ggdad1951 Posted January 28 Report Posted January 28 Yah if rabbiting the outside edge is a solution, we won't tell anyone and no one will know the difference except those you tell. Quote
bkahler Posted January 28 Author Report Posted January 28 I knew I could count on everyone keeping their mouths shut... Quote
bkahler Posted January 31 Author Report Posted January 31 Starting to make progress again on the bed planks. The new planks have now been fitted and according to the weather forecast the weekend temps are going to be good for staining. We'll see how that goes I finally managed to track down a new Upholstery shop. The shop that did the seats closed their doors last summer and I have been searching off and on since then. The new shop is a guy that works out of his home. He's Cuban, doesn't speak English and uses an app on his phone to translate Spanish to English and English to Spanish. I won't say his work is perfect but it was more than adequate for my truck. I'm happy with the results. I forgot to clean up the arms so I'll take care of that this weekend. I believe the arm rests are probably out of a 40s/50s Chevy but they were in a couple of Pilothouse trucks back when I was going through all of the yards looking for parts. The B1/B2 arm rests don't work on a B3, the hole spacing is different. These arm rests fit the B3 hole spacing perfectly. I can't wait to get them installed! 4 Quote
Young Ed Posted February 1 Report Posted February 1 Those armrests look like they might be early 50s Plymouth. Quote
bkahler Posted February 1 Author Report Posted February 1 (edited) 10 hours ago, Young Ed said: Those armrests look like they might be early 50s Plymouth. This his how my doors looked when I first got the truck, I'm pretty sure it wasn't factory original I don't know that I have ever seen pictures of the arm rests in 51 and later Dodge trucks. At least none that I can remember. I guess I need to pull out Bunn's books again and take a look. The Dodge truck arm rests in the link below resemble mine but the construction is definitely different. The Pontiac and Chevy links look identical to mine. Pontiac Armrest Chevy Armrest 1950-1956 Dodge Truck Armrest Edit: I searched for Plymouth arm rests but couldn't find anything that resembled mine . Edited February 1 by bkahler Quote
bkahler Posted February 1 Author Report Posted February 1 Installed the new ABS door panels and the arm rests today. It looks so much better than the brown cardboard. I might do the kick panels tomorrow in between staining boards. 2 Quote
bkahler Posted February 2 Author Report Posted February 2 Got the kick panels installed and got the bed plank staining done. Overall the staining process went fairly well, but there was one board that just wouldn't darken up. The second board from the right has three applications of stain, the other boards only one. There's always one in every crowd..... Either late tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning I'll apply the Flood CWF Oil. 2 Quote
bkahler Posted February 4 Author Report Posted February 4 I'm happy to say the planks are finally done Five hours start to finish, two coats per side. Depending on the temperature, they will have to dry for around 48 hours. Starting tonight the temperature is supposed to start dropping so I probably won't do anything with the planks until this weekend. 2 Quote
bkahler Posted February 6 Author Report Posted February 6 Sometimes the simple things bring happiness And sometimes the simple things bring sadness... The bracket on the left is a reproduction piece. The bracket on the right is an original bracket. The original bracket needed some straitening and repairs so in order to save time (and energy) I bought the repro bracket. After painting and installation I found that the tail light housing was up against the stake pocket and could not be bolted into place. At this point I went ahead and repaired the original bracket, which is shown in the top picture. Take note of the differences in dimensions. I really appreciate that there are vendors out there willing to fabricate reproduction parts, but it would sure be nice if they matched the originals in fit and function. Quote
JBNeal Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 Kinda looks like the repro dud has different bend radius and break lines than the original...profile looks different too...all hallmarks of outsourced craftsmanship, where "close enough ship it" are words spoken up and down the totem pole...SAD Quote
Los_Control Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 Just sucks when you spend the $$ to save time, and it ends up costing you time Quote
bkahler Posted February 6 Author Report Posted February 6 44 minutes ago, John-T-53 said: "Chyna" I'm not so sure its from Chyna. I'm guessing someone with a CNC water-jet cutter and either a manual or CNC bender. I'm leaning toward manual bender because the bends are somewhat over bent. It was nicely made, just made wrong. Quote
bkahler Posted February 6 Author Report Posted February 6 43 minutes ago, Los_Control said: Just sucks when you spend the $$ to save time, and it ends up costing you time Yep. Quote
bkahler Posted February 6 Author Report Posted February 6 53 minutes ago, JBNeal said: Kinda looks like the repro dud has different bend radius and break lines than the original...profile looks different too...all hallmarks of outsourced craftsmanship, where "close enough ship it" are words spoken up and down the totem pole...SAD Yes, they bends are tighter than the original bends. The portion where the tail light mounts is fine, just the lengths of hole locations were off. The holes were off by about 3/8". Quote
