Tidying up more loose ends this week. The last little bit of rust on the drivers side cab corner is fixed and the firewall is now permanently reattached.
We ran into a couple issues with the steering and pedal placement so instead of trying to solve them quickly, we decided to move to the back of the truck and start to tackle the bed. Length and width were the first order of business. Then it was on to side height and rail width. 34 tailgate is in the plan too. We're still working on the final dimensions but this gives you a good idea of the direction. You might also notice the layout for the chop on the back of the cab. That step won't happen until the truck comes off the table and we can get a better feel for what looks right.
We started working on the steering last week and hit a little bit of an expected snag. I'll get into the details once we get a little farther into it. In the meantime I thought I'd play around in photoshop and chop 4.5" out of the cab to see what it's going to look like.
The look of a chop and channel is Kewl.. Remember I have the same build and I am 6' and going to be hunched over with zero to nothing head room with the seat on the floor.. Keep that in mind..
Yup, not a lot of room in these trucks to begin with, let alone when you start chopping and channeling them. One of the first things I did on the project was build the seats. Sitting in the original cab, and in the seat at finished height, gave me a pretty good idea of the things I could and couldn't do with this truck.
It's been a little while so I thought I'd give everyone a little update on the progress. We got started on the bed a few weeks ago. After a bunch of mockups we settled on bed dimensions of 47.25" wide x 53.00" long. The bed is a combination of a bunch of different parts. 34 Ford tailgate with 38 Chevy bedsides, Studebaker front panel, and 40 Ford stake pockets. All the bed parts came from Mack Hills. The bedsides were ordered without any bends so that we can run the panels through the Pullmax without interference. Schroeder Speed did the louvers on the tailgate. For the floor of the bed we decided to step outside the box so to speak and use 8 gauge 3/8" hole, perforated aluminum. The perimeter frame is 1"x2" channel and 1"x1" for the rest of the structure.
Bedsides will eventually be shortened, and will be above the axle. Plus as I mentioned, the bedsides get a bunch of bends once the bead is done. The tank is recessed down into the floor and we are going to expose the rear crossmember.
As I mentioned back in October, we ran into a little issue with the steering. Actually the steering arms to be precise. It turned out that the combination of suicide frontend, hairpins, and wheel size made it impossible to use any off the shelf steering arms. Typically, when using hairpins, one can just run the tie rod in the middle of the hairpin bars and all is well. Not the case here. The frame rails sit right next to the hairpins and block the tie rod. So after a lot of searching we decided to fabricate our own arms that would extend down under the hairpins. First step was to get the proper Ackerman angle figured out. We extended steel tubes thru the kingpins and then ran the strings back to the center of the rear axle. Once the angle was established we mocked up some temporary arms out of sheetmetal. To secure them to the hubs we welded studs on the ends. A few bends and some clearance checks and we had a pretty good idea of what the arm would look like. Now that we had a design the next question was what type of material to use. After quick call to Jerry at Pete & Jakes for some expert advice, we ordered up a piece of one inch 1018 cold rolled steel plate. The bandsaw was not going to be up to the task of cutting the arms so we sent a cad drawing to the steel supplier and they cut the arms on their flame table. Then we trued the mounting face, drilled, and tapped the arms. Stay tuned because it's going to get really hot in the shop soon.
Lots of heat, some very precise bends and the steering arms are another step closer to complete. Next, they are off to get magna fluxed.
But you won’t be able to haul a sheet of plywood from the lumber yard. Very nice and intricate build. I have gotten over losing the original paint and thank you for the inspiration.
like it , just a thought, but a round tank sucks up the bottom 1/4 of a tank quick... maybe use a dual level pick-up so if you run out you can have a gallon for reserve...
The truth has been revealed. And I thought you were doing all of that with an Acetylene torch grinder and hand files.
Here is another little detail I have been working on. In keeping with the origins of this truck I thought it would be appropriate to run the original hubcaps. The rear heavy truck caps fit perfectly into the center of the wire wheels. It should be pretty simple to fab a bracket to hold them in place. The original front caps will not work as they are quite a bit smaller so rears it is on all 4 corners.
More progress on the bed today and it's finally starting to come together. Without question, the most challenging part to it has been the bead detail. We decided to roughly match the upper belt line to the bedside bead. To accomplish this we built tooling for the pullmax and then ran a ton of test pieces, making minor changes here and there, until we had a good profile with limited panel warpage. Next we did a little cad design work, produced a wood template, and then attached it to the bedside as a guide. With the guide in place it was time to run each panel through the power hammer to pre-stretch the area where the bead was to be formed. Then it was off to the pullmax. The bead came out great and there was minimal warpage. Since the sides are 53" we had to run them down to the local sheetmetal shop to brake the angles. Next up will be adding the stake pockets and latches. Here is are a couple pictures of the tooling for the pullmax and some of the test runs.
The Jalopy Journal
