2012 at the Hammond Barn

[Alex van de Wetering]

or example the nose piece is held in place by 2 botls on each side....seems the first bolt hole is not used.... and I have seen the same on other cab 11 pictures.....

Interesting subject.....yes, mine came from LWDparts with only two bolts on each side. Wartime thing????I guess it must have been easier for maintenance, as the forward-most hole is almost unaccessable as it's behind the thick rad support. No caged nuts here, as far as I know....only square nuts. What about Fords?

Alex

[Bob Carriere]

Thanks for the photos Alex.

It seems that all my photos of various cab 11 ONLY shows the last two bolt holes being used. I agree that trying to install the front one would be almost impossible.... and the cast iton support does NOT have caged nuts.

NOt sure how different the Ford might be... but then Ford had the external radiator cap.....

Will need to review my set of factory pictures to see if the elusive 3rd bolt was ever used.

Did some more sheet metal work on the weekend. Not as much as I had planned because the huge tropical storm that was suppose to soak Ottawa came and went as a big fart..... lots of wind.... so we opted for felling trees that had been damaged in early September.... thereby increasing my stash of firewood and catching up on grounds work before Winter arrives.

It seems I have 2 options.

My front cast steel mount have two sets of holes.... the original which I am using now.... and a second set probably drilled by the previous owner to gain the extra clearance needed to fit the nose.

Using the original holes we fitted the engine cover, hood, bonnet... there is no real name to describe the rectangular cover. Well it fits nicely..... if I use the extra holes that have been drilled I am about 1/4 inch short but gain rad clearance and would still be acceptable.

I am going to try tilting my radiator backwards to the cab to possibly gain that precious 1/4 inch so I can use the "real" bolt holes..... then the est of the sheet metal should fit better...... action word here is "should"....

I have been comparing parts with the cab 12 I have...... cast parts are interchangeable but holes are different ...some tapered for flat screws and at a slightly difference location to allow clearnace for the Alligator nose.... rather confusing.


Stay tuned....

Bob

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Alex

I verified some factgory pictures of early complete and clean cab 11 and 12


All the cab 11 Ford and Chev DO HAVE the 3 bolts installed......

...but remember.... at the factory the whole nose assembly was put together on a separate jig then lowered on the frame which already had the motor and the radiator installed...... so at the factory the front most of the 3 bolts was installed.

I am sure that whenit was serviced in field unit that front bolt disappear as it would be almost impossible to re install wthout caged nuts.

On the cab 12 Chev pictures the rear 2 bolts are replaced by large 5/16 recessed screws instead of bolts AND the front hole is left empty.....

May not be gospel but that is what I observed.

Bob C.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi Bob,

I came to the same conclusion after viewing the Servicepub Factory photos CD....factory did fit all bolts. In the field however it seems that sometimes those last two bolts were tossed in the bin after work on the rad and/or engine.
One of factory pics I found fascinating is that of a cab11 that was crated for assembly elsewhere.....the panel work around the radiator and the curved panels that attach to the arch bars are assembled as one piece.
I'd love to hear what others think about the filler necks.....did early Cab11's indeed have a short filler neck which was tilted backwards and did this give so much trouble when accessing the filler cab, that later on in production they fitted longer filler necks?

As for your cab assembly.....is it possible to fit the whole lot in it's original holes and just remove that panel on top of the rad, when you need to access the filler cap??? hmm...I thought this would just involve removing 4 (or 6) bolts, but I now realise you also have to remove some bolts of the grille.....

Alex

[RHClarke]

It has been busy at the barn despite the lull in updates. Last weekend saw a lot of fire wood stacking, cleaning up and clearing away of items in preparation for winter. Since Monday was a holiday (for federal employees) Bob and I spent the day at the barn. Grant was called in to work for some reason or other.

The temperature hit 21oC at the barn on Monday - a record for this region. So Bob broke out the sandblasting equipment and cleaned up most of his front fenders. There were some issues with the compressor that caused the coil in the control box to go up in smoke. Bob replaced the coil and got a few more minutes of blasting done before the new coil also went up in smoke. It looks like the control box will have to be replaced.

I spent the day working on the roof of the pilot model deciding where to replace the sheet metal. Bob recommended that I put the roof on a solid jig to prevent warping, so until that is done, the roof will wait. Next, I turned my attention to my 45 HUP roof hatch cover.

The hatch cover was in sad shape when I first got the truck. One of the previous owners cut a hole in the hatch into which he fitted a smoke stack for a wood burning stove that was put in back behind the divider on the passenger side of the rear of the truck. The heat from the stove warped all of the metal nearby and burned off the luxurious green liner on the passenger side door, the divider and the roof hatch. As mentioned previously in one of these threads, Bob and I welded up the hole. Last spring I dropped off the hatch cover at Brian Francis' place, where he trued up the edges and took out most of the warp in the hatch cover metal. He delivered the cover this summer and I was really surprised at how much metal can be shrunk or expanded. Brian did a great job. The cover stayed in the shelter until I dragged it out on Monday.

On Monday I cut away the rotten metal around the bushing mounting holes. The bushings hold the four arms and rollers that allow the hatch to roll back and forth in the tracks. All four of the bushings had rusted away on the inside edge of the hatch and had locked the shafts of the roller arms in place. Two of the bushing mounting brackets had also rusted away. The removal of the old bushings was quite easy as the metal around the edges of the hatch had also rusted away. This meant that new metal had to be welded in to replace it.

The next trick was to remove the broken off bolts on the end of two of the pivot arms. Using Bob’s “nut” technique, I welded on a small nut and eventually (after a dozen tries) removed the offending bits. I had forgotten that I had drilled out the old bolt shafts and tried to use “easy outs” to remove the remaining metal. Some folks never learn (meaning me of course). I figured that the easy outs would work nicely on such a small bolt. Wrong. Again. The remaining easy out came out rather easily using the nut technique, and the remaining metal followed suit.

Photos:

1 - Bob adding to the Hammond beach. Despite compressor problems, Bob spent the best part of the afternoon merrily blasting away.
2 - Refurbished hatch sliding hardware - pivot shafts/roller arms and bushings
3 - More of the same
4 - Some of the rust damage

[RHClarke]

Now I had four working pivot shafts/roller arms (one required a new fabbed up arm and roller), four new bushings, two replacement bushing mounts and four metal “blanks” to replace the rotted away metal. By the end of the day I managed to weld in two of the four blanks and two of the bushing brackets. As I use the gorilla weld technique, there is some clean up required, but that will have to wait for another day. After a clean up, Bob and I headed for home keenly aware that on 12 November 2012, we had worked up a sweat in the 20oC plus weather. Weird weather.

Photos:

1 - One of the old bushings (note the pitting) and some of the replacement metal bits and pieces
2 - Replacement bushing bracket in place (more welding needed)
3 - Rotten metal replaced (more welding needed) awaiting drilling of the new hole for the bushing
4 - Progress on the hatch cover - new metal in, bracket attached, awaiting drilling and attachment of bushings.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi

Very impressed with the roof arms, how did you make the brass rollers?

I've got a whole new hatch for my HUP and those little arms are the last thing I need to fabricate.

Cheers Phil