[Henry James the 47th]

By the end of the day, I had both outer rockers tacked in place and was feeling pretty exhausted. I hope to have the LHD firewall into place tomorrow, along with the inner rockers (which will be a pain to fit into place) and fingers are crossed that this will come out the way I am intending. There are a lot of unknowns as far as the effects of shrinkage and possible warping that make me a little nervous about the result. You can see the end of the rocker where it joins to the door post at the front wanting to twist a little outwards in the photo below, and i don't think it is a significant issue at this point.

[65-fj45]

very nice work.

[Henry James the 47th]

Originally Posted by 65-fj45

very nice work.

Thanks Mike - I wouldn't have even attempted this if it weren't seeing other people doing the same thing here on the forum in various build threads.

[DanS HJ-45]

Beautiful indeed. You are flying through that bodywork.

What kind of primer are you using there? Rattle can, or something more elaborate?

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

Ah yes the primer...so far I've been using rattle can Pro Form etching primer and primer surfacer. For the sheet metal, this is more or less just to protect bare metal from rust - it's convenient and quick. My plan is to use PPG 2-part epoxy primer on alll of the sheet metal when I'm done with the patching work.

Then I'll do the underside of the cab and fenders, cab footwell, and the underside of the bonnet with spray-on bed liner, either SEM or PPG brand. The Stutz gun for spraying bed liner/undercoat is only about $30, so this seems worth doing myself, though I was considering having it Line-X'ed at one point.

[DanS HJ-45]

I've been pondering the primer situation with mine... I want to paint it myself (lookout!), but not real sure how to get from the working on it in bits and pieces stage to a fully primered vehicle. I was planning on setting up a little tent inside the shop to do the primer/paint, but that's a bit cumbersome and I would only want to have that erected for a week or two.

I'm almost tempted to rattle can it for protection, and then to clean it all back down to bare metal just ot put the final (good) goat of primer on. Am I overthinking this? Or should I just use the good primer the first time and call it good? Are you going to remove the rattle can primer, or just put the good stuff on top of it?

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

Originally Posted by DanS HJ-45

I've been pondering the primer situation with mine... I want to paint it myself (lookout!), but not real sure how to get from the working on it in bits and pieces stage to a fully primered vehicle. I was planning on setting up a little tent inside the shop to do the primer/paint, but that's a bit cumbersome and I would only want to have that erected for a week or two.

I'm almost tempted to rattle can it for protection, and then to clean it all back down to bare metal just ot put the final (good) goat of primer on. Am I overthinking this? Or should I just use the good primer the first time and call it good? Are you going to remove the rattle can primer, or just put the good stuff on top of it?

Dan

Well I'm far from an expert in anything auto-related, but I was thinking that since etching primer bonded really well with the bare metal, that I could apply the epoxy primer to it directly (assuming it is clean), and call it good. I imagine bare metal is best of course, though I'm not worried about putting epoxy primer on top of etching primer. So long as they bond well to each other, that's the main thing.

[Henry James the 47th]

A long day on the truck today, and made some good progress. Started with the inner rocker on the passenger side, which was not the most fun piece of cut out.

[Henry James the 47th]

It took a while to hack out the remnant of the firewall door pillar, then, after tacking the inner rocker in place, I decided to take a look at how the LHD firewall would fit. I was getting nervous about metal warp at that point. As you can see, the firewall stiffeners are not in identical alignment for LHD/RHD firewalls

[Henry James the 47th]

I marked the location of the stiffeners, removed the firewall and drilled some holes for spot welds

[Henry James the 47th]

Then I chopped out the inner driver's side rocker, but chose not to tack it into place quite yet. I put the LHD firewall back on, and then used a little persuasion to adjust the outer passenger rocker panel into plane with the door pillar. Then I started fabricating the lower ends of the door pillars, doing the detail slightly differently than factory by bending little tabs onto the bottom which I will weld to the floor pan.

[Henry James the 47th]

Welded up the ends of the door pillar lower sections, did a couple more trial fits of the firewall and made the necessary adjustments to get everything where it should be. The bolt holes from my jig lined up perfectly with the new firewall!