bkahler Posted Saturday at 10:11 PM Author Report Posted Saturday at 10:11 PM I'm not sure where to start first with this continuing fiasco.... This morning I installed the two outer planks in the bed box, that task went smoothly ensuring that the large holes for the six 1/2" bolts were in the proper locations. I went and had lunch and then came back to set the next two planks into position along with the shovel strips. This is when things started to fall apart. As I was trying to fit the U-channel support it quickly became apparent 1/2" domed bolt holes weren't lining up. If you look at the picture below you can see the large hole doesn't line up with the hole in the channel. The hole in the channel is about 1/2 its diameter to far to the rear of the bed. I tried flipping the channel around to see if I had it installed backwards and that made it worse. So I started comparing the original channels to the repro channels. Guess what, they aren't they same, and even worse, the small holes are on the wrong side of the channel While I was bolting the black channel into place I was trying to figure out why the channel didn't tie the bed side panels together. If you look at the original channel you'll see the hole that would perform that task. Since the repro channels were made wrong there was no place to drill the hole because it's upside down. That's just plain poor quality control by whoever made the channels. I've been stewing over the problem for a couple of hours now and I think the best solution is for me to drill the six needed holes on the correct side of the repro channels. Sadly that adds a bunch more time and effort to get them to fit correctly but hey, I'm retired now so I've got all the time in the world..... 1 Quote
John-T-53 Posted Saturday at 11:38 PM Report Posted Saturday at 11:38 PM 1 hour ago, bkahler said: I'm not sure where to start first with this continuing fiasco.... This morning I installed the two outer planks in the bed box, that task went smoothly ensuring that the large holes for the six 1/2" bolts were in the proper locations. I went and had lunch and then came back to set the next two planks into position along with the shovel strips. This is when things started to fall apart. As I was trying to fit the U-channel support it quickly became apparent 1/2" domed bolt holes weren't lining up. If you look at the picture below you can see the large hole doesn't line up with the hole in the channel. The hole in the channel is about 1/2 its diameter to far to the rear of the bed. I tried flipping the channel around to see if I had it installed backwards and that made it worse. So I started comparing the original channels to the repro channels. Guess what, they aren't they same, and even worse, the small holes are on the wrong side of the channel While I was bolting the black channel into place I was trying to figure out why the channel didn't tie the bed side panels together. If you look at the original channel you'll see the hole that would perform that task. Since the repro channels were made wrong there was no place to drill the hole because it's upside down. That's just plain poor quality control by whoever made the channels. I've been stewing over the problem for a couple of hours now and I think the best solution is for me to drill the six needed holes on the correct side of the repro channels. Sadly that adds a bunch more time and effort to get them to fit correctly but hey, I'm retired now so I've got all the time in the world..... "Chyna" x 2 Can you reuse the originals? Quote
bkahler Posted Sunday at 06:05 PM Author Report Posted Sunday at 06:05 PM 18 hours ago, John-T-53 said: "Chyna" x 2 Can you reuse the originals? I thought about that for a bit but the originals are in pretty rough shape. They are bent, twisted, and rusty. That was why I bought the repros in the first place. It's just frustrating that the repros aren't what they should be. I probably could have saved some time if I had compared the originals to the repros when they first arrived so I could have corrected the problems before painting, etc. Oh well.... Quote
bkahler Posted Sunday at 06:30 PM Author Report Posted Sunday at 06:30 PM I guess if you use enough swear words and the right kind of swear words you can accomplish anything It took me about three hours to remove, modify and re-install the three channels. After the channels were complete, installation of the planks took almost no time at all. Other than hanging the tailgate the bed box is done. I will probably leave the tailgate off until I lift the bed into place on the frame. That will make it a lot easier to align the six carriage bolts. Stay tuned for bed installation.... 5 Quote
Young Ed Posted Monday at 02:09 PM Report Posted Monday at 02:09 PM Think of all the fun you'd be having if you had a W series. Our cross members are wood along with the bed floor. Bed is looking nice! Quote
bkahler Posted Monday at 10:39 PM Author Report Posted Monday at 10:39 PM 8 hours ago, Young Ed said: Think of all the fun you'd be having if you had a W series. Our cross members are wood along with the bed floor. Bed is looking nice! Hmm, in a way I think wood framing members would be easier to deal with the crappy repro parts. I really like the way the bed came out. Thanks for the guidance getting to this point 1 Quote
bkahler Posted Monday at 11:03 PM Author Report Posted Monday at 11:03 PM I'm happy to say the truck now has a bed I think all told, it took about 3 hours to get it picked up, and fitted onto the truck and another couple hours fiddling with the mounting hardware. Out of the six bed mounting bolts I had trouble with two of them. The front two on the passenger side had a problem with the repro channels being twisted so that the bottom holes on the channels were 1/2 the diameter of the bolt towards the rear on the bottom holes. It probably took me an hour to get those two bolts in and aligned properly. Once they were in I snugged the bolts down. I don't know what torque setting I should use so I need to look into that before the final tightening. Without the tailgate the bed weighed in at 257 lbs. Lighter than I was expecting, but after thinking about it, there's not a whole lot of heavy structural metal in the bed. The two heaviest pieces are the sides. The rest is just formed sheet metal pieces. We have wintry weather coming tonight so I took the truck out to get some decent pictures. It will be the last time it sees the sun until I get the rear fenders installed, wiring done in the rear, and the ABS interior panels installed. Getting the bed mounted on the truck let me breath a sigh of relief. It's only taken 29 years to get to this point 😮 Even better is I now have more room in my shop 😄 6 Quote
Young Ed Posted Monday at 11:17 PM Report Posted Monday at 11:17 PM 29y makes me feel much better about my truck project. I think I'm around the decade mark. I need to wrap my brain around the wiring and get that going. That and front brakes should make it a driver at least around the driveway. Quote
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