Work on My F8, No. 11

[Jim Price]

The past week has been another one of picking up on the details. Here's what we accomplished:

On Day 89 had all the remaining outside body pieces (fenders, etc.) loaded into my pickup truck and on Day 90 took them to the stripper.

Finished installing the brakes. Whew! The devil was sure in the details on that aspect of the job!

Installed the brake and clutch pedals assembly.

Installed the emergency brake assembly which is located under the cross member. (Thanks, Mike, for the CD that covered the maintenance manual for the Ford; was a great help! )

Packed the wheel bearings with grease and installed all the wheel hubs. Made new gaskets for the rear axles.

Purchased a new innertube to replace one that had a short stem and dismounted the tire and replaced that one.

Installed a new seal in the differential face where the drive shaft enters it.

Picked up a 5" wide, 70" long piece of channel iron for the front bumper. Got it at the same yard where I scrapped the original bed. Was a break-even situation!

Got a call earlier in the week from the steel fabricator that the new bed sections and the tail gate were finished so picked them up. They look good!

Installed all the wheels on the axles in preparation for filling the master cylinder, bleeding the lines and adjusting the brakes on Day 97. (Am still short lug nuts, one "L" and one "R"! )

That was it for this week!

Regards,
Jim

[Mike K]

Jim

You know this already:it may be a good idea to check all of the brake unions and M/cylinder fittings for weepage .. before you attach all the cab/body bits . After the cab and rear body are mounted on, the brake unions amd M/cylinder can be a pain to access if you have to tighten or alter anything. This is the case on the C8 anyway.

Mike

[Jim Price]

Mike:
You're right on target about checking all the unions and fittings for leakage! That will be done at the time we fill the master cylinder and begun to blled the brake lines. It's a mystery to all who have seen the position of the master cylinder as to how it was filled; looks both difficult and messy!

By the way, we have purchased some clear plastic tubing to place over the bleeder fittings to keep that job a less messy one. Will be showing that technique in a future post.

Regards,
Jim

[Phil Waterman]

Originally Posted by Jim Price

Mike:
You're right on target about checking all the unions and fittings for leakage! That will be done at the time we fill the master cylinder and begun to blled the brake lines. It's a mystery to all who have seen the position of the master cylinder as to how it was filled; looks both difficult and messy!

By the way, we have purchased some clear plastic tubing to place over the bleeder fittings to keep that job a less messy one. Will be showing that technique in a future post.

Regards,
Jim

Hi Jim

Yes the provision for filling the master cylinders starts off in the Pattern 11 being difficult and very slowly gets better through Pattern 12 and 13 only being made reasonable I think in 44.

What you need to do is make up one of the filler bottles shown in the manual.

A reasonable substitute can be made with out of a brake fluid container and some copper tubing. Back when brake fluid came in a steel can with a steel top I made up one by soldering two lengths of copper tubing in the top of a top one of the tubes was 3/4 of inch shorter than the other. When you insert the can upside down with the tubes sticking into the cylinder the fluid runs into the can until both tubes are covered by brake fluid. Then as you bleed the system and the fluid level drops the short tube is uncovered and lets air into the can allowing just a bit of brake fluid into the cylinder. I'll try and find mine and take a photo.

[Jim Price]

Some major milestones were reached this week:

Filled the master cylinder, bled the brake lines and adjusted the brakes. That was a several hour job! (Thanks to Mike and Phil for your suggestions!) We had only a few seeps or weeps and they were quickly fixed. One of the tricks we used was to loosen the bleeder valve and affix a clear plastic tube to it. This tube was then stuck down in a clear bottle with about 2" of brake fluid in it. (The fluid in the bottle kept any air from re-entering the line.) We then allowed gravity to force some of the air out, eventually applying pressure to the brake pedal. It was easy to watch the air bubbles in the plastic tube turn into a solid stream of fluid without causing any mess!

