The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Project Journals 1952 Chevrolet 3100 Project

I would guess that is the product of our current supply issue. I will let the Filling Station know the issue.

I have ordered parts for many different vendors in the past, they all seem to use the same suppliers. I waited almost 6 months for my steering gear from CPP before finding it with another vendor. I had to wait 2 months for axle bump stops from Brothers Trucks, it's just the current situation we are in I guess. I tend to fab up a lot of my own brackets and mounts, it just part of the build I like to do, but waiting for parts on back order to finish a project is painful. Nice fix Phil.

12/06/21: Spent some more time in the shop today and I was able to get the soundproofing mat (KilMat) installed in the passenger door. Just like the drivers door, it was a pain to install, but I was able to cut the install time by quite a bit. Practice makes perfect!

I have been debating with myself about touching up only the areas that I did body work on. I looked again today and there wasn’t much on the door that was untouched, so I decided to the paint the entire door. It’s still the old color but I figured I wasn’t getting around to replacing the floor anytime soon so I might as well make it look good in the meantime. I did find a spray paint that matched pretty good at my local hardware store. Ace Premium Ivory!

Looking good Phil

I recall (definitely not fondly ) working a crease out of the lower part of my passenger side door, sticking my arm through the lower access hole to get the dolly in the right place. Wound up with bruises up and down my forearm. I'm also planning on putting sound deadener in my doors, so will probably be bruised up again.

I bet you'll find that the labor was worth it once you ride in it with the sound deadener installed. Color looks spot on.

Nice work.
Unrelated...just curious; I like the wheels on the truck shown in the background. Are they 6 bolt? 15 or 16" rims? I'm looking high and low for some 16" rims and 6 bolt that have a bit more modern flare.

They are 6 lug 15”x 8”. They came with the truck and I plan on replacing them but not at this time. I think the 8” width on the front end is making the steering a bit squirrely.

12/14/21: I finally finished rebuilding my vent window assemblies. It certainly wasn’t a “walk in the park”, but I’m a bit of a cheapskate and couldn’t see spending close to six hundred dollars for the complete assembly’s and my past experiences with import parts is not favorable.

The day started out with me not finding the long hollow rivet setting tool I fabricated a couple of weeks ago for the center channel seal. During one of my cleanups, I put it someplace and I could not, for the life of me, find it. I looked for close to a hour then decided to weld an extension on the short setting tool I bought. I went to setup my welder and found out I was out gas. I do have flux core wire for my MIG but didn’t want to go thru the hassle of changing it out, so I decided to just go for it. The welds weren’t the prettiest but it did work.

I had previously installed the glass in the vent window frame that went pretty well once I got the right correct size setting tape.

The only real issue I had was installing the new lock handle. The supplied roll pin would back out after installing it and turning the handle. My solution was to use the original solid pins installed from the bottom. One side is serrated to keep it in place and it worked really well.

Installing the vent window into the frame went fairly well. I really don’t like how the rivets look after setting with these setting tools. It’s also awkward trying to back the rivet to set it. Fortunately the displaced part is under the hinge so it’s not as visible.

Although they are not contours d'Elegance worthy, they look and function really well.

They look great. I am sorting out the patch on the bottom of my door now so I have been looking back at your pictures, a lot.

Craig, check out this Fitzee’s video on youtube. Search “48-54 Chevy truck rusty door repair”. You may find it interesting. It is the method that I used to replace the panel.

01/03/22: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on getting the door internals rebuilt, installing new weatherstripping and getting my doors back on and adjusted. I am happy to say that the job is finally done. Overall, I am happy with the results. The fit of the doors could be allot better. I followed the advice of many ‘bolters to fit the doors with no latch and weatherstripping. Once I got it to fit, I fitted the latch. I then drilled the hinges each with a single alignment hole sized to fit a couple of #1 Phillips screwdrivers so I could remove the doors and apply the weatherstripping. Once I got the doors remounted, I had to move both latch’s out a bit, to get the doors to latch properly. I suspect the weatherstripping I bought from Classic Parts is the issue. It feels pretty supple but I need to slam the doors to get them to latch. I suppose it will compress a bit over time so I‘m leaving well enough alone.

I’m anxious to test drive her to see if I gained any ground quieting her down.

Looking forward to hearing your "driving report".

Might be awhile. All of the local roads are white with salt.

Dang Phil !!! That looks great, the color works nice too.

Phil, I finally had a few minutes to watch the video of the lower door repair. Tony is a Master, the finished product looked great. I have a lot to learn no doubt but I'm not afraid to try. Thanks for the link.

Old man winter has been coming down on us hard here in upstate NY, with single digits days, below zero temps at night, and an unheated garage, there is not much hope of wrenching on the old truck. I’ve been wanting to fill that big hole in my dash due to the absence of a radio, since I first bought the truck. Since I don’t listen to any radio my intent is to install a hidden Bluetooth setup and a radio blank off plate. I’ve been watching for any bargains and finally ran across a fellow ‘bolter’ selling one on this forum for a good price in near perfect condition, this past fall.

