Build Dick's '84 Saudi 45

[tex45]

Been following your build for a while, looks great.

I just put the cab, roof and doors back on my 45 for the winter 2 weeks ago.

I determined it would be easier to struggle with this by myself than to ask my wife for help. So lacking the necessary helper for carrying the cab/roof assembly over to the truck I decided to bolt the cab on the truck first and then attach the roof to the cab.

The process was so much fun that I ended up ripping out 2 layers of aftermarket headliner so I could get slightly better access to the roof's bolt holes.

What I learned:

1. Assembling the cab and roof first, off of the truck, is what I would have done if I were a smart person.
2. I am not smart.
3. All in all, the struggle was in fact easier than asking my wife for help.

 

[DickM]

While taking a break from the CLR/wax program, and waiting for a couple of the big weatherstrips to arrive, I decided to get the factory smeg off of the floor pans as it was clear that there was rust on top and under it that needed to be dealt with.

All of the smeg on the driver's side, and about 1/2 of the passenger side popped off in good sized chunks with the hammer and chisel method, but the upper floor section on the passenger's was too soft to "pop". Mud search to the rescue, a chunk of dry ice froze it and it all pooped off quite easily.

Looks like I get to practice more sheet metal patching. All of the work on the 40 tub was pretty simple, mostly welding in pre-fab patch panels, and some flat plane patches. Never had to fab ribs or double curve sections, so it will be interesting.

The good news is that this is the only cancer on the entire vehicle. Everything else, especially all the weatherstrip surfaces I have exposed lately have been nearly perfect with at worst a couple of dime size areas of surface rust, This floor is really a small exception to the rule of an unbelievably solid truck.

 

[DickM]

Another "since you were there" added task has reared it's ugly head,
With the close look that the hardtop has gotten since it has been removed and "tuned up" with prep/paint on the inside metal, it became apparent that the rain gutters had been resealed with something other than the correct sealer when it was badly repainted stark "white", (clearly not Cygnus "off white") by the PO.
So, the old sealer has been removed by chipping, some aggressive wire wheeling and hand sanding. 2K primer at the gutters will be next followed by minor prep on the existing white paint and a respray of Cygnus white after the self leveling seam sealer arrives.

.

 

[DickM]

In the mean time, on to the floor pan repair as the Topnault drivers side floor pan I ordered has arrived.
I decided that all the ribs and the double curve patch was beyond my fabrication abilities and patience, so I am carving up the floor panel to make patch pieces as needed. The patches are cut and laid on top of the replacement areas ready for fitting.

 

[DickM]

Rear upper cab section installed with new gasket as well as windshield with lower gasket and wiper wiring protector. Of course, when I checked the wiper function before closing things up, it did not work. Fuse good, plug connection clean and tight, power to the input pins good, however there was 12 volts at the wiper motor body. Pulled everything apart completely, fiddled around with everything inside, brushes, armature, etc., reassembled and all was good. Just wanted some attention I guess.

Been prepping all the areas I have opened up getting ready for rust treatment and paint topcoat at the cab floor, and prime/sealant at the roof gutters before color change at roof and some rust treatment/undercoating at the weld patch areas on the underside of the floor pans. Everything shares some portion of all the different products, so I have nothing finished until all is prepped and all the materials are here.

Mission creep has also occurred again as I could not ignore the bad surface rust caused by he leaky clutch master cylinder that Meshal replaced for me before shipping the truck. I noticed it when I was prepping the underside of one one of my driver's floor patches. The firewall and the lower fender area needed attention, so off came the fender to get access.

 

[DickM]

The hardest part for me of this metal repair and prep/painting exercise has been trying to decide which section gets what product in what order on what surface;
new metal patches (floor in cab and under cab) in existing floor, bad surface rust in cab floor areas, and firewall surface rust on both sides of the firewall and inner fender, existing factory paint on the floor of the cab with areas of spotty rust, and which visible areas should get a top coat of factory 464 color.