[Henry James the 47th]

and at that point, the moment had come: I welded in the firewall and Henry James is now LHD

I have lots of welding still to do on the cab, not to mention the upper cab window and one of the doors, but it felt like a milestone in this project to finally have the cab converted.

I'll be taking tomorrow off.

[DanS HJ-45]

I welded in the firewall and Henry James is now LHD

Fantastic sir! And here I was thinking that you were saving the firewall swap for the weekend. Impressive to the max!

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

I'm grateful for your comments Dan. I wasn't sure if I'd get the firewall in place today, and I'm sure glad I could make it happen. From now on out, when I stare at the cab I see a cab I will one day sit in and drive, not a cab that needs to have its firewall chopped off. That's sweet.

[stumpofj40]

doing a great job on your 45 especially with the bodywork, i cant believe how fast its coming along! cant wait for more pics
dan

[chambers60]

Henry,
check out Color Your World for the 2 part primer, down by the credit union. A friend of mine used it on his 85 GMC rstoration and had very good results. It was cheaper and is an industrial application, tough as nails when set up! Should be compatible with other brands for when you do the top coat. It maybe just a little easier on the pocket book without a decrease in quality.
If you see the truck out and about it is a Viper blue diesel short box 4x4, guys name is Blair. I am sure he would give you a very honest and properevaluation of the primer.
Bob

[Henry James the 47th]

Originally Posted by chambers60

Henry,
check out Color Your World for the 2 part primer, down by the credit union. A friend of mine used it on his 85 GMC rstoration and had very good results. It was cheaper and is an industrial application, tough as nails when set up! Should be compatible with other brands for when you do the top coat. It maybe just a little easier on the pocket book without a decrease in quality.
If you see the truck out and about it is a Viper blue diesel short box 4x4, guys name is Blair. I am sure he would give you a very honest and properevaluation of the primer.
Bob

Thanks for the tip Bob - I'll check that product out.

[Henry James the 47th]

Originally Posted by stumpofj40

doing a great job on your 45 especially with the bodywork, i cant believe how fast its coming along! cant wait for more pics
dan

Well, thanks! I think I've got a long way to go on the body work, and have to go over some of my earlier welds and repair numerous small burn-through holes. That situation is getting better though as I get the hang of welding 16g. sheet. I stopped using the copper backing plate. I found it worked well for a single spot here and there, but if you did too many spots on the same plate, it would become a bit of a heat sink and make burn through more likely. Probably the biggest lesson so far in welding has been not to try and do too much too fast. Now that i can see better with the auto helmet, and my technique has improved, I think, and I've found that I can increase the heat and wire feed without problems. Before I was welding at heat setting 2 (on a scale to 6), with a feed speed of about 20~25; now I weld sheet at heat setting 3, and use a feed speed of 30. I'm thinking i could bump the feed speed up a little further. I'm still learning.

It would be nice to have finely variable heat settings on a welder, as it seems like a setting of 2.5 or so, in this case, would be about perfect. I guess when you buy the expensive welders, thats the sort of stuff you pay for. I'm feeling really fortunate in this case that John at E4 has been willing to let me borrow his small Mig welder. The cruiser has sucked up so much cash that I really couldn't afford to buy one, and if not for the current fortuitous arrangement, I would be waiting a while before i could get the welding moved along.

Once you can weld, you start looking at metal in a whole different light

[Henry James the 47th]

Started my work on the truck today by heading to the wrecking yard, where I obtained a set of mini-truck knuckles, aisin hub selectors, a 60 series steering column, and a pile of nuts and bolts, plugs, and a couple of electrical parts.

Got back to the truck and set about slicing the knuckles apart for the last 1" to produce a ring with the disc brake tabs. Then I ground them somewhat flat along the cut line and media blasted them.

Then I went to see how they might fit to the axle flanges, and it was a bit discouraging. The backside of the flange has a raised lip on it that is larger than the diameter of the knuckle section, so I would have to get them machined, and I know already that the diameter of that inner raised lip is 4.75" and that it sticks out from the back of the flange about 3/16ths. The bolt circles are different in diameter as well, and after machining a rebate into the knuckle section, there wouldn't be much meat left. Back to the drawing board...