What a surprise (more like disappointment) I had, when discovered it didn’t fit. I found that the dash had been repaired, apparently from the sins of a previous owner installing an aftermarket radio. The opening was just a bit too small.

This past Christmas, my wife bought me a 3D printer after she saw my interest in my son’s printer during our recent trip to see him. I figured that until I spend the time to repair the dash to fit the original blank off plate, I might be able print one that I could custom fit into the dash.

This proved to be a much harder task than I envisioned, with having to learn not only how the printer worked but also designing this plate in a 3D CAD program to send to the printer. I have previously worked with AutoCad made by AutoDesk for many years and they offer a slimmed down version of Fusion 360 to hobbyists. I had dabbled in Fusion a few years back but needed allot of tutoring (which I found on YouTube), to get to that level of expertise required to design such a part.

Well several weeks later, with a few failed prints and allot of trial and error, I finally got a part that fits. I’m thrilled with the result. All that is needed now is a bit of sanding and warmer weather to apply some paint.

Very nice Phil. Really like the bowtie emblem. Nice customization.
I've been toying with replacement plastic heater knob reproduction with 3D printers. I don't have one, so maybe I could farm that out to you.

Love the bowtie, Phil! Very cool!

I'm going to have to remember the door hinge alignment trick when it comes time to do mine.

Thanks guy’s!
I’d be happy to give it a shot! PM me.

Did you make the fasteners out of plastic also. Now you can make a lot neat stuff a licence topper comes to mind.Good job.

Yes, designed them in Fusion then printed them. It opens up a whole world of ideas. I’m limited to 220 x 220 x 250 mm (about 8-1/2” x 8-1/2” x 10-1/8”), so a topper would have to be done in two pieces, then joined together. The joint could be hidden with another overlay. Great idea!

I sanded, filled and painted the radio blank off plate I printed and was really pleased with the results. Once installed you won’t be able to tell it’s made of plastic.

Nice if you could make one for a '54 3100.

So cool.

I installed the radio blank plate I made on my 3d printer. I’m happy with the results, even the color match.

If you look close at the dash, you can see the shoddy repair made on the dash. Notice the cracks in the bondo, and the wavy top edge. Another thing that will need to be repaired.

Today I did one of those little jobs that I’ve been wanting to do ever since I rebuilt the motor in 2019. I applied cast iron stove polish on my exhaust manifold. I didn’t find out about this stuff before I got my engine reinstalled, so I wasn’t able to reach every area. I applied the polish with a flux brush. I applied it to every part you can see and allot of what you can’t. The finish should even out when I heat up the engine and burn off the wax leaving a graphite finish.

I’m happy with the results!

That's a great look on your engine. How often will you need to reapply it?

That remains to be seen since it’s the first time I used it. I understand it will need to be reapplied but it took me less that an hour, so no big deal.

New to the thread, great build to date! Look forward to following along

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the kind words. You should introduce yourself in the Welcome Center and tell us a little about yourself and of course any builds or future builds.

That looks good, Phil. I've not heard of that product before. I'll have to check it out.

Is that little gauge down low behind the steering column in your oil line? If so, I like that idea. I'm curious if you've seen a noticeable difference in your oil pressure (when the oil temp increases) due to the filter set up? I've heard that on hot days the oil pressure to the top end can get pretty low.

Yes, it is a oil pressure gauge. The pressure pretty much matches the oil gauge in the dash. I haven’t noticed any appreciative difference since I installed the oil filter. Inside the center of the filter is a oil return pipe, with a 1/16” restrictive hole that keeps the oil pressure from dropping off.

I installed the oil pressure gauge when I was having issues with low oil pressure. It turned out the main bearings were all screwed up and after $2k and a total engine rebuild all is good.

You can get it in Ace Hardware or on Amazon.

7/29/22: Today I took my truck to it’s mandatory NY State inspection, and get my headlights adjusted. It’s about a 15 miles each way, so she gets a little work out. Just after the owner finished the inspection (passed with no issues), he handed me the bill. I said that I also needed the headlights aligned. He told me he hasn’t performed an alignment since NY dropped the requirement and he no longer had the equipment. I know that in the past, I would just pulled the vehicle in front of a wall and was able to do a semi-quasi job. I checked the Shop Manual and the instructions said to park the truck 25’ away from the wall and with high beams on, center should be 3” lower than the center of the light itself. That is a problem for me, as I don’t have a flat spot anywhere in my driveway so I needed a different strategy.

My iPhone has an inclinometer built into it, so I thought I may be able to use that. I removed the headlight bulbs so I could span the bulb holder. The phone is not large enough to span the distance so I taped the phone to a combo square. I initially placed the square (with phone attached) on the floor as my floor is slanted toward the garage doors. Adding 90 degrees to that would theoretically give me perfectly parallel aim. Since the light beam needs to be 3” lower over 25’, I needed to figure out in degrees how much a 3” drop over 25’ was. Using an online calculator, it worked out to be .6 of a degree. Adjusting the light to show approximately 1/2 of a degree should get me in the ball park.

