Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Alex

What ever hard wood you use as replacement make sure that the wood has been soaked in a oil base paint for the first one ro two coats than full strenght paint for a top coat...... takecare to insure that paint has soaked into every bolt holes.

I have literally encapsulated my wood using POR 15...... the finished product is very resistant to abrasion ) rubbing of floor and bracket).

In the original design as the wood got wet it decays and generates tanic acid that will other wise rust a bolt shaft to a perfect hour glass shape.

Keep up the good work.

Bob C

[Paul Dutton]

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

Hi Alex

What ever hard wood you use as replacement make sure that the wood has been soaked in a oil base paint for the first one ro two coats than full strenght paint for a top coat...... takecare to insure that paint has soaked into every bolt holes.

I have literally encapsulated my wood using POR 15...... the finished product is very resistant to abrasion ) rubbing of floor and bracket).

In the original design as the wood got wet it decays and generates tanic acid that will other wise rust a bolt shaft to a perfect hour glass shape.

Keep up the good work.

Bob C

Just out of curiosity, couldnt hard rubber be used instead of wood, solves a lot of problems and as so thin and only a packer wouldnt go noticed!
I know it goes against originality, which im all for, but why have to strip it all again in 10 years to re-do!
Im now waiting for the purists with pitchforks and burning torches at my door!!!!

[Alex van de Wetering]

Bob,

Thanks for the additional tips. I used Oak for the wooden spacers and treated this with a product called Owatrol. I did a test-piece first to see if the Owatrol, primer and paint would work together. The actual spacers received their first coat of Owatrol yesterday, which does indeed soak into the grain. I will post some pics in the next few days, to show which
procedure I followed.

Paul,

Well, for these floor-spacers rubber would probably work just as good. However, the cab 11/12 also uses a wooden frame in the roof section. Using rubber there would not be a good idea, as in this case the wood is not used as spacer, but as an actual structural part.

Alex

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Paul

I see nothing wrong with using a "modern" material particularly in hard to see areas. Hard rubber or the polyurethane used in modern car suspension would certainly insure long life and would have no detriment on the resoration quality.

After all I am coating my sandblasted parts with POR 15 and everyone knows that witches' brew did not exist back then.

As pointed out by Alex, wood is needed to redo the roof frame BUT I will increase the corner stress areas with thicker metal reinforcement behind the wood.

I am also running a Pertronix ignition system as it is more dependable and unnoticeable.

But I have kept a supply of old CMP tires with thick side walls to cut out rubber spacers such as for the T case, etc.

'Tis a strange thing restoration...... we work on a vehicle design to last minutes in battle and they have survived for over 70 years...... can you imagine how long they will survive after we are finished rebuilding them....?

Bob C

[Alex van de Wetering]

About time for an update!

Time for the wooden spacers; Phil Waterman uploaded some excellent pictures and measurements of the woodwork onto his website. I copied the measurements onto some new Oak, but of course I should have known better....the C8 wooden spacers differ from the C60S ones, as the chassis rails are quite different! So, in the end I combined Phil's pictures with the info and measurements that I was able to retrieve from my rotten C8 spacers and made the new ones.

I treated the spacers with a coat of Owatrol (a wood preserver) and made sure it soaked into all grain and holes. This was followed by a coat of black primer mixed with Owatrol, a coat of Khaki green with Owatrol and finally pure Khaki green. Only the last coat was done with the spraygun, the other coats done with a brush.
Soon afterwards I realised the long spacers were in fact too short! My original spacers were so rotten that I hadn't noticed that the straight edge at one end was not the actual end of the wood, but in fact the remains of a cut made to clear the steel cab floor supports. The spacers were about 20cm too short, so I took some more oak and fixed the issue.

The spacers are now waiting till I have the floor done.

Alex



Next update in two years

[Alex van de Wetering]

Next up was fitting the front suspention with some new bushings, pins and bearings. I was lucky enough to find a new set here in Holland. Removing
the old bushings and fitting the new ones was an easy job with help of the vise and a 19mm socket.
Afterwards the bushings had to be reamed to the correct size to accept the kingpin. The blades on my reamer were too short to work on both bushings at the same time....in other words there was a risk the surfaces of both ends would not end up inline, but at a slight angle. To solve this I made some plastic bushings on a CNC mill that would fit just around the shaft of the reamer and would just fit inside the bushing. I was quite happy with the result as the kingpins fitted perfectly after the reaming was done.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

The kingpin set did come with some shims, but sadly not the sizes I needed to get both pins within spec. I tried to find some extra shims here in Holland, but didn't have much luck in finding the correct diameters.I tried to have a few made, but the trouble was that I wasn't able to find anyone who was willing to make just a few....as they had to buy a whole sheet of material just for this job.
I did find a set of correct shims at Speedway motors in the US, but I was impatient, so I didn't want to wait to loose days to transport...So, in the end I visited the local department store and bought the first cheap stainless China product I could find that had a flat surface big enough to make a few shims. I think it was some crappy dinner tray.....but after some work with a Dremel tool, it's now part of my Front suspension.
I am very happy how it all turned out...all within spec.

Alex