1959 Pickup

Okay, so it's black... at least the top & sides.




After the etch, the metal just seemed to drink-in the color coat. I think it was well worth the preparation steps. Nice self-leveling properties too. Tomorrow I'll flip it over and do the underside.

But here's what gets me:
It's January, in Colorado, it should be sub-zero fahrenheit right now and there shouldn't be a living insect moving about at our 6840' elevation, too cold to fly up this high... but NOooooooooo!

Just because we're taking advantage of a few unseasonably warmer days that put us, at 60, just above the bottom of the temperature range indicated in the RustSeal directions, somebody tells the only bee within a two-state radius, "Pssst. John's painting outside. Why don't you go stick yourself in it for kicks?"
To which the bee replies, "Here, hold my beer."



I know it's a frame, but a bee? Really?

That is a PISSER John! Where the heck did that Bee come from? Wait till the paint dries, then just pop him off. No one will see his leg stubs embedded into the paint! Pivnic

I thought that stuff only happened to me. Nice work. Glad you likes the products.

Looks great. Clearcoat that bee as a reminder to future bees messing with your painting. Like hanging a pirate at the entrance of a harbor.

Great progress. I hope to be painting my chassis soon. One more tweak then I am calling it done.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

The Next Morning

An unexpected, unforecast ice storm. Why not?




' supposed to be 55 tomorrow though.

My first reaction was a four letter word. Here I am with a layer under my coveralls wanting the sun to come out and heat things up. I feel damn warm now seeing what others call cold.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Very cool father son project. Looking forward to the rest.

Come on John, man up! get the Carharts and long johns out and get back to work!

I took that frosty picture as I walked by the frame on my way out to work on Groundhog Day. (Where's my pistol?) I would have bit the bullet and continued but instead made the decision to go to the job that's paying for all this fun. The evening after a couple of 12hr shifts I see he has his coat on, so it hasn't warmed back up to where it was; but I also don't see a hat so it can't be too bad either. ' wouldn't want to spoil him y'know.



The baseball shifter handle is an absolute "must have." All the ones you can buy are "cheezey plastic fake" to steal a phrase, and if you want one with your team name on it they're still garbage & upwards of $50... for a shifter handle!

"Can't I make one?" <-- God I love this guy.

"Can you?" is all I outwardly offer back... eventually adding, "Maybe you could try with an old one to see."
Poof! He's gone. Just like that. No engine, no assembled trans, nothing on the frame, but we're gonna have a real baseball shifter handle all right.

Ten minutes later he's got a ball, a nut that fits the rod, some epoxy, and is over at the drill press all "Hey dad, can you help me hold this?"

Knowing what it's like to have an idea grab 'hold of you and not being able to accomplish much else until you try, I stop what I'm doing and go over to see. The image above is the this-is-actually-going-to work! / feeling-of-success moment as he threads it together, epoxy still wet.

I hope the next one comes out just as clean for him.

Back to the Truck

Picture taken just prior to nodding the helmet down, a floor it a great place to start practicing your sheetmetal welding skills. My helmet, my bandana, my Carhart (Yes Frank, I do have them ), you wouldn't know it was him if I waited until he started... except for the gloves. Those are his from his mom, mine are more tore-up.



What he's doing is making the new shifter hole (probably what turned his mind to the handle earlier) and raising the back part of the transmission tunnel by making some cuts & adding a few pie slices to where it sloped down.



The transmission cleared the floor just fine when we had it in with the body on the frame, but the transfer case was so close to the floor that one of us was concerned about inadequate clearance and rubbing or hitting under torque, so we elected to raise the transfer case up into the dead space between the two storage areas under the seat.

We also could have just lowered the running gear 3/4" or so when we were making the motor mounts, an option we explored in November by making this dropped transmission mount from the stock Cherokee one:


It was plenty sturdy and worked just fine, but one of us (me) thought it didn't look right on this old truck and opted that we should modify the body and tuck everything up that 3/4" neatly instead.

TinKnocker said:

To which the bee replies, "Here, hold my beer."

Click to expand...

Now you need custom plates just..."BEE CUZ".

And That Leads Us to Here

The transmission that once cleared the floor would more-than-likely be too close once we raised the tail-end, hence the pie cuts in the previous post.

Working from the underside allows us to cut the existing tunnel under the center of the seat and fold and weld it to the underside of the seat support to make the raised rear tunnel:





It also turned the firewall horizontal, putting us in a much more comfortable working position, important to one of us (again, me).



