62 Ford Unibody Roof swap to big back window.

[jvo]

Okay. That was December 3 when I was looking to push it outside so I could primer the parts. I did that last Sunday.

The parts that need to be painted have now gone to a shop where I'm helping out with a metal project. I guess I could say that I have now seen everything. Just on a side note, this 57 Chevy came originally from Kansas City. The present owner purchased it from the guy who drove it back from there, and just to prove it, all the newspaper inside the rocker panels were Kansas City newspapers.

I have now seen with my own eyes, rolled up newspaper, AS WELL AS screen door screen to help the condo bridge the gaps in the rust. The rockers were riddled with rust holes, big rust holes, not just little ones, and held together with newspaper, screen and copious amounts of bondo. I think I have now seen it all.

I have to say as well, that the 57 Chevy floor pans, fender patch panels and door panels I have used on that project fit perfectly. Patch panels have come a long way. Only the bend lines on the front fender openings needed to be made a little more crisp, but they fit perfectly.

So I am having a pro do the prep and paint on my remaining body parts and they are getting done yesterday already. I am a happy camper, cause it would take me 3 weeks to do what a pro can do in a couple days.

I actually had my truck running this morning for a millisecond, but I'll be the first to brag about how good I am at doing metal work, but how piss poor I am at starting and trying to time an engine.

I think I stated earlier somewhere that pretty much every motor I've ever tried to start I could not time properly. I can bolt it all together, but I can't tune it.

Everything is ready to go on the truck as soon as the front clip comes back from paint. All I need to do it some finish wiring on the headlights, bolt the doors and fenders on, and take it for an out of province safety.

I'll have to jury rig a seat first I guess, cause that part isn't coming together yet.

I'll update again soon.

 

[James__WC]

John: It's been about three weeks since the last update, so, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one wondering what's new since May 10th ??

James

 

[jvo]

Well James was wondering what I have gotten done lately. We spent 12 days at my daughter's in Langford finishing up all the little crappy jobs at the end of the kitchen renovation that nobody else wanted to do.

Oh, but I guess you folks don't really give a damn about that.

I did some shining up on the front end parts in anticipation of actually having some painted parts soon.

These parts are from the Mercury pickup that James told me about. I put in an absentee bid and won the 61 Merc with beautiful grille, headlight bezels, chrome front bumper and big back window with all the trim. Complete truck, but very rusty.

I also decided to change over the clutch linkage to hydraulic. I had extended the Z bar an inch and a half or so on each leg, but it made for a very stiff clutch pedal, just like my buddy's 65 GTO. Actually stiffer. Very uncomfortable, and thus unsuitable.

I found the link somewhere, don't recall, that uses the original fruit jar master cylinder for the clutch master.

I found the proper master and the recommended slave cylinder from a Y block, although I could have used almost any slave as I had to build a mounting bracket regardless.

This hydraulic changeover had been a real pain in the butt and is taking some time to complete. The master cylinder that Amazon first sent me is in the photo above. It's a motor for a clothes dryer. The instructions to bleed the master cylinder were sent with the dryer motor. Sent that back and got the proper master cylinder the following week.

It bolted right in place. I had to remove the clutch pedal and grind the one actuating arm off that was partially over the hole I now needed for the actuating rod to bolt into.

Greased everything up nicely so no squeaky pedals hopefully.

 

[jvo]

I just brought this home this afternoon. I have to straighten it, and add about 4 inches and a flange to the bottom.

It's for the front end of a special trailer to pull behind a race truck. Needs some loving.

It looks a lot flatter than it actually is. Good news is that the lettering is still pretty nice. It doesn't have to be really pretty but I also don't do rat.

This will be consuming any extra time I have this weekend. Wish me luck.

 

[jvo]

I actually drove it today. Dave came over and helped me bolt the front fenders on, as well as the doors. I thought I had reasonably decent gaps till I got the truck up to the shop. Bud went to work on it, and in no time he had things in place with beautiful gaps. He made me work on the other side of the truck.

I had to cut some of the A pillar part of the door to make a decent gap once he had the door lined up.

It was a real pleasure today to work with a craftsman. Bud knows his stuff. I had the drip rails straightened, as in, no bends or dents, but he pointed out they had an arc front to back. We hammered them flat, then proceeded to hammer the top of the door straight as well.

