Quote:
Originally Posted by Kim57
You're making good progress.
Kim
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It feels good to be back at it Kim. I'm pretty confident I will have the engine in place before it gets too cold to mess with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baldeagle SR
glad to see you back on the truck again. Rich
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I'm glad to be back at it Rich. Right now it will be a lot of little things that need attention so I can finish painting the frame before the motor install. I spent most of the day yesterday repairing the passenger side sway bar mount inside the frame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samples45
Looking good joe, I live just up 35 from ya by riverwind, I have a 1955 TF. If you ever need a hand with the truck just hollar at me!
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Heck yeah, you're not too far up the road. I'll give you a shout next time a I need a bit of extra muscle moving the big pieces around. I am really looking forward to getting this project ready to move under its own power.
Tuesday I was down for the day. I went in to the hospital first thing in the morning to have the clot filter that was installed last September removed for good. I am 100% clot free and don't have a history of clot issues, so there was no need to keep it in place. By Tuesday afternoon, I felt like I had a couple of guys standing on my neck, trying to shove a garden hose down my vein. By Wednesday, I felt pretty normal, so I started to tackle the corroded captive fastener inside the right frame. The fastener is used to secure the passenger side end of the sway bar.
Even though my donor Dodge is a southern truck, the design of the early 2nd Gen frames is prone to corrosion issues at the front, where dirt, debris and moisture collect and cause the frame to rot from the inside out. I was not aware of this problem until I started stripping my frame for paint prep and found a few pinholes on the bottom right inside. Somewhere after 1995 or 1996, I believe Dodge addressed the issue. From the outside, mine appeared to be solid, and for the most part it is, but there are some places that were mostly scale on the inside. The good news is there is more than enough solid metal to support patching the thin spots. Once everything is patched and clean, I will treat the inside of the frame with Eastwood's inner frame treatment to prevent further corrosion.
Like I said, the biggest worry aside from structural strength, is the captive fastener for the sway bar. The thought of making some sort of external mount crossed my mind, but I was afraid I may create problems with suspension geometry down the road. To avoid this, I used a piece of 1/4" plate stock that was drilled to match the bolt pattern of the sway bar bracket. I used some 3/8" nuts welded to what will be the inside, then used my repair plate to mark the cut in the frame where the repair will weld in.
Once this was accomplished, I added to the repair I started last week, this time to the bottom side of the frame, extending forward from the sway bar mount, and around the bottom of the horn where the corrosion was its worst. I used 2"x1/8" plate, tacked and hammer fitted to follow the contours of the frame rail. This material is thicker than the two halves of the original frame rail except where they overlap and are welded together. I'm not quite done, as you can see below, but you get the idea.
-Joe