46 pickemup in NJ "the Rebuild"

[solidaxel]

Yea you have a BOOK !!

[paintman]

Now that was funny! Anxiously waiting for Chizzler to chime in.

[paintman]

I finally got tired of the electric fan starring me in the face. I wanted to make a nice bracket for it instead of boogering it on with those cheap zippy ties. The problem was the radiator and the core support were on 2 different angles not allowing me to mount the fan flat on the radiator.. The radiator stands straight up in the core support while the front face of the suport leans forward at about a 15 degree angle. After pondering for about 2 hours I came up with a plan.

First problem to solve was removing the inner lip on the core support. This would give me a flat surface for the brackets to lay flat on. CAREFUL DON'T NICK THE RADITOR WITH THE GRINDING WHEEL
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Next up was bending, grinding, shaping, hammering, 2 pieces of metal into some kind of something that looked like a Hot Rod builder would make, not a house painter.
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Dress it all up by putting lip stick on a pig. Then bolt it fast to the core support.
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Call it done!
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[old yelr]

Looks pretty awesome to me!

[solidaxel]

Great bracket !
I take it you had no room on the engine side of the rad?

[CURSED GEARS]

Cool solution for the electric fans.
Just a thought on your grill. I had a set a pipes for a bike I built nickel plated. Wasn't very much, (about 78 bucks as I recall) It was way cheaper than chrome, and as always, it was a budget build. Just a thought, the paint looks great on the grill.

[paintman]

So I have been getting tired of fabricating stuff for the truck. I decided to take a break from working with metal and get into something that's in the Paintmans wheel house, bed wood! At some point the previous owner put a brand new Mar-K bed and wood kit on the truck. Great you say? Nope, instead of doing a nice job on the wood with stain and clear coat , he used old motor oil every 6 months. Hence over the years the wood had taken on a dull nearly jet black finish.
Soooo, with nothing but a whole Saturday and Sunday to waste, the Paintman set out to re-claim 7 pieces of (of what would cost $400 new), oak boards
1. soak with lacquer thinner and wire brush the hell out of the boards
2. proceed with paint stripper and more wire brushing
3. follow with a good soaking of 50/50 bleach and water
4. Proceed with hours and hours of sanding
And you end up with this..............................
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All in all the boards look damn good considering. However, there are a couple of boards with some small splits at one end . But, I have had the perfect solution sitting in my garage for about 3 years . Battery box!
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Not exactly sure how I am going to re-finish the boards as of yet. I was kicking around the idea of staining them the same mango tango as the truck, with white strips. Or pickling the boards white with mango Tango strips. The reason I say painted strips is because they are a DISASTER! But that's another story we are working on.

I kind of nixed those 2 options in favor of just a marine varnish. I kind of like the old weathered look of wood anyway. Or possibly a golden oak stain first followed by varnish. Stay tuned.................Either way this is the varnish I will be using. As a self employed house painter and a log home owner, I stand by all Sikkens products. Applied properly the damn stuff is nearly bullet proof!
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Hell if Mr. Magoo approves...............
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Regardless of what I do with the tops, I did the bottoms with Por15 as this (believe it or not), produced the best results in Mar-K's testing.
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In other news. I started the re-assemble of the windshield frame. Not to re-hash this entirely, but there was some question as to what to do. By new, go one piece glass, or try and re use this one. I opted to try and save this one for now. The first thought was to paint the frame white to match the grille but I opted for black thinking it would blend in with the gasket.
Then after reading a bunch of horror stories about trying to get the glass in with setting tape, I went to the local glass shop to see if they would do it for me. Well, after offering the guy $100 bucks and a night out with my wife, he still refused to do it! He told me it would be best to just silicone it in. So he was nice enough to give me some pieces of setting tape for alignment and a couple tubes of silicone, and tech advice for free.