The candidates are a spray can of 2K epoxy primer, a small portion of which was needed for the gutter prep under the 2K self leveling seam sealer, Eastwood spray rust encapsulator, 3M spray rubberized undercoating, and 464 factory match paint.

The other elements are the the adhesive sound deadener, to be covered by the gray floor liner that was glued in with contact cement when I got the truck, which has been removed and will be trimmed and reinstalled.

Everything is prepped and masked off for the first round of spraying.

I have a plan, but flexibility is the key to success, so we will see how this shakes out,

 

[DickM]

In between the coats of the rust encapsulator, I replaced the motor mounts as the driver's side was completely separated. More frame cleaning
since I was there.

 

[Chungas Revenge]

Took an early morning drive through your thread. Nicely done.

 

[DickM]

Cab patched, prepped, sprayed with the rust encapsulator and ready for the 464 Beige topcoat at the firewalls and inner rocker panels. Peel and stick soundproofing after that.

Drivers outer firewall patched, prepped, sprayed with rust encapsulator and ready for 464 beige top coat.

Underside of driver's floor pan patches prepped, sprayed with rust encapsulator and top coated with 3M Rubberized undercoating to seal the pin holes the welder(me) left for water to infiltrate. Passenger side got the same. Not pretty but functional, I hope.

Roof is prepped and sprayed with 2K epoxy primer at the perimeter, ready for the Eastwood 2K self leveling seam sealer prior to the repaint with Cygnus White rattle can from Cruiser Corps. Just waiting on the primer to cure 100%.

 

[DickM]

Sound dampener installed with not a lot of "big" pieces. Pretty much 3 under the seats and 1 in each of the floor pans. The rest was a puzzle to try and minimize seams and install where the curves worked best.

 

[DickM]

The truck came with a pretty nice quality, fitted, flock backed vinyl floor liner which clearly had been recently installed.
While he material itself and the workmanship of the sewn fitted seams was good, the installation was pretty rough. Nothing was cut close and it was run wild all around the perimeter and slopped with contact cement to hold it up. Now that the joy of removing all that contact cement all over the cab is over, my plan is to cut it to fit, patch the bad misses and protect the floor pans with a nice set of floor mats.

The big bonus was the "Witches Hat" that was part of the kit to cover the cuts in the transmission tunnel. While nicely made, I think it is bulky and ugly, so it will not be installed. Luckily there is enough material around the tranny and transfer cut outs to install the factory boots over the liner and have a nice clean look.

 

[DickM]

Back to the roof. Masked for painting and the Eastwood 2K self leveling seam sealer applied.

 

[DickM]

While the previous picture of the seam seal on the roof looks really good, it was in fact not good at all.
The product, a 2 part sealant that is SUPPOSED to mix evenly in the nozzle as it is discharged, did not mix consistently. Both tubes had this problem, and left me with sections of the gutter that never cured properly to hardness.

I removed the the 5 uncured sections of various sizes and requested warranty replacement tubes provided by Eastwood through the internet supplier I purchased from. This process of course took almost 2 weeks of text and phone calls to achieve.

After a thorough re-prep and finally the arrival of the replacement tubes, I tried again Saturday, carefully watching the 2 parts, one clear and the other darrk blue, mix in the special nozzle to the proper even blue color before starting to apply the sealer.
The perfect blue mix did not last long. It varied from almost transparent to the dark blue unmixed color. I even removed one really bad colored sections as I went to try and achieve the proper mix (color).
The results were no different than my first efforts.

 

[DickM]

At least there is some good news. I had a great call with Bill at the machine shop.
He has had a hell of a time moving the business and starting over in Wyoming. Laying out the machine locations in a new space, getting the proper utilities to the various machines, repairing the machines that did not like the move with some of the old classics having limited parts availability, moving the wife and family to a new town right before the Holiday season, waiting for the next ugly surprise, etc. etc. Sounds worse than some of the ugly remodels I got to do.
All is good now though.
The crank that looked so ugly and I was sure was a total loss polished out and is all within spec. The ugliness was bearing deposit, not crank damage. Yippee!
Block is good and will require minor work to flatten and the cylinder bores will be good with 20 over. Pistons, rings, crank and cam bearings are ordered. Bill has a mod he likes to use LS valves and hardware instead of the older chevy valves- they are slightly bigger and stouter material.
We will talk schedule later this week after parts info is available.