The door top had a nice arc front to back as well, and once I got that hammered back flat, the gaps were really nice. Only place there was any cutting or welding was where you can see on the A pillar.

I had a big grin driving it up and down the alley. Everything works sorta okay for now. Second gear synchros are gone, gives a good crunch going in, no matter how you try. (Chrysler A833 overdrive 4 speed)

I rebuilt the Rochester 4 barrel, and throttle response is very crisp. Rolling down the alley at 10 mph or so, when you stab it, they break loose really quick.

Good news is once we got it across town, the back end settled down a bit. I need to look into some drop shackles for the back end. They are still stock, even though I dropped the front end of the springs. Not enough yet, just a bit more, but it still has all the "truck" leaves in it for now.

 

[jvo]

You can already see how much better it looks in the following pics, after Bud adjusted the doors, and front fenders. He's not done yet by a long shot, but it's booked into the booth for Wednesday. ( insert snoopy happy dance here )

That second pic is a really good shot of my biggest run when I painted it on the rotisserie. Right ahead of the taillight hole. Big 4 or 5 drip run.

Bud is painting the whole truck over with base clear, so it should all look the same. He even commented that he's painting it with the doors open, as he mentioned earlier that he might just repaint the dash as well.

I think I'll try to book an out of province safety for Friday morning.

I was assured it will be done for the show n shine this weekend. So unless we have a catastrophe, I'll be there.

 

[James__WC]

John: Does this resemble you?? (but I expect your ears don't flop around as much! lol)

 

[Scotty]

Woo Hoo!!!

 

[jvo]

Yup. That pretty well sums it up. Today I'm about to go put the horn button in the lathe and turn it down slightly so this other horn button will fit right over it.
I don't recall where I got it, but it just happens to be a hair smaller than the corvette horn button that I was trying to do something different with. I guess this will be it.
The steering wheel I picked up at the Portland swap meet several years back for 10 bucks cause it had a couple of spokes that were bent slightly. I straightened it up no problem
The wheel had that fake woodgrain surface to it, and a couple cracks. I have no idea what it was from. I have to credit Jeff at Five Star Upholstery for filling the cracks, resurfacing the whole wheel, and then painting it. He painted it about a year ago, and matched the color from my grey truck, which was also garden turquoise metallic.
That was a one year only F100 color in 1963. Jeff managed to nail the color bang on. It matches the paint we now had scanned from the original on my grey truck.
Going to go out to turn down the horn button now. Wish me luck.

 

[ssmustang]

Congratulations, big step for sure! After so many hours of work it is good to see it out. Looks great!!!

 

[jvo]

This went rather well.

Bud repainted the red lettering yesterday. I suspect this will get polished some before it goes on.
Onward and upward.

 

[jvo]

This is what I was talking about when I mentioned poor rubber products somewhere in the past. I just took another pic yesterday. The rubber has fallen down into the door, despite me trying everything to keep it up where it should be.
I'll have to install new rubber there soon, as I need to do the other side of my grey truck as well.

I have the vent window rubbers installed in the frames awaiting an order with window run channel that I need to install. I don't think they had it last time I ordered something and then I forgot about it.

It is now all painted, as of today. These first two pics were taken Saturday morning when we tried to get it put together for the show n shine on Sunday. The installation of the taillights went really well, but everything we did from then on slapped us in the face, and nothing seemed to want to fit properly. There was myself, my son, and my grandson, and by 3 pm we had totally run out of steam, and had no intention of showing up with numerous ugly flaws.

This morning, Bud went to work on the front end with me, and in no time flat, we had the grille fit properly.
The hood is bolted on and lined up nicely. Bud installed the cowl rubber and pounded those nails in that I was scared to do, as I didn't want to get that close to new paint with a hammer.

I just need a couple of springs for the headlight buckets. Can't find my originals, but they may well have been rusty or broken. Regardless, I hope I can buy a couple in the morning.

We are currently working on bending the end of the one frame horn up a little. It was bent down in its previous life.

After that, we can bolt the brand spanking new bumper. It arrived a couple days ago from LMC, and everyone was looking at it and commenting on how nicely it was shaped. Really nice reproduction. Too good to be true, right?