Cut the pieces to length for the windshield frame. We had earlier had a machine shop slice a 1/2" by 1" rectangular steel tubing down the 1" side. The original frame that held the glass was badly rusted. However, the flange that screws onto the pipe frame was salvageable. So, using the original frame as a pattern we welded the glass holding frame pieces together. (Discovered that the angle that the windshild slopes up to the center of the frame is 85 degrees. We then cut the flange pieces off of the existing whole frame and then welded the new glass holding frame to them. We put the frame back together for attaching to the outside pipe frame as it was originally done. I'll be taking the frame to the stripper for cleaning next week than back to have some epoxy filler applied to smooth out the rough spots before taking it to the painter.

Attached are some pictures of this process. (By the way, I have a complete set of uncut window holding frames that have not been cut to length. If there's anyone out there who needs a set for a F8 or C8, please let me know.)

Installed the remainder of the grease fittings and greased the truck.

Bolted the rebuilt transmission to the engine. This transmission was finished earlier this week. We'll be painting it on Day 104 for installation in the truck on Day 106.

Lately, the weather has cooled down nicely, days running right around 100 F; nights have been right around 75 F. Down right balmy!

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

[Jim Price]

This week's work entailed a major milestone in the F 8 resto project. We accomplished the following:

Bolted the transmission to the engine and installed same on the frame.

Installed the carbuerator, alternator, distributor, starter solenoid, spark plugs and wires, coil and fuel pump.

Installed the transmission cooler.

Whoa! Installed what? Well, here's the rest of the story. For those of you who were aghast at my scrapping the bed right off, converting to a 12 volt system and installing an electronic distributor, hang onto your seats!

I am a paraplegic having contracted polio some years back while working as a civilian for the US Air Force. I use a wheelchair to get around and use hand controls to drive my vehicles.

When I purchased this truck I was struck by the very narrow space for the foot pedals and wanting to not only drive the truck myself as well as others not needing hand controls, I decided to install a converter and an automatic transmission.

I purchased a Flat-O-Matic converter which comes with a bell housing that fits the rear of the flathead as well as the front of a Ford C 4 auto tranny. It also comes with a new light-weight flywheel and torque converter. I picked up a C 4, had it rebuilt, and this week we bolted engine and tranny together, painted and installed them.

Bolting the tranny to the frame required having a 5" by 8" by 3/16" steel plate cut and holes drilled as the new mounting holes were located about 3" beyond the originals in the cross member.

We have also ordered a custom length driveshaft as well as a transmission top mounted shifter (Lokar). On the latter I believe that we may be able to install the original shifting arm to maintain the original look. In that regard we also drilled and pinned the clutch pedal arm to the shaft that it shares with the brake pedal so that there are now two brake pedals.

I've kept all the original pieces so that any subsequent owner may use them to retro-convert if they so wish.

Well, that's the rest of the story! You may fire away at will!

Attached are a number of pictures of the work we accomplished. Enjoy!

Regards,
Jim

PS The last picture shows how little space there is between the pedal assembly and the exhaust manifold! I'm really concerned about the space available and whether all will fit!

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jim Price

I am a paraplegic having contracted polio some years back while working as a civilian for the US Air Force. I use a wheelchair to get around and use hand controls to drive my vehicles.

When I purchased this truck I was struck by the very narrow space for the foot pedals and wanting to not only drive the truck myself as well as others not needing hand controls, I decided to install a converter and an automatic transmission.

Jim,

I like the early CMPs, but am concerned about squeezing my 6'6" frame and size 13 boots inside the cab. But this is nothing compared to your handicap. I commend you for your determination to drive a CMP truck!

Hanno

[Ledsel]

I was just looking at your photos of the rear tranny mount and I see you have it mounted solid . You must have a rubber mount there as the engine twists in the frame. You will break your rear mount pad on the tranny if you don't.It should be made the same as the original auto trans mount. Just thought I would save you more grief.

Originally Posted by Jim Price

Bolted the transmission to the engine and installed same on the frame.