5/2021 Moving right along with some possible tool abuse(I hate tool abuse). I purchased a couple dies and a die stock. I have no experience with threading rod. The brake and clutch rods have an eye at the end and are too long for the pedals, so the plan was to cut to length and thread them. I looked into my options and found few. I did read that it is not uncommon to modify the rod length when converting to power brakes in ‘60’s trucks. I watched a few videos and quickly learned that the hex dies are for chasing threads, round dies are for cutting. I had the hex, bummer. I watched a few more videos and found someone brute force some threads, no chamfer, no oil. I decided to not buy more tools and just go for it. Upside down under dash I worked the brake rod for about an hour. I couldn’t remove the clutch pedal, so I took out the bracket and the clutch rod fell out. That took about 10 minutes in a vise, but one side the threads were not deep. I think the clutch rod is out of round, but the nut and clevis threaded on o.k. I decided to remove the brake pedal bracket and paint both pedal assemblies. I’ll have to remove them again when I paint the firewall, but I need to bleed the brake and clutch for now. 6/2021
I bled the brakes with no trouble. The clutch, different story. After endless trying to bleed the system, I discovered a nick in the hydraulic line. Replaced the line, but still couldn’t get pressure. New cylinders got it done, good firm pedal, but… The firewall flexes a lot. I push down about an inch, then the firewall pops, flexes an inch, then the pedal can be depressed the rest of the way. I thought any flexing would be much more subtle. I have read about reinforcing the firewall for the brake booster, I guess I wanted to see what would happen, and my builder didn’t know about this issue. 7/2021 I have painted the rest of the bed rub rails and have been figuring out what bolts are needed. The cross sills were replaced with 1x2 so the bolt lengths will be different. I got the bolts for the perimeter and have painted the heads Gray. I wanted black bolts for the rails, and decided grade 5 black oxide bolts is the way to go. I could only find black painted grade A carriage bolts locally, so I ordered some from McMaster-Carr. It may be overkill, but I think it will work good. I had ordered an exhaust tailpipe from a parts store, got it set in place and checked for clearance of the spare tire.
