johnsartain

With all of the pieces cut and bent, it time to put it all together. First all of the baffles are placed in and welded. 3/8 inch gap was left at the bottom of the baffle. These add rigidity and stop fuel from sloshing so badly as you stop, start and corner. Next the top is tacked into place Clamps are used to draw and pull the aluminum to keep warpage out. Aluminum warps much worse than steel. Being thicker it holds heat longer. It also does not glow red when hot, so if you try welding aluminum treat every piece as hot. A block was welded into the end for the fuel outlet and pickup tube. the the final end cover is tacked into place. Once all the tacks are done it time to weld it up. We were fortunate to have a Millermatic 350P with a high production aluminum feed gun, (not a spool gun). It made the whole process much simpler.

Bending can be a bit of a challenge as the metal gets thicker. The piece I had was 1/16 inch thick, 16 gauge. It can be bent to come degree by clamping it to a metal table and rolling it with a hammer. It better to use a sheet metal brake. There's nothing like having access to a hydraulic one. The brake we used was home made and was originally designed to bend up to 3/8 steel so the aluminum was not a problem.

This weekend was a new project for my B2B, Dewey. The old fuel tank was roached out. Holes everywhere, and the metal around the sending unit was paper thin and rusted out. I had som aluminum I had bought a while back, a 4X4 sheet, So what the heck, lets make a gas tank. First step is to lay out and cut the parts. Best practice is to make as few welded seams as possible. One of ting tools he great things about working with aluminum is that you can use a skil-saw to cut it all out.

The best solution is if you have access to TIG, or know a welder who has TIG, weld it up, or make a patch to weld over it. do it on the inside and it will never be noticed. That's the most permanent fix. I bought a front sump oil pan, from the p15-d24 store that had a little smaller than a dime size hole in it, TIG'd it up and ground the weld down from the outside. It isn't noticeable and there are no worries about future leaks either.

If you get the metal really clean and free of oil prior to applying the JB Weld or epoxy, either should do the trick for quite some time. You might even try some Red-Kote fuel tank sealant particularly if the metal in the bottom of the oil bath part is pitted.

There is the one that the cable from the throttle knob attached to. It is show in the picture below.

I am probably going to just fabricate it. The only problem will be getting it hard enough without getting it too hard. Cherry red and quench it in old motor oil.

The rubber bladder puts me in mind of fuel priming bulb for an outboard motor. That might be a suitable, maybe even cheaper, replacement if needed.

My wife calls it "The Other Woman". I spend a lot of the weekend working on it, there's always something to do. Actually I told my cousin the other day who asked whether it's a boy or a girl, I haven't made my mind up yet, but I think "Boy". I might call it Dewey, it my my Grandpa's middle name. It sort of fits. He used to trade cars, trucks, and livestock a lot. He had trucks similar to this growing up.

I think it was, john. My youngest son found it and we decided to give it a go.

the only other cable is the throttle cable and it connects as follows...

It goes to a bracket at the top of the carb.

It smells the same till about a couple of weeks later when it begins fermenting. Im letting mine dehydrate now so I have less to haul off. I can't imagine trying to transport 300 gal of stanky stuff.

I wouldn't trade a thing for it. Put it in, leave it a couple of weeks. and wash it off. I think I paid about 16 dollars for a 5 gallon bucket of molasses. For 90 bucks, some water, and my waiting time, I saved about $1700 what I was quoted to sand blast and had no holes to repair from blasting.

So here we are today. Paint is on. It is what it is for being home painted but we did it ourselves. I am waiting on my middle son to get the rest of my glass cut. I need rubber all around to seal the cab. I need the upholstery work. I am ready to send B1B Keven my gauges to get them restored. I have aluminum at a friends shop to build another gas tank. We are working on stubbing out the wiring this weekend.

So June 25 I start blacking in the paint. I liked a Dark Metallic Red so here we go. I painted the back sides and in sides of everything I had paint at the time to do with 2 quarts of single stage polyurethane. Inner panels for the engine compartment were painted Black.

