[Vic1947]

With the workshop semi-vacant, I was able to move some of the parts around that needed cleaning and painting. When I got this truck, it had an interesting hood feature that I kind of liked. It was poorly installed (naturally) but it seemed to work with the hood lines. Brian G. donated a hood he's not planning to use, so I figured I might graft the hood bubble onto his ...assuming it was salvageable. So today I finally got around to grinding the rest of the bondo away from the seam to expose what I might be facing. Actually looks good so far, although I'll know more when I get the spot welds cut and see what's underneath. I wish I knew what it came off of. Got a car designer buddy that may be able to point me in the right direction. Looks sort of Mopar'ish.

Also got the TH400 tuned up. It was filthy and had a bent vacuum modulator as well as several dings in the pan. Degreased and washed it then rubbed it with lacquer thinner to remove any residue. Repainted it with wrinkle finish and installed a new filter, gasket and modulator. Hammered out the dents in the pan and shot it dull aluminum to mimic the aluminized finish it had when new. While the speedo gear was out, I logged the number of teeth on both gears so I'll know what I need when the time comes. I found a Lokar knockoff firewall mount trans dipstick on eBay. It came with a tiny little fill adapter. Never occurred to me that the braided steel line has about a third of the cross section as the stock tube. Guess I'll fill as much as I can before I insert the tube and then the rest once it's running.

While going thru my ever growing swap meet pile, I found a pair of shocks I took off the other truck when I converted it to QA1's. Also found a brand new set of tie rod ends that had the wrong taper for the silver truck, but will work just fine with CRLS. Love it when I find hidden treasure!