HJ47 welcome here?

[Henry James the 47th]

The other nice feature of the Spring Art shackles is that the pins are not pressed into place: instead they thread in to the side plate on the zerk side. The part covering the zerk fitting is not a drilled bolt head, but a removable threaded-on unit. It makes repairing a pin, or the shroud, should it ever be necessary, quite easy. I made sure to use lot's of anti-seize and grease when I bolted them together. Hopefully, with regular re-greasing, they should last a good long time.

I hadn't planned on the 4-wheel discs either, however when a full rear drum rebuild was apparent on the horizon, I realized I could put discs on for the same money, and would have cheaper maintenance costs from there on out. Also, since this is to be a work truck, occasionally heavily loaded, it is comforting to know that my brakes will be more than adequate to the task, no matter what's going down. Rear brakes don't need to be powerful in most driving situations, however, considering the scenario of backing down a steel hill with a ton in the back, I think the discs will shine.

 

[fjwagon]

Realing nice work to say the least. Keep the pics coming.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Made a LOT of progress today...pics to follow tomorrow. Worked a good 4 hours no the truck after work today.

Finally got the welding sorted out with the addition of an auto-darkening lens type of welding helmet today. What a huge difference it made! I couldn't believe it - it was like night and day - literally!

Now that I could finally see what I was doing, I welded in the entire passenger side floor patch, including the corrugated-section caps. I'm nearly ready to put the cab-chassis mounts back on.

With the welding finally happening, I'm now getting the results I was hoping for, well what to say.. it was a huge confidence booster for me today. I can do this!!

I'll take a bunch of pictures tomorrow. I'm in the middle of removing the RHD side parking brake mounting plate and having some hassles with the spot weld cutter(s). I keep chewing them up and they're spendy little items.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Unexpectedly had more time available to work on Henry today.

first I thought I'd move the steering column situation a little further along. I came across a mini truck column, and noticed how mounting bar was in the style of the 60-series unit, albeit smaller and with a narrowing mounting bolt spacing, which suited the 47's dash mount bolt hole spacing. So i set to work modifying my 60 column support bracket and grafting on the mini truck piece. The thing I wanted to accomplish was to move the mounting down so as to put the wheel position~dash relationship into the same ballpark as the 47. In the third pic you can see the position into which I was looking to put the mini-truck bracket.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

more modifications followed

 

[Henry James the 47th]

To mount the bracket lower down, i had to cut the bracket support bars off the donor mini-truck column and shortened the existing 60 column bars a little

 

[Henry James the 47th]

more work on those bars

 

[Henry James the 47th]

The column pretty much mocked up to where i wanted it; a shot of the chassis from the rear, and a picture of my LHD firewall and attendant electrical nightmare.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

A couple of shots of yesterday's welding progress, and the third pic show the newly modified 60 column clamped into approximate position. Now I have to decide whether or not to commit to the 60 column, as it will mean cutting up the lower edge of the dash a bit to fit it in more cleanly. I'm not entirely sure I have moved the mounting bracket far enough down yet, as the column seems a little further in than I was shooting for.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

A picture of some CCOT repair panel that are awaiting the fitting process: inner and outer sills, as well as a door repair set.

Then a couple of shots showing some patching work being completed on the driver's side floor pan.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

three more of the patching process.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Today I misplaced one ear plug, so after several hours I was needing a break from the grinding and cutting fun, so back to the front hub install. I took the rear hubs to a machine shop today to get them modified so as to accept the rotors.

I brought my digital caliper to measure the shims and adjust the bearing pre-load accordingly. The shims at the start were 1.0 and 0.3mm under the knuckle arm. The first setting I tried was swapping shims to get a 1.25mm thick stack, which didn't increase pre-load enough, so then I tried going to 1.20.

The first pic shows the bolt doohickey I used to push the knuckle arm off the bearing.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

more ham-fisted knuckling under. The pull scale indicated 4 lbs. preload at the first try, then only around 5 lbs. after the second shim change, though the knuckle was noticeably stiffer. I was a bicycle mechanic for a long time, so I think I have a decent feeling for bearing tightness. I think I have it where I want it for the time being. I would like to know how centered it it as well, but don't have the special tool for that. I'm hoping the tiny changes I have made won't put it too far out of an acceptable position.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

After the 1.25 setting, I went down a tad further to a 1.20 setting, and that seemed perfect. Then I took the knuckle off, cleaned off the paint overspray on the face with the surface conditioning disc, and daubed the knuckle bearings in more grease.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

A picture showing the final bolting down of the knuckle arm, using new cone nuts.

Then, as a last thing, I put a new point into the spot weld cutter, and managed to get through the parking brake mounting plate and remove it at last. Tomorrow I will patch up that hole and weld nuts onto the LHD p.b. mount.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

Wow!

Progress indeed! It's looking awesome. Why the 60 column? For the tilt, or is it because you had one lying around? Or just to do something different? It looks like good work either way...

You've got to wonder how anyone can weld without one now, don't you?

Dan

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Hi there Dan - thanks for the questions and compliments.

The 60 column...the tilt feature is nice and all but the main reasons I want to go to the 60 column are:

-I can have intermittent windshield wipers
-I prefer that controls be at my finger tips when my hands are on the wheel, as opposed to dash-mounted switches that I have to take a hand off the wheel to operate
-I want to fit a diesel tach into the dash, and need to make room. With the defroster nozzles coming out of the left and right hand ends of the dash, I can't put the tach (at least, not easily) to the left of the instrument cluster, so it will need to go to the right. With the 60 column, I move the windshield wiper, headlamp, and hazard switches off the dash and onto the column.
-the 60 column has the crash-collapsible feature, which is nicer than the rigid 40 type (though there are 1980~'84 40-series with collapsible columns as well).
-the 60 series column-mounted switches are available and easy to get both new (and used from the wrecking yard), however the same is not the case for the 40 series dash switches and pulls.

With a 60 column, even with the tach and the digi-clock fitted into the dash, I will still have a cleaner looking dash overall, as half the switches will be gone. Also, if I choose to install a pyrometer gauge at some future point there will be room to do so without cluttering it up or recourse to some other sort of mounting bracket tacked on to the perimeter of the dash somewhere.

Once the decision was made to modify the dash, of course, the scope widened from there: I'm debating what to do with the radio opening (either put the stock radio unit in as a dummy and run a more hi-tech system hidden in the glovebox, or make the opening large enough for a standard DIN mounted CD player - or weld in a patch to cover it and go to some sort of iPod based system with an amplifier) and the ashtray (I don't smoke, so I don't make much use of ashtrays in cars). I will keep the cigarette lighter, as it is essential to running accessories, like my girlfriend's cell phone charger for instance.

Further, I have the '83~'84 silver dash plate and dash section as well, but they are for the RHD cab, and thus everything on the plate is laid out in reverse for the LHD set up. I can get a used LHD compatible dash plate (but not the dash section behind it) from a certain vendor, but for a mere $250, so no thanks. The dash insert is cool, and improves service access to the switches, but with a 60 column, I'd end up with a bunch of empty mounting holes in the insert. and the service access issue becomes less important at that point as well.

Thank god for the auto darkening helmet

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Made some good progress today, working on tasks like getting the floor finished and the cab mounts back in place.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

more pics of the cab mounts being welded in. Spot welding is a breeze compared to butt joint welds in sheet metal

 

[Henry James the 47th]

one mount with some primer on it, and a couple of shots showing the hole being drilled in the floor pan for the mounting bolt access. I used a 1.25" hole saw, though the factory hole size is 32mm, about 1.26"