As so we begin whiling-away some hours cutting and bending and grinding and sanding and fitting and re-fitting little pieces that no one but you and us will ever even know exist. It doesn't look like much, but everything takes time. The bend at the top is the bottom, engine-side of this piece. It is half of the adjoining flange that runs horizontally along the center to connect the factory top and bottom portions of the firewall. We could have blanked-out the whole flange since it's all new, but what experience is to be gained from that? Besides, it's a nod to the original that was hacked out during the first engine conversion that ultimately led to this cab coming apart at its seams, a reminder.



Here the next piece is clamped by its mating flange to the piece from above for a test-fit:





And if anyone wants to bust my stones over the needless little flange, please go right ahead. It'll make me fell more at home, but also know that even though we didn't need any engine-side clearance under the gas pedal, my shop partner insisted that we do the extra to re-create the previously hacked & hammered flat slope behind it because for some reason, "That's the way it's supposed to be."

Who am I to argue with that logic?





Here's where we left-off last night:





Thanks for checking in.

Looking good fellas. Always moving forward and steady as she goes:]

I wouldn't think anyone would bust your stones on this forum....maybe others. We just like to see everyone's builds. Especially how THEY do it. I like this thread personally, keep it up.

I had to go back to post #53 to see when he started tearing into the transmission for the rebuild.


It was a day short of a month ago and while that may seem like a long time for transmission rebuild, we didn't even order any of the parts until he had it completely apart


and, as you've probably read, we've been busy on the rest of it in the meantime.

Nevertheless, he's been about as excited as you, me, or anybody could be to get it back together since the parts came and has spent the last few evenings wearing a path in the concrete between the bench and the press putting it back together.



As of yesterday there's one more component the he has a complete, hands-on understanding of it functions.



We're both awaiting a call from the machine shop within the next two days so we can go pick up the engine block, crank, and head.

Hands on! What's that? Most kids know what youtube is. But what is this hands on stuff?

Way cool dad! Letting him learn by doing. It's sometimes harder for me to stand by and watch them, because I wanna play with wrenches too.

Your son is learning an almost lost skillset. Taking stuff apart then doing the rarity of fixing it and putting it back together.

I love the father son builds big time.

Duane

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

That is Nice Work! Great 'the Kid' is doing it! He'll be set for life learning these Skills! Great Job man! Keep it up! Pivnic

Holiday weekend and since I'll be at work and neither of us is expecting the anticipated call from the machine shop, he started pressing-out the old rubber bushings from the Cherokee front trailing arms to replace them with some new Moog pieces. If you’ve ever done rubber bushings, you know what a fight it can sometimes be. To avoid wasting the compression energy of the press, he ground-down a sleeve that was large enough to rest against the old bushing’s metal exterior but small enough to just slip-fit though the trailing arm itself.




Every so often in the garage, one by one, each piece would release itself from its rusty confines due to the pressure he imposed from the press with a loud, unexpected-by-me metallic bang as I tinkered nearby, helping to save time with chores of which he's already capable (i.e. replacing a cab support that chose to hang onto the frame rather than remain in its rightful place on the body or adding a fusebox/main wiring harness hole... twice).



He & I always talked about putting the main wiring through the firewall in the vicinity of the original Willys harness grommet




but things got tight up there once we put the brake booster and clutch master cylinder in for a test fit too.



One day after spending a while looking at it while he was in school, I cut the hole down below instead.



An evening of sleeping on it, thoughts about eventual off-road water crossings, and the reality of big-booted feet stomping on the adjacent floor-mounted high-beam switch caused me to take stock.


Therefore I closed-up the first hole & put the main harness connector up high under the dash as we always discussed, locating its attached and hideous fuse block as inconveniently and as out of reach as possible, just like any good automotive manufacturer.


There is still a bit of welding left for him to do before moving onto the more traditional body work. Cracks from the previous owner's engine transplant firewall cutting still haunt us in the form of stress tears running through the front cowl and around the beaded corner (the other side is worse) and one rear cab corner needs some love metal.



In a place where many enthusiasts start looking at how much is left compared to how much they’ve already done and begin to lose heart and run out of steam, the young man endeavors to persevere, pressing headlong into unknown conditions requiring the development of unused skills, and keeps the vision of the finished product in the forefront of his mind... and he's still excited about it! How could I not do everything I can to support that?

It's Been a While Since I've Posted

I wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that we haven't been working on the truck these last few months. It's just that baseball is in full swing.

In between practices and games we've managed to finish all the welding on the cab. A small floor piece shown here just before installation:



We were able to get everything back from the machine shop:



Hot tanked block, new cam bearings, casting ("freeze") & oil plugs:



Decked & Bored



New .030 Pistons on our rods



Head Milled, new guides and seals installed





Crank turned and polished



New cam, lifters, oil pump, timing chain & gears, bearings, etc.


And the fun begins