The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 48 2ton progress

have finished up everything I can think of that needs me to crawl into the engine compartment. Now I can put the fenders on.
Replaced the broken board in the fusebox
Machined an air cleaner spacer for the rear carb so that the rear cleaner clears the vacuum manifold and 2 speed shift mech.
Mounted the horn on the other side of the engine (no room with dual carbs and A/C)
Finished installing the new wiring harnesses.
(more about that in the Electric post)
So I put the passenger side fender on today.
What a job! Put masking tape over all of the adjacent sheet metal to protect against scratching, Adjusted the fender brace length, taped the anti-squeak in place and laid out the proper size bolts.
Who ever designed the fender lip slipping between the inner fender and the radiator brace should be shot. Once that paint scratching was done, putting the bolts in was fun. 6 tapered alignment pins and 2 pry bars later, all the bolts are in. Seriously, I've put together a lot of things over the years, but this was the worst fitting sheet metal ever.
Left the bolts "loose" for the final hood fitting, but the fender is under stress from so many sides I can't see how it could move a fraction of an inch.
Tomorrow the other fender.
http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/jsdesign2/library/

The second fender started out much better. Slipped right into place, put the 2 bolts into the fender brace and the lower rear bolt with no problems. The whole back of the fender lined up so the bolts went in by hand no problem.
Getting the fender support aligned to the radiator support was required a lot of prying and pushing, and from there forward was a mess. Had to use tapered pins, pry bars bottle jack and even had to use the old "pointy bolt" trick.
Can't wait to see if the hood comes close to fitting into the space that's left.

Sounds like you had an "arm wrestle" to get your fenders just right. The truck was not damaged in the past sometime was it? I have found that just a bit of misalignment due to some previous damage can create a real experience when fitting up sheet metal parts. I have used strings to measure to make sure I was building straight and square with the cab (if it is square) to make sure the hood has the right spot to fit into. Your truck should make you proud! I wish my EC-302 was that far along.

The frame was straight. When received the cab and front end was bouncing around on the frame like a clown car. The right front cab mount was broken loose and the radiator mount had no nuts, just a couple long bolts hanging through the holes.
I replaced the right fender with one off another 2 ton and replaced the front pan (infront of the radiator) from the same truck because it was full of stress cracks.
We'll see what happens with the hood.

Jim,

Good luck with the body panels, it is kind of stressful with nice paint. Your work looks real nice!

Paul

Jim, Have you set your hood yet? I am anxious to see your progress.
Al

Tomorrow.
Have to open the doors and back the truck out a ways so I can use the trolly crane to lift it into place for fitting. Has been in the 20's, tomorrow up in the 40's.

Ahhhh, winter weather. We are in the midst of winter weather also. I am stalled on my truck until snow goes also. Keep us posted on your progress.
Al

Jim,
Your truck is looking great. Did you make the bed for itnor is it original. If you made it I would like to ask you a few questions. The wood looks really good.
Gene

Gene, the bed frame was fabricated to my design. A much stronger version of an original grain truck. The truck is going to haul antique tractors, farm equipment and such. That puts the 5 tons of weight on 4 small spots and not spread out like a load of corn. I also narrowed the bed to the width of the duals to make it a more "in town" friendly.
The wood is black walnut that I milled from wide slabs at 1.25" thick (6/4).

Got the hood mounted today. The first problem was that the curve of the back was a bit off. The back corners would rub on the sides of cowl while the center was too high. Probably due to storage and prep and paint work. Since I couldn't be on both sides to try to pull the ends out, I installed the hood springs. This gave enough resistance to spread the ends so it could close to check the fit. Front lays right into place with pretty even side spacing and front smooth with the front of the fenders.
Of course, trying to adjust the back to sit down on the cowl was pretty much impossible with the springs on. So I taped some cardboard on the sides of the cowl to protect the paint and hold the ends out and removed the springs.
That was as far as I got. I will work on hinge fit and may have to loosen the 4 nuts on the rear brace center joint to see if that will flatten the bow.

