Brave men........
 

......going were few men have gone before......

In the Dodge power wagon forum they warn about disassembly of the large open bodies like yours as they are inadvertently very hard to put back together.

Been following your progress and fascinated by the bravery to tackle sheet metal that has become like a saltine cracker.

How will you form your patches???? do you use an English wheel or maybe a sand bag and hard rubber mallets........?

Love that wooden wedge trick.

Cheers

lucky we haven't read the Dodge forum Bob. Haven't worked out those patches yet. They curve in both directions.

These photos show what I needed to do to square up the roof.

The roof is now welded back on. I also added the small step that drops down from the rear floor to the front cab. The cab has been put back in place to check its fit and alignment with the floor and roof. All looking good.

Wayne
 

Wayne is detailed here

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/w/wayne/wayne.htm

The rear body corners have quite a few small dents in the panels and some awkward damage at the bottom corners. The problem is access to get inside the corners to hammer them out. The bolts that secure the door hinges have all been cut off as the caged nuts had seized. The easiest way to address both problems is to cut the welds holding the folded sections (which contain the caged nuts) and remove them. This way the caged nuts can be accessed with heat to remove the broken bolts, The section can be sandblasted before refit and I can get into the panel corners and fix the dents.

The front cab lines up well so I removed it to weld four small cracks in the front of the roof. First opening up the crack the width of a narrow grinder disc and then placing a small piece of metal behind so when welded it has some reinforcing behind it.

neat
 

That's neat work. Because of today's " bolt on replacement " standards most panel beaters would not have the skills or patience required for a job like yours

The cab was then welded back to the body. I used all the clamps and locking pliers I have to pull the roof to the top of the windscreen and then a porta power to push the windscreen upper cowl back to the roof to get it snugly together before re welding back together.. The B pillars were then clamped and welded back to the body. All looking good so far.

The rear door sections have been sandblasted and refitted after I tapped out all the dents. The rearmost floor cross member was missing so I had a new one folded up and tacked it in place to the floor. After knocking out the dents on the lower right corner side it was a bit out of alignment and wouldn't fit up close to the new cross member. I tacked a couple of small pieces of angle iron to each to pull them together.

Jake has two pair of rear doors so I fitted a couple to check the rear body for square. It all looks encouraging but will need bolting down to the chassis before we decide it is good enough.
This is the first time we have had a decent look at the doors and none of them are good enough to use. Either too much rust or too dented. they are pretty simple and are made of two similar halves that wrap around each other with the long hinge sandwiched in between. First to do was open one door up for patterns. The hinges can be sandblasted and re-used. The doors have cardboard inside as insulation and being 75 odd years old the cardboard is tinder dry and easily caught fire as I cut them open with the angle grinder. No doubt the rusty interior has something to do with the cardboard. We will fill the new doors with something else.

I ordered some panel steel and had two folds put in each piece to cover the longest fold on each side. The rest I can do by hand.

A bit of an update on the door progress. The left door two halves have been formed up and the two halves mate together well. The hinge needs to be sandblasted first to clean it up as it needs to be welded to the outer skin, then the inner skin overlaps and is welded in place. Relevant holes have been drilled and the window cut out. I removed the caged nut panels from the old door. They spent a night in my elec bath to clean them up and they have been welded in place.

A couple of shots of the cardboard insulation.

I got the first door sandblasted and gave it a good coat of red oxide primer before assembly. Something the original doors never received. The hinge was then welded on to the outer skin.

to replace the cardboard insulation I intended to use a couple of sheets of housing Foilboard polystyrene insulation. Then I remembered I had some scraps of coolroom panelling that was 50mm thick. Merely peel the sheetmetal outer skin off it from each side and cut to fit. Perfect.

Left door packed with foam and welded together and the top and bottom seams hammered over. Test fitted and it sits perfectly. Next to fit the locks and handles then do the right door.

Those doors turned out Great, Thanks for posting the rebuild of them.

Right side door now finished and trial fit. They both fit square and parallel with millimetre perfect gaps and alignment. After all the disassembly and reassembly we are very pleased that it all went back together so well.

Time to fit the front doors. We didn't have any front hinges so i borrowed a set from Ray Edsel and made some. The tops of the each door half of the hinge were a little too flogged out to take the original size pin so I drill all the tops out to 3/8 and made the pins from 3/8 bolts. I left the bottom hole a size under as they were less worn and it was easy to step down to 1/4". So the pins are bigger than standard but I turned the top and bottom so they look correct externally.

After bolting the body to the chassis I hung the doors on to see how they fitted after having the entire cab disassembled and rebuilt. The right side door required a slight bend to the lower hinge and shut perfectly with very good alignment and gaps. The left side required a little more persuasion with the porta power to push the front windscreen forwards before but it too aligned very satisfactorily.

Looking good, Was waiting for some updates :thup2:

In post 89 i showed the condition of the inserts that go above the front doors.
I was considering how I was going to fabricate replacements as they curved in both directions and would have required a fair amount of work to get the shape right. Luckily that was avoided and we managed to obtain a pair that had been salvaged from wrecked bodies. Sandblasted they are perfect. There is a series of corresponding holes that run along the top of this piece that the guttering over the door screws into. It is ideal for positioning the insert in place. I got a cleco pin in the front of the left insert but could not get the rest to come together to add more clecos. I placed small bolts gradually doing them up as I went along and it all came together nicely. A couple of clamps and then it could all be welded in place.

both front door inserts have now been added. The body reconstruction is now completed and just requires some cosmetic work to tidy it up, tap out a few remaining dents and then paint it. All the ribs and framework inside the rear body and under the floor make it a real pain to paint and get proper coverage 100 %. The height means I would have to do a lot of work on a ladder or planks which I hate as it restricts movement and makes it more tiring. So I welded up some scrap using the inside frame for support and fashioned a rotisserie which I can use in conjunction with my over head gantry. This will also allow me to lower the body to floor level for easier work height. Once in place I lifted the body and rolled the chassis out. I put back the timber trolley set up Jake originally had the body on for interim support between other movements.

As I could not go through the body in a straight line because of the windscreen level I lowered the angle of the main spar at the rear to hopefully get some weight distribution and balance. I was lucky and got it so close I can spin it around without any assistance.

Looking good, That body has come a long way since you have started this resto. Keep up the great work as you can see light at the end of the tunnel now :thup2:.

Looks like you are getting close to assembly Jack.
If I be so bold as to offer any advice it would be to instal the firewall pad as early in the process as possible. When building my Command Car I left it too late and had to cut it to get it into place.
Excellent work!

David

Thanks Dave and Dave.

Good advice Dave. I will pass that on to the assembly guy, Jake. Once this body is painted I can give it back to Jake to complete. He has quietly been accumulating all the interior bits and taking care of the rest of the running gear.

I dropped the body down to the floor which was a comfortable height to work on for filling and finishing off the roof.

all shaping up pretty well.

the roof is largely done now with a coat of putty put on to fill the minor imperfections. Sealant added along the gutters and it is ready to paint.
Then flipped onto its side for sealing up the floor and cross members.