Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Alex

I had the same problem but attcked it differently. I temporarily installed grqade 8 longer bolts and tighten the he** out of them until they diform and partly filled the gap. What remained was covered with 2 in. wide 1/8 in. thick self adhesive black foam rubber.

for your rubber seal around the shift tower it may be easier to build up the desired thickness of foam with glues up layers of foam....once compressed and with 3M door trim glue it will not come apart.

How about the rubber ceiling tile/cushion on the inside roof panel above the driver and rider????

[Alex van de Wetering]

Bob,

Thanks again for your suggestions. I think I have found a source for thick soft foam rubber, that I can use to fill the gap with the arch bars, shift tower and also the ceiling cushions (thanks for reminding me...completely forgot about those!).

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

Attached are some pictures of the repair to the arch bars of my C8. There were four sections that were in need of attention.....a spot near the steering box (a previous owner cut a hole with the torch), a section about halfway the other arch bar (where the steel was almost paper thin) and the last 20-30cm on each of the ends, where the arch bars attach to the supports under the doors.

I knew this would several hours of welding and grinding, but Dirk at LWD said he might have the solution as they had two sets of arch bars as spare.
Even though the frames/arch bars all look the same, they are almost all different....and the C8 is unique and not shared with C15 or any of it's sisters (difference is mostly in the ends where it attaches to chassis), so on a saterday we had a close look at the spares. After close examination (and info from Bob and Phil, thanks again guys), we found out one was CGT and the other was a Ford one, so no luck.
The Chev right hand side arch bar is different from the Ford one as it has one extra bulge to give some extra clearance for the pedals.

So, it was time to repair my original frame. I started by firmly bolting the arch bars to the chassis.....and adding temporary braces as I was afraid the steel would distort after cutting sections that needed repair.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

I had a steel strip rolled to the correct radius and drew two repair sections in the computer that I had laser cut.....all in 6-7mm steel.
If you look closely at the arch bars you will notice the curve is not only bent in one direction, but also curves in the other direction, so I made a bending tool from some scrap steel and a long steel bar. This tool made bending the patches to the correct shape quite easy....with one end clamped in the vice of course.

[Alex van de Wetering]

I repositioned the braces a few times, so I had enought room to work and still retain rigidity.

[Alex van de Wetering]

The last pictures for now.

As expected it took me a few weekends to finish the repairs, but I have to say it was a very satisfying job. If I were to do this job again I would probably repair the frame before painting the chassis.....or at least make a better job of covering up the painted chassis. The grinding left small steel particles everywhere.....being hot from grinding they "sank" into the paint on the chassis and started rusting after a few days. It took quite some time to clean (sand!) this off again and repaint the chassis

The last picture shows the arch bars back from blasting, with some captive nuts left to do.....and some welding of where the dash-frame meets the arch bars, to get rid of the rust-trap.

Alex

[Phil Waterman]

HI Alex

Your work on straightening the cab frame is impressive. I tried with a 10 ton Porta power and several Jacks to straighten the cab frame on my Pat 12 without success even with the sections needing to bend heated to bright red with a large carbon arc tourch. It just never occurred to cut out one side of the angle irons.

My cab would still bee crooked if Bob C. had not brought me a straight cab frame.

Very informative set of posts.

Cheers Phil

[Bob Carriere]

I have never seen an arch bar cut and repaired before..... the compound curves are a nightmare..... not to mention the residual tension from being formed in the first place.

Bravo.......

Bob C

[Alex van de Wetering]

Thanks guys! Mike; I think you might be right that a lot of frames might have been bent from new.....and even though I did brace the frame before cutting and welding, I have no idea how much it got bent from rust damage and the hard life at the farm before I started the restoration.
Something I also noticed is that the fenders had some extra holes cut for fastening them to the arch bars....and some holes that were obviously modified to get everything assembled. I would not be surprised if this was done in the factory, and I also wouldn't be surprised if I need to add add some spacers or wedges to get panels aligned, even though at the moment all seems to be pretty much level.


Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

Some of the captives nuts on my cab frame were missing or mangled, so I had to make a few new cages.

Al Tooes had a bunch of cages laser cut for his HUW restoration and he sent me some that were left over from his resto (thanks again Al!)
The HUW cages are somewhat different from the early C8 ones, but I was able to use the same sheet metal outline. The first picture shows one of the original cages on the C8 cab frame. The second shows what some of the others looked like, but it gives you an idea how they were welded.

I made a simple tool that I could clamp in the vise and welded on one square nut and clamped a second. I used the first as a jig to form the long ends of the cages by lightly tapping with a chisel and a piece of flat steel bar. That's why I welded on this nut....I wanted to keep the nut in position so I could properly make a 90 degree bend. After the long ends were formed, I placed the piece onto the second nut and formed the short ends. After drilling holes in each of the long ends, and grinding the ends to an arrow shape, the cages were pretty much ready to weld onto the frame. I clamped the cages to the frame by inserting the square nut in the cage, inserting a bolt and clamping down the cage by use of a second nut on the outside of the cage. This makes welding and grinding a piece of cake.