Adjusting side to side was even easier. I placed about a 6’ 2x4 across from one light to the other and again using my iPhone with a compass app, showed it as 136 degrees. All I had to do was adjust the individual lights to 136 degrees and they should be perfect (in theory anyway). Being that the adjustment screws are working off of three points, I needed to readjust a couple of times. Depending on how accurate the inclinometer is in the iPhone, will determine the results. I’m going to a local cruise-in tomorrow evening, so I’ll let you know the results!

9/01/22: couple of years ago, My wife gave me a set of vintage NY plates, complete with a ‘52 tag for fathers day. When I went to register the truck for the first time, I couldn’t use those plates, but instead was issued Historical plates. The division that issues vintage plates, is located in Albany and you must apply by mail. In addition to the application, there was a plethora of other documents that they wanted plus you needed to verify that the plate number was available. This frustrated me to the point that I put the vintage plates on the back burner.

I finally got all the documents needed to get my plates together, and I received the new registration today. I was so excited, I had to get the plates installed immediately.

I blurred out the number, but you get the idea.

Very COOL, sorry you had to endure all the bureaucracy to get a vintage tag. Georgia only requires a simple form and that the tag match the YOM of the vehicle. The DMV will run the plate number to make sure it hasn't been duplicated, once that's completed they will issue you a new registration with the plate number.

Oh and it doesn't cost any extra to use the plate.

11/13/22:After collecting all the components over the last few months, I finally installed the HEI distributor I bought from a fellow Stovebolter. It didn’t go quite as planned, learned a whole lot along the way and got to speak to a legend in this industry, Tom Langdon.

I’ve wanted to upgrade to HEI ignition since I first bought our truck three years ago. Didn’t take long to figure out the only system to install was a genuine GM distributor and it’s associated components. Tom Langdon’s converted 80-82 S-10 HEI distributor seems to be the top of the line, so that is what I set my sights on. I wanted the system with the round coil so it would look nearly stock.

Since I had so many other issues that needed attention, this upgrade was put on the back burner. About six months ago, a Tom Langdon HEI Distributor came up on “Truck Parts for Sale” forum. After striking a deal the distributor, round coil and spark plug wires were now in my possession.

The first issue I discovered was the round Ford coil did not have studs and nuts to install the ring terminals that were installed on the distributor. After researching the issue, I found that Fords that use this coil also used a special terminal clip. I decided to call Tom Langdon Stovebolt company to demystify the issue. To my surprise, Tom answered the phone. I spoke to him over twenty minutes from the issues I was having to future upgrades.

After talking with Tom, he recommend that I ditch the round coil in favor of the square one that GM used with that system, stating he had allot of those coils returned, so he no longer sells or recommends that coil. He sold me the coil, spark plugs, distributor hold down and an installation kit that included the terminal for the coil.

After receiving Tom’s goody box, I was anxious to get started with the installation. That’s when I found the second issue. The coil wire for the round coil does not fit the square coil. The square coil uses GM style ends on their coil and distributor. A quick call to Tom, and he said He did not have any to sell but I could buy one at any Auto Parts Store. Armed with that info, I went to my local Parts Store and found that they did not carry them. I then went to my not so local parts stores (three more 45 minutes away), and discovered that they did not carry them either. One parts guy said that outboard motors use that same type of coil wire and that was the clue I needed.

I found one that fit on eBay and the only issue was it was blue. Not what I was looking for, but I think I can live with that.

After much discussion previous about supplying the power for this system, with Tom Langdon and on this forum, I decided to use a 60 amp bosch style relay with the required 10 gauge wire. This simplified the installation because I already had the wire from the ignition switch on the firewall attached to the ballast resister. The starter is directly below so getting ample power was easy.

I mounted the square coil on the frame as Tom Had recommended. The only concern I had was water splashing between the frame and the inner fender, as there is about a 1/2” gap. Tom assured me water was not an issue with this coil. I used my 3-D printer to print a 1x1x4” long angle iron (plastic), to install under the coil, pushed against the inner fender to form a barrier. Probably overkill but it makes me feel better.

I spent an afternoon assembling the wiring harness prior to installation. Installation went relatively easy. I first set the timing slightly before TDC, confirmed the rotor was pointing to number one spark plug wire position, then removed the distributor. Installing the new distributor was basically the same as the original, a task I have performed many times before. I changed the plugs, fabricated and installed new Cu-Ni timing advance line, installed the new Bosch relay, the new square coil on the frame then installed the wiring harness I previously made. A quick check with a multimeter to see if I had power at the positive side of the coil with the ignition turned on, and I was ready to fire her up. She started immediately. I threw a timing light on her but found it near impossible to see 10-18 degrees advanced. I settled for tuning it by ear until I buy an adjustable timing light. I might consider adding a timing mark on the front pulley.

I finished the job by neatening up the wiring with wire ties. I’m looking forward to a test drive in the next few days, weather permiting! I am in the mountains in upstate New York!

Is your road draft tube the stock one? Mine doesn't have that second bend in it.

Also, your 3D printer makes things in metal?

Yes, stock but not sure what year. ‘52 truck, ‘59 engine.

No, my 3d printer uses plastic. I used PETG which is good to 180°.

Phil, of that I'm second guessing Tom Landon, just wondering what was his reasoning for not using another coil?