Yes, I found that out after installing the engine when the draglink hit the pan. I bought the pan out of the store here. It had a little hole in it but it welded up really nice. I put the front sump pan on a couple of weeks ago. I got scared that I had forgot to check the direction of the oil holes in the connecting rods so it was a good time to double check that. They were right and pointed toward the camshaft.

So here it is all painted and back in the chassis, bellhousing and transmission mounted. New rubber mounts all the way around. I used an NP 435 transmission from an 89 Dodge D100 for my transmission. except for plugging and redrilling the bellhousing all I had to do was shorten the driveshaft about 6 inches.

I picked the engine up from the machine shop friday afternoon May 26, 2017. Finally after 4 months. Never tell a shop you are not in a hurry, you keep getting bumped to the bottom of the list. The original block checked out good, decked, Original cam was good, new valve train and guides. I used the crank and rods from the plymouth, crank all 20 under. new Edgee pistons 40 over, sealed power rings to match. The head came from the plymouth as well, it was milled. I set in Saturday and assembled the motor. I had my youngest and oldest son with me that day as I was showing them how to get it done. It's a good thing we all went through the measurements and torque specs and checked each other. Except for it taking a little extra time it was really the easiest I have ever built an engine. It was my first flathead. I had downloaded an Auto Restorer article by Curt McConnell fro 2001 that was on the Pilot House forum, that had a lot of really good tips on reassembling the engine. It was quite detailed with a lot of the gotcha's and other things to pay attention to. The guys here on the forum also had some really good pointers over the years as well, Thank you all for posting your knowledge.

I had given up on finding the brightwork for my truck but I finally called a guy on ebay who had some in the past. He had a set that was not first quality but agreed to sell them at a discount. They may not be show quality but I am hard pressed to find an issue with them.

Christmas time came a couple of weeks early this year. I ran into a great deal on a car lift for $900. It is absolutely the best money I have ever spent. If your hobby is cars and trucks, they are worth every dime if you have the space to put one.

One of the doors was pretty bad, I thought about trying to replace it. I decided to give repairing it a try so I unfolded the edge seams chiseling the spot welds loose, and hammered it out best I could. The bottom edge and the side had creased as well but once apart it was a lot easier to work with. We then skimmed the door with filler. there may be an eighth if an inch about middle ways and over the weld near the fender line. This is my youngest son working the filler.

That running board was pretty bad prior to stripping. Both sides of the truck had been hit and the running boards were crumpled and creased. Both rear fenders had ripped sheet metal and were in pretty dad shape. The Running boards were beat out as close as we could get the flat parts to original. A bead roller was used to re roll the tread beads and sides. I cut special rollers the shape of the sides to re roll the side wall beads.

I know a lot of guys sand blast their parts, others do electrolysis, both work good. I did a little of each but I did a whole lot of molasses. I don't know how many have heard of it but if you have plenty of time and are in no hurry, have plent of room for a livestock watering trough or an old hot tub, molasses can save you a lot of money. I bought 6 5gal buckets of molasses. I mixed it 10 to 1 to fill a 250 gallon trough, and 1 55 gallon drum for other parts I had to hang long ways. Don't sell it short because it works well. I filled the drum and the trough with all the parts they would hold, submerged them in the molasses bath and waited 2 weeks. I took them out, pressure washed them and rinsed the rust away. To prevent flash rusting I wiped them down with phosphoric acid. I primed them with epoxy primer as soon as I could after they were dry and clean. This is what the metal looks like after the molasses, phosphoric acid, prior to priming.

I totally stripped the truck down to the frame, bagged all the bolts, nuts, washers according to size and made noted of where different types of bolts came from. This is the frame after a total scrub down and stripping with a wire wheel, or should I say wheels. It took several of them. The frame was then treated with Phosphoric acid, primed and painted. The American Racing Outlaw wheels are a set I had around. I put them on just to have something to roll it around with until I got the original wheels ready. Everyone seems to like them but I do plan to get beauty rings and a set of reproduction Dodge dog dish hub caps. The cab is in the background on the motorcycle lift being stripped to bare metal.