drill a hole or what? Thanks!

White Christmas here in the South. The last one was 17 years ago.

Thanks for checking Barry. I will be hammering out a couple of bent areas. The shield has pretty thin gauge steel so that shouldn't be a problem.

I also have this shield so thanks for posting this. One question though: Mine is bent up some, so is the only bend the one diagonal embossed groove and the rest of the shield area totally flat or are there some other factory bends? I have looked on the Knowledge area and could find no factory drawings or photos of this piece. Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I did hope when I first found the truck that the painted bars were SS (actually I thought chrome at the time), but they are definitely painted steel. The all black is unusual, but I am not too sure it brings out the lines of truck as well as a lighter color, but it will have to do for now because my budget is strained from purchasing several things for the truck (including a fresh air system and Truckmaster heater). I have the hubcaps which are off because I am rebuilding the front brakes, but I definitely want some beauty rings. Last night I spent several hours polishing the chrome instrument rings and knobs.

Thanks to Townwagon I have a better looking front end (I think anyway). When I first got this truck it had two painted steel grill bars and two stainless bars which bothered me to no end. I wanted them to match and finally saved up enough to buy some repaired and polished originals from Townwagon on this forum. It was a fairly good struggle to get the old set off. My original hardware was very rusted and the nuts were toast. It took two trips to Ace to figure out that the nuts were size 12-24. While at it I replaced the headlight and parking light doors and added a fender step. I am leaning towards eventually painting the truck blue. Here is a before and after - What do you think?

This is about as bad as it ever gets here. We usually don't get snow until Jan-Feb, but this is from this morning...

Anyone ever figure out the dimensions for the truck bracket? I would like to make one up so that I can finally install the radio.

I am also not too fond of this truck. It goes without saying that the truck is seriously over valued - but to each his own. In my experience as a Tennessean living in Georgia that diamond plate is used in the south to cover a multitude of sins... I steer clear of any body work covered by diamond plate. At that price I expect to see mint original, not bubba shade tree. I am usually not negative against other's vehicle, but an opinion was solicited ;^). OTOH I am beginning to obsess over my own truck and I am getting a ton of valuable information in this forum. Everytime I think of a question, I search and it has already been answered!

Dave - Those were the ones I was thinking of, but like you said are bit expensive. I am sure to break down and buy a set. I dont even have a turn signal on my column yet.

Good info Merle. That is what I was thinking of.

When I bought this truck it had a homemade angle iron protector on the rear, which I considered ugly. So I finally got around to removing it which wasn't too easy as the bolts were seriously rusted and the weld had to be ground away on the rear stake pockets. While I was at it I decided to paint the DODGE letters on the tailgate. I used the photo in the Don Bunn B-Series book as an example (page 29). Now I need a pair of nice tail lights. What is everyone else using for tail lights? Any particular design considered more authentic? I am also on the lookout for bed wood - mine are just about rotted away. I wish I could just go to Lowes or something, because I am going to finish the wood in factory black.