 

[DickM]

The other good news was the wiper saga. When I retested the wipers before installing the defroster covers and the dash box they did not work again.
I turned to Mud research as Saudi Spec electrical info has been hard for me to come by. I found that the wiper motor was positive switched based on some great info from @Bear. I DM'd him and he generously gave me the clues I needed to figure out that I had a bad ground. Evidently I compromised the ground path when I replaced the wiper backing gasket, the wiper cover gasket, the windshield lower gasket and the long grommet for the wire bunch through the windshield frame.
It was simple fix to run a dedicated ground from a body ground on the firewall under the glove box along the existing wiper wiring to the wiper motor.
I would never be able to do this without the help of the MUD community. Thanks to all of you for the help and entertainment.

Dashbox special request from the navigator who has a lot of stuff to keep up with, and from the dog who always needs a place for treats and his other stuff.

 

[DickM]

Roof seam sealer update.
Turns out that the problem with the Eastwood 2K seam sealer is of my own making.

I decided to use the Eastwood sealer because of good product reviews and the fact that it did not require a "special" caulk gun like the true 2 tube 2K sealers.
This turned out to be partially true.
While the correct caulk gun for the Eastwood sealer appears to be like any readily available, common caulk gun, this is not the case. It must have a 26:1 thrust ratio.

After almost 50 years of varied construction experience, I had no idea what a caulk gun thrust ratio was, or that there was even such a thing. Turns out that while they all look the same, the distance that 1 pump of the handle drives the rod determines the pressure that the gun generates, which in turn should match the manufacturer's material spec.

In all my research on seam sealers, and in all my many "chats" with Eastwood Tech "thrust ratio" never came up until I was finally on the phone with a senior tech advisor. Looking back, it is on the bottom of the product page. I managed to miss this.

Eastwood has been stand-up through out this ordeal. They originally sent me 2 more tubes under warranty. I used one in the failed 2nd attempt. The other one had leaked material into the sealed shipping bag, so was suspect. Eastwood offered me either a complete refund of my original purchase price (even though I clearly had used the wrong caulk gun) or a new tube to replace the warranty one damaged in shipping.

As I would like to salvage the good sealer sections on the top, and as Eastwood has provided detailed instruction to tie the new to the old with assurances of success, that is my next move. So sometime the end of next week (almost a month after my first seam sealer attempt) I will put this cluster-flip behind me and finally get the roof painted, gasketed and reinstalled.

 

[middlecalf]

Wow, that’s news to me also. I’m assuming the guns have the pressure or thrust ratio on them somewhere. My run of the mill ones don’t (or I need to inspect them next time better).

 

[DickM]

I’m assuming the guns have the pressure or thrust ratio on them somewhere.

None of mine do. I had to YouTube the manual method. Count the number of handle squeezes it takes to send the plunger from all the way back to all the way forward and divide by 2. Can't wait to verify when my brand new 26:1 gun arrives.

 

[DickM]

Count the number of handle squeezes it takes to send the plunger from all the way back to all the way forward and divide by 2.

I now believe this to be more Internet misinformation. The new, clearly labeled 26:1 caulk gun I just got is not consistent or really even close to this or any other calculating method I can find. My friend went to Ace Hdwe. today and reported that the caulk guns there were labeled with thrust ratios.

 

[DickM]

Finally completed the seam seal at the roof gutter. The 26:1 caulk gun was the solution to a problem of my own making.
The Eastwood senior tech is going to pass the suggestion of better info of the specific caulk gun needed both on the product page and with the tech staff as the internet strongly suggests that you do not need a "special" caulk gun and the product page does not emphasis the need, and the tech info did not come up until the problem got to a senior tech level. Hope it helps out someone not to screw up like I did.