This has been a busy week! We accomplished the following:
Removed the damaged engine
and pulled the transmission. The tranny is fine and will be reinstalled. Legal work on the damaged engine is proceeding.
Installed the copy of the tailgate hook that Bob, my welder, had made. See the picture of it and compare with the original shown in a previous posting; an excellent copy!
A second piece of bad news!
The master cylinder began to lose fluid early last week and continued until it lost it all. Removed it and am returning it to the shop next week. It was a new one, too, not a re-build!
Installed the wood plank (ash) upon which the gas tanks rest. This involved the use of a router to make a pair of channels for the steel hold-down strap. It was also necessary to rout out a 1/2" by 3" by 5"space for the drain plug area. (Please, no criticism on the preciseness of the cuts: we are metal workers not carpenters!
) We also cut to shape, using a jig saw, the spacers for the top planks that cover the tanks. Holes for the drain plug access as well as the gas cap and emergency tank switch will be made next week.
When inspecting the original bed we noticed that the three vertical straps on each side of the bed did not continue under the bed to the opposite side but stopped at the bottom edge of bed. Sooo, we cut to fit 9 pieces of strap for each side, drilled holes in them and plug-welded them to the sides of the bed. We had noted the spacing measurements on the original beed so that the new bed would look the same. (Forgot to take pictures of these but will do so in a future posting.)
Welded a 3/8" thick by 2" piece of strap along the top of the front panel of the bed so that the profile matched the original configuration. We did cut a diagonal clip off of each corner as well.
Hauled the bed out to Bob's house for finishing off of all the plug and tack welds. Bob has been using a lightweight welder and wanted to finish all off using the heavy-duty one he has at home. Both are MIG welders. He'll also sand the finished welds. Pictures to follow in a future post.
That's it for this time!
Regards,
Jim