While i had the blaster going, i cleaned off the brake line mounts on an 60 series front axle I had, and then chopped them off. Then I cut the mounts for the lines off my 47 front axle and welded the 60 series bits into place.

[Henry James the 47th]

After welding, then it was etching primer followed by brake caliper paint.

[Henry James the 47th]

I finished off by cleaning the Aisin selectors in a bucket of diesel, and then painting the media-blasted brake line T-junction, and a couple of other brake line mounting tabs from the 60 axle, again using caliper paint.

The extra 60 series column I picked up will be sort of a contingency plan, in case my first attempt at modifying the (other) column to fit doesn't work out satisfactorily.

i also picked up a 60 series front axle breather with a hose today at the wreckers, and will be cleaning it up and replacing the non-extended one I installed last week.

This is a fun dance: one step forward, and then two back, and repeat...

[Henry James the 47th]

Got a few goodies in the mail from Australia today:

-a 75 series license plate mounting bracket. The lamps that CCOT sells fit perfectly.
-a hose clamp for the connection of lower rad hose to water pump
-a glow pug controller. This little doohickey is the ultra-primitive glow system that Toyota used up until Feb/82, when they switched to a glow plug timer. It's simply a coil with a little mesh screen in front of it. It mounts to the dash to the left of the the instrument cluster. I haven't seen one in operation before, but I assume it glows cherry red after current is run through it for a spell. The glow cycle for my truck is 15~30 seconds, and I plan to use a manual push button switch instead (or possible as well as) of an ignition-operated glow start.

[Radd Cruisers]

Be cool if you could find a late model momentary switch.


Rob

[Henry James the 47th]

I know the part you mean, and I've been looking for one!

[subzali]

Great build! Funny how the transformations begin once you already have it in pieces...

The 8.8, 10.9 designation etc. is to designate a strength standard, like grade 5 and grade 8 bolts in the US. I think it's just coincidence that the tap drill size is the same.

buckroseau has an easy way he's figured out (and others too) for drilling out spot welds. Don't remember the specifics, but he talks about it in both of his build threads, perhaps a little more detail in the LPB thread. HTH

Super inspiring that someone who's never welded before is willing to take on such a project! Hats off to you sir! Hopefully I will join the welding ranks later this summer!

[Henry James the 47th]

You're right, sort of, the number refers to a "property class designation", of which yield strength is one aspect. Check out table 10 in this link:

http://euler9.tripod.com/bolt-database/22.html

I'll take a look at buckrouseau's LPV build thread in more detail to see what he figured out with the spot weld cutting - thanks for the tip.


"Super inspiring that someone who's never welded before is willing to take on such a project! Hats off to you sir!"

Actually, it's a form of insanity and not to be recommended. I have fun going over earlier work and fixing the burn-throughs. Good news is that I'm starting to get the hang of sheet metal welding. Thanks for the support!

[Henry James the 47th]

back to the project...first a little work on the side cowl panels. The ones on the new firewall were not in the best of shape, and the floor pan section that attaches to the panel was in poor shape too.

After I removed it, I went and welded a couple of nuts onto the e-brake mounting plate

[Henry James the 47th]

The side cowl off the old RHD firewall has the extra plate welded to the inside of it to connect to the heater blower - it's like a flange that the blower mounts against. While my heater blower now relocates over to the other side, I chose to not remove this flange from the cowl panel as I am scheming up a way of routing my air filter inlet to it (more on that later).

Here I'm just checking the fit of the panel off the old firewall in place on the new one.

[Henry James the 47th]

Next I started on repairing the rotten floor section adjacent to the side panel. I chopped it out, bent up a section of 16 g. and cut it to the same configuration. The bend on the flange is a bout 110˚.

When i removed the old section, I noticed that the inner side had the spring mount for the vent door spot-welded to it. I was lucky in my choice of cut line that I didn't slice it right in half

Drilled out the spot weld and mounted the hinge onto the patch repair section