Well, I'll take a pic when we go to fit it, cause the front of the truck is convex, but the bumper is almost dead flat. We will bend the middle out a bit which should bring the outside edges back into reality. Hopefully just pushing a bit at a time with the rubber bumper won't crack the chrome.

Drop shackles should be here by the weekend.

 

[JohnnyBgood]

How did you attach the new horn button over the old one?

 

[jvo]

I had to drill a hole in the original horn button in order to mount it on a mandrel (bolt with head cut off) in the lathe, so as to be able to turn its diameter down.
I mixed up some two part epoxy and poured it in the hole. It took a bit of coaxing but the epoxy flows in there pretty well. Its now one solid cap that cannot be dented.
Now if I can just find all the pertinent hardware to mount it. Parts guy is looking for the signal cancel ring. The column is 76 gm van with a corvette or Camaro hub on top. I bought the steering wheel and hub together, but decided to use this other steering wheel so the truck didn't look like every other Camaro or Chevelle with that same wheel.
Hodge hodge of parts to get to work together. It seems the bloody horn button is always the problem.

First shot of it all together. At least this end. I got all the lights working today. Someone forgot to hook up the jumper wire to the other park light, signal lights flash a bit too fast, so I'll be chasing down a heavier duty flasher tomorrow. Just that bloody horn to deal with.

Still needs another coat of clear and a good rubdown, but that isn't too far off.

Apparently one of the frame shops here is booking into November. We are trying to get it in to straighten that frame horn.

 

[JohnnyBgood]

Looks good..really good. Carry on..

 

[jvo]

We are currently working on bending the end of the one frame horn up a little. It was bent down in its previous life.

After that, we can bolt the brand spanking new bumper. It arrived a couple days ago from LMC, and everyone was looking at it and commenting on how nicely it was shaped. Really nice reproduction. Too good to be true, right?

Well, I'll take a pic when we go to fit it, cause the front of the truck is convex, but the bumper is almost dead flat. We will bend the middle out a bit which should bring the outside edges back into reality. Hopefully just pushing a bit at a time with the rubber bumper won't crack the chrome.

This from post 92 above.

After a week of correspondence with LMC, I decided to return their bumper. They agreed to pay the return freight, as the bumper clearly does not fit. It was a bit too good to be true, I guess. My other guess is some other poor sob is going to receive this bumper sometime in the future. I told them I didn't want another one exactly like this one, as I'm sure they come out of the same press when made. I rather doubt there are several "dies" that stamp these, and unless the die got bent, they probably all look like this one. Just guessing though.

Curvature side to side is definitely not correct. We were thinking of trying to bend it in the middle, but if the chrome cracked or peeled, I would be faced with re-chroming a brand new bumper.
Sent the original to Alberta Plating, and they did a really really nice job on it. The original only had a few very minor creases in it around the mounting brackets, and they triple plated it. It turned out to be half again more than I paid for the LMC bumper, but at least it is "right".

 

[jvo]

Well I finally got to actually drive it for a bit today. Handles really nice compared to my grey truck which drives just like a 63 F100. Nice tight steering, and rides like a sports car, very firm but doesn't jar your bones. No kick from the back end now either, and I still have all of the original spring leaves in place.

I called a friend that's a professional mechanic and he brought his timing light. It was out 10 degrees, and he set the idle so it doesn't stall now. Showed me which vacuum ports to attach the pcv valve.

He also told me to put a larger pump on it. I purchased one of those cheap electric fuel pumps, rubber mounted it, and it still hammers away like a woodpecker. I was told they usually only put out about 3 psi. I pulled another out of the drawer and it states it puts out 4.5 to 9 so I'll put that on as well, with a regulator.

Truck would run pretty good till it got up in revs then stall like it was running out of gas. That should solve that problem. I hope.

Install vent windows and regulators, door locks, glove box, heater defrost hoses, and maybe even weatherstripping.

If I have time, I'll put the rear shackles into the lowest spot. I think it could go down a bit more. After that, I'll pull a leaf or two, perhaps.

Then it's back to the paint shop for more clear, some polishing, then ceramic coat. Later.

 

[Scotty]

Woo Hoo!!

 

[JohnnyBgood]

That looks amazing..beautiful job…

 

[ssmustang]

Looks great! I agree with you on dropping the back a bit. Now enjoy it after all the work.