Todd B Posted July 13, 2008 Report Posted July 13, 2008 My 49 b1b had been restored in 1980. I will find some pics of it and have someone scan them for you guys. 4 years ago I gave it to my son and he wanted to restore it again from the ground up. The truck needed it because she was driven hard through 20 years of high school days (it took me a while to grow up). So with my help we stripped it down to the frame and it has been sitting there since because he switched his desire to remodeling a house. After getting inspired by Merles beauty, we dragged the frame back in the shop and have an appointment Tuesday night for sand blasting. I have a question? There is a fish plate where the rear mount of the front spring shackle meets the frame. Its about 16" long and rivited on. You can see that there is a lot of rust behind it and I would like to remove it. It has some bolts and some rivits. I tried to grind off a rivet and punch it through! I beat on it for a long time and it never moved. Can / or these be removed? Todd B Quote
Guest Dave Claussen Posted July 13, 2008 Report Posted July 13, 2008 Grinding the heads off the rivets may not be enough. My understanding is that when they put the rivets in they used a similar system that you see on bridges and buildings. They have a jack hammer affair that swells the rivets out to "fill in" the hole. You'll probably have to drill center out of them to release the side pressure on the hole before you can drive them out with a punch. My advice is slow and steady. Try drilling a small hole first then go back in with a bigger drill that's close to the size of the rivet. Some lubricating oil will help the drill bit last a little longer too. Good luck Dave Quote
grey beard Posted July 13, 2008 Report Posted July 13, 2008 Todd. Years ago I worked as a mechanic in an Internaional Harvester Truck shop. One of the jobs we often did was to change frame rails on wrecks. We ground rivet heads off and punched them out with an air chisel, hundreds of times. When the new rail went back in, we just used grade 8 bolts and nuts with lock washers on each side - bolt head and nut and flat washers, and cranked them down. Worked fine for us. It is my understanding that the rivets that were REALLY hard to get out were those that were installed when they were red hot, and piened over at that time. This was how steam boilers used to be made a hundred years ago. JMHO Quote
Todd B Posted August 3, 2008 Author Report Posted August 3, 2008 Thanks for the help, I don't have a very good air chisel, so I was doing more bad than good. So I tried Daves advice and drilled a 3/16" hole then ground the head off. 5 or 6 swings with a fist mall and out they came. Frame is ready to be painted. Hopefully today yet. Thanks again. Todd B Quote
PatS.... Posted August 3, 2008 Report Posted August 3, 2008 More details on truck frames than most need to know, but very interesting nonetheless: http://trailer-bodybuilders.com/mag/trucks_tips_truck_frames/ Quote
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