Finally got the seats in for the trial fit of the foam.
Here's the support for the seat welded into the cab. The middle of the seat riser was pretty badly rusted so I cut it out so I can slide stuff under the seat. Thinking about making a door to cover it up.
Here's the front of the seat- it's 6" tall including the wood base
[IMG]
[/IMG]
The bottom cushion slopes back to 4.5" at the back
The back cushion has 2" of hard foam at the bottom that tapers to nothing at the top
Both the bottom and the back cushion will get additional soft foam. The bottom cushion will get 1" and the back will get 2"
I'm 6'3" and about 240 pounds and here's a picture of my torso in the truck - this is with 2" of soft foam in the back cushion. I couldn't feel anything hard at my shoulder blades with 2" of the soft foam on the back cushion
With the door closed, the height of the seat seems right. I have a pretty large steering wheel from a '59 Eldorado Cadillac and belly clearance wasn't a problem. No tilt wheel just a straight column.
Installed the Camaro gas tank after fabing some straps out of 18g sheet stock
Filler neck will be under the license plate on the roll pan
Snagged this emergency brake handle at the local forklift junkyard. Will try to extend handle another 6" or so to get it looking a little more proportional to the gearshift lever and mount it on the floor next to the shift lever. Should I have any safety concerns about an emergency brake lever that just goes over-center to engage the emergency brake?
Finished up the metal work on the grill slats and polished them to make sure i had all the tool marks out of them before they go to the chrome plater this week. (propped up on a cheap HF flashlight to show the reflection from the fluorescent lights) I bumped out the dents with a hammer and dolly, sanded them with 180 grit, then 320 grit and finished them with the buffer.
Wyatt's polishing lathe is a beast and commands respect.
My luck with chrome shops runs hot and cold, so this time I decided I'd prep my chromed parts myself. Wyatt recently had some work done at the shop I'm going to take the '49 grill to, and it turned out decent for what he had to work with. My hope is that if I give him my grill nearly ready to plate, he'll expend the hours he'd normally spend just straightening it in making it perfect. I talked to the plater and he was good with any prep work I wanted to do before bringing the grill into his shop. Fingers crossed.
I don't want to spend the time to get every square inch of the grill perfect, so I'm planning a trial fit to make sure I've got good metalwork everywhere you can see as you approach the truck. Color sanding the grill surround and installing tomorrow so I can trial fit the grill before it goes to the chrome shop.
Regards, Phil