We are waiting for your finished product in picture form. Good luck with your final adjustments. You mention antique tractors.....what would be your interest? I mess with tractors also. I am building a tow rig based on a 1946 Seagrave firetruck. (that is another story)
Al

well, much time spent on the hood alignment, just more problems.
When I went back to work on it I noticed that the front hood braces weren't installed. When I got the truck one was missing and the other was hanging from the cross brace, so that one went into the pile of things to blacksmith like the missing fender brace (hadn't gotten to them yet).
made up the pieces and had to make a couple special shouldered conical washers for the hood edge holes as they had worn much bigger than the heads of the screws.
Put a block under the front and adjusted the hinges really tight down on the cowl. Put the springs back on and closed it to find the back 1/2 inch off the cowl.
Marked hinge position and removed the springs.
opened the hood and lowered the hinges by 1/2 hole.
Closed hood and had a good alignment parallel to the fenders, cowl and grill (no springs). However there was a huge vertical gap between the back corner of the hood and the pass. fender. Hood on that side was about 1/16 above the cowl, and that hinge was down as far as it could go. Not a bolt hole thing, the body of the hinge is setting right on the curve of the cowl.
New repop hinges, old ones had been wiggled so much the pivots had pulled and rivet heads were barely holding on.
Measured the top edge of the fender to the ledge on the firewall on both sides for ref., drivers side measured 1-1/2, pass side 1-3/8 so it was 1/8 lower. looks like about 1/8 between the bottom of the firewall and the fender curve so I can get that much.
However, the space is so big you can slide your fingers in up to the second knuckle.
While trying to figure that out, put the springs back on, back of hood 1/4" above the cowl. Took them off.
The latch pin is off so the front is just resting on the bumpers.
This is totally weird. Going to repair the old hinge from that side if it is possible, just to see if makes any difference
Anyone got any ideas?

http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/jsdesign2/library/

Jim,

My truck is a 1956, but we had the same kind of issue and after many hours working on the hood my body man asked for the original hood hinges. He put then on and the issues went away...note, we also did all of the fitting before paint.

It's also hard to use a tape measure on our trucks because the left and right side are not exactly mirror images of each other from the factory. So 1/4" here and 3/16" there is normal...

Mike B

Just got a set of used hinges on Ebay, much better condition than the broken ones.
Will wait for them before any more hood work.

We will be waiting for your hood update.

The hinges arrived, look good. Came with the hood springs and cowl mounting bolts.
Cleaned them up, while they were drying I did the right fender adjustment.
Made sure all the bolts were loose up past the radiator mount. Loosened the 3 bolts holding the inner fender to the firewall.
Put a bottle jack on the rear bottom flange of the fender and pumped it up. The fender moved about 1/8 inch. Continued to jack until I had lifted the frame about an inch. Prying, bumping, shaking - no more movement. Tightened everything up and released the jack. Measured to hood, the gain was about 1/8. Instead of sliding fingers into second knuckle in the gap, now stopped at first.

Removed the passenger repop hinge first and installed the vintage unit.
Shoulder bolts to connect the hinge to the hood, wouldn't go through the holes in the end of the arms???????
Checked the other hinge and the bolts fit fine.
The holes in the right hinge are smaller!!!
What did this hinge come off of?
I will check that all the other dimensions are the same and if everything is the same, open up the holes, But What The F***!

The hood is aligned and latched!
That hinge had all the dimensions the same (although the pivot pins are smaller also. maybe a car?)drilled it out and installed.
With both old hinges looked looked pretty good (like maybe it could be adjusted). Lined up really good until I went to attach the springs. Was obvious that attaching the repop springs was going to be a battle. Took the original springs from the truck and straightened out the bent ends, and installed them. Took about 3 more rounds of unhooking springs, adjusting hinges attaching springs, repeat until it looks pretty darn good for a truck.

Chinese Junk.

Now I just have to find 1 Loadmaster side emblem.
Seems they only sell Thriftmaster repops

Jim,

I seen this yesterday.

Loadmaster

Thanks Farm Dawg