Projects They call me Panelman.....1956 Chevy Panel Truck

That´s a beautiful Battery hold down you built there.Well done! I just strapped it in place on Dani´s Suburban. She just doesn´t pay that well, hahahahaha

 

Thanks, it should work ok ......here's it on the battery. Had to work around the stupid caps of a cheap battery.

 

Nice Dan

 

Thanks Scott.

 

Ok, tank has to come back out as the gauge isn't reading anymore. I checked the gauge and it's fine, hopefully it an easy fix.

 

Float is sunk. It has a crack right where the hanger is and I think if I solder it then the hanger won't fit. Gonna have to do what I hate and buy a repo float, the Ford floats I have are too big.

 

Went on a 200 mile trip last Sunday, came home with a little under 1/8th of a tank. I went to start it last night, just cranking no fire. Has spark, filter is 1/2 full....hmmm it did shut off when I was waiting for my girl to move her car.......but it started right back up. Filled up the gas can and put it in the tank....cranked and fired..........out of gas . We must have just made it back home on fumes !!!HAHA.

I guess just above E is out of fuel, so around 1/8th I need to get some gas. I did take an ohm reading this last time it was out and it was 2.1 ohms empty and 27.9 ohms full. I noticed it doesn't touch the full stop, but it does hit the empty stop. Oh well, at least I know mostly how much fuel I have.

 

170 Mile trip to get some apples.......NOT cold enough this year. I was hoping it was going to be in the 50's, but it was more like 75-78 deg. I also found out the truck gets a little warm (200-205 deg) pulling second gear up the steep hills at 2100 rpms (3rd was too low at 1200-1300 rpms). Everything worked great especially the brakes. With the full pack of leafs and the flat stock seats, my truck is NOT made for high speed cornering .

 

Proof that the front bumper and the rear are the same on the Panel trucks (maybe Suburban also). New used bumper:

 

The truck has been pinging when it gets warm since I got it (I know, but I kept forgetting to fix that), the timing was at 10 BTDC. The dist was hitting the side cover, so I had to re set the dist a tooth back to get some adjustment........then it started to dump rain. In between rain bouts I put the dist back in, reset the advance plate and proceeded to break my trusty old Snap On timing light .......then more rain. I ordered a new fancy one with a tach on it and had it here the next day (I'll still fix my old Snap On, needs some wire repairs). Timing is now at a happy 5 BTDC and repaired the pass seat frame.

More mundane, amateur repairs to come...........

 

Nice Truck! Looks like you have done a bunch of work on it. I really like the way your wheels fill out their corners

 

Took another 200 mile trip to get more parts for another car. Runs great now.

 

Well time to replace the wiring harness......it literally let the smoke out. Filled up the cab area as I was making a u turn on my street, freaking hilarious, never had a vehicle do it with me......I've seen the aftermath on customers cars but I never been there to witness it (it smelled pretty bad). Looks like the ignition wires went, firewall grommet was brittle, chunk fell off and a wire rubbed through.

The wiring was a mess anyhow, I have a 9+3 Rebel kit, all the firewall/fender grommets, ordered some connectors and covering. Now is the time to install a work/reverse lamp under the rear (semi hidden) and the used defrost ports I found (plus hook them to the heater).

The '28 keeps getting bumped back.

 

Waiting for some parts. I did make a fuse panel bracket with some scrap that's going to bolt to the firewall (on the inside) with the top 2 regulator bolts. The other 2 pieces are the stand offs, so I won't rub or crush any wires. I had a lunchtime at work to kill. Still not done cleaning it up.


Holes

 

I'm not sure if everyone knows so I'll post up my findings. The terminals for the gauges are HP7090 (Standard motor) which are for GM window and power locks, the regular single terminals are 15957 and terminal shells are 8777 (both are Au-ve-co).

I do need the terminal covers for the gauges if anyone has an old junk harness.

From Google:

 

If you need info on rebuilding or cleaning, I brought a few back from from complete ruin just for fun.




These are pretty nice, not all busted up and brittle. If you like them they are yours.

 

My original replacement wiring harness came with crappy plastic bulb holders. Rhode Island wire sells these:
http://www.riwire.com/Catalogs/sup/pages/supplies.htm
I don’t remember what else but they have other restoration goodies that I couldn’t find anywhere.

 

I forgot about Rhode Island wire, they have the gauge terminals "GM Hair Pin Terminals" cheaper then Amazon, but sadly that's all. I have a bunch of good used dash light housings (looks like you bought new ones).

I'll take the terminal covers if you don't need them. I'll PM you.
Thanks.

 

Nice work Dan

 

I don't have a bunch of pics yet as I'm still working on it.....between being lazy and the weather I have just this coming weekend before the Big 3 swapmeet. I'm using the plastic computer wiring cover, it looks better then split loom and is kinda split so I can add more later. I'm also using the stock style plastic connectors on some things (like the high beam switch). I also found that oil pressure/temp sender plugs will work for stock looking/working 90 deg covered boots for the o/d kick down and brake light switches.

I found more NOS parts (ignition switch, starter switch and a NORS headlight switch), mine still worked but are pretty worn (I'll keep them as backups). I made some harness hangers for behind the gauges, put in the NOS/good used defrost registers and used the ignition resistor bracket to make a junction bracket.

The harness hangers from scrap sheet:


I plugged a few holes in the firewall with a rubber plug kit from Amazon:


Here's the start of the terminal block to get power to the alt, o/d solenoid and the headlight relay. I used a junction block I pulled off of my old '54 Ford Panel, cut it down,ground down the center ribs and slightly reshaped the resistor bracket. It will have just the top and bottom spots and bolt in the stock resistor location.


Boxes of parts:

 

Here's the heater that's in the Panel, it has 2 side ports for defrost but you can't close them off if you want. So, defrost is better then no defrost.

 

I also got burned by old hard grommets (which started this mess) and since these are aftermarket grommets I had to slice for the speedo cable and oil line to get in. I didn't want to take chances with the two 10g wires going through them. I used about a 1.5" long chunk of 5/16" DOT air line pushed into the grommet and the 10 g wires through the middle of the air line as a shield.

More pics coming.................

 

Here's the oil pressure/temp ends I'm talking about:

I also installed a headlight relay....can't hurt and might have brighter lights.

 

If you ever have a desire to clean and recondition your headlight switch...

Do a hamb search for: Clean and Recondition a Delco Remy Headlight Switch. Sorry, I don’t know how to share a thread link. I used to click on something in the thread to do it but I can’t find it anymore.

I was a little bored one night and blew one apart, cleaned and put it back together, works perfect now.

 

I did take mine apart, cleaned it and it works good now (smooth). It's just pretty worn inside, it's getting channels cut into the plastic and the front section has been glued back togther.....but it still works. You should have seen my face when one of the side springs shot out when I was taking it apart.

 

I made the same face first time I opened mine up!

 

I found a old boxed Borg Warner headlight switch for pretty cheap, opened it up and it looks like a Delco part with the "Delco" machined off . Still having fun replacing wires and making it look good. Made another clip to hold the harness for the o/d circuit, replaced the starter switch with an NOS one (old one had some bitchin soldering work inside). Doing the behind the dash wiring tomorrow, gotta hurry up the Big 3 is approaching.

 

Made it down to the Big 3 swapmeet and back. The speedo started making some noises, so I found some rebuild able parts.

 

Trying to run some wires inside the A pillars..............not much fun. Also starting to decampify it......slowly.