So here's how I did it. To keep the glass centered in the frame so I could get an even amount of silicone on the front and back side of the glass, I wrapped and then taped small pieces of setting tape around the glass in 3 spots, top, bottom, end. Then I put a small dab of grease on the very bottom portion of the tape to help it slide into the frame. Even with this small amount of tape on the glass it was a BIOTCH!
[/URL]Then I just repeated the process on the other frame and bolted it all back together.
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If you look close, you can see the tape wrapped around the glass inside the frame. This left an even gap on both sides of the glass, between the frame, for the silicone to go down into.
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Here's the silicone the glass shop gave me.
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Originaly, the biggest concern was the small amount of steel that was missing due to rot at the butt joint of the frame. Fortunately the new center divider I bought was slightly lager then the old one and covered the gap with no problem! Just waiting on a new outer gasket from Steele and back in she goes!!!!!!!!
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[paintman]

Considering how boogered up these boards where from the last guy, I say they look pretty good. Show quality? No, but for what i am doing, perfect. Especially when it saves $400

I didn't use any stain, just 4 coats of Sikkens Marine varnish....................
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[paintman]

Since I have been a self employed painter caulking baseboards and door frames for the last 25 years, I figured I should be able to run the silicone around the frame and glass.

I'm sure the glass shop would have done it different, but here's how a painter does it. Not wanting to have it look like it was put on with a sling shot. I ran masking tape around the inside of the glass leaving about a 1/8 inch of glass showing. This would allow for the silicone to get down inside the chanel and also get a grip on some of the glass. Beacause the frame was already painted I tape it as well.
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then it was time to shot the silicone. I had to heat it up in the oven because a conventional caulk gun just wouldn't budge the material. Kind of hard to see in the pic but once I shot the bead I smoothed it out with my fingure while trying to press the silicone down into the chanel. Once done, I peeled the tape off and it looked great!
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I was going to post a pic of how good the frame looked once I got it back on the truck, but I ran into a snag. After reading countless threads about how great Steele rubber products were, I pulled the trigger and dropped $85 on a new gasket. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!! As soon as I opened the box I could see there was a difference in the size of the gasket. The outer most flange that makes the actual seal was nearly 1/4 smaller than the gasket I took off the truck.
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Even though I knew the new gasket would not fill the entire chanel on the truck, I figured since I had nothing better to do, I would put the new gasket on the frame and bolt it to the truck just to see how bad it looked. Pretty much, it looked worse than some of the stuff that swirls around in a toilet!
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This is exactly why I didn't want to drop $600 on a new frame or a one piece glass. Because it seems like everything you buy now a days is nothing but crap! I think for now I will just clean up the old gasket (its in to good of shape to be the original) and re-use it.

[CURSED GEARS]

That reminds me of the window felt I bought for my truck. It had screws that secured the felt to the frame. The screws stuck up to far preventing the window from rolling up. 50 bucks down the drain. Luckily, my glass guy had his own stuff. Still, 50 bucks is 50 bucks!

[dennislbrooks]

What paint did you use on the grill and front bumper?

[paintman]

Originally Posted by dennislbrooks

What paint did you use on the grill and front bumper?

Just a single stage white. Same thing that i used on my firewall. I think it's called Fleet white. I am also doing the bed srips and back bumper as well. Still kicking around the idea of re-doing the windshield frame white as well.

[old yelr]

Lookin good!

[CURSED GEARS]

Good stuff!

[paintman]

Time to bump it back to the top.
Windshield, done! Re-used the gasket that was on the truck when I bought it. I thought about painting the frame white, but went with black. Still not sure i made the right choice. Threw out the new Steele Rubber piece of .....................
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In one of my other posts I eluded to the fact that my bed strips were giving me trouble. When I went to clean them up for assembly, I found what looked to be some kind of hardened sap all over them. Especially under where all the bolt heads were. I tried all kinds of chemicals to try and soften the stuff but nothing worked. It looked to me as if whoever assembled the bed of the truck put the bed strips in with the bolts right over the thin protective plastic the strips are shipped with. When he finally peeled the plastic off, the plastic remained under all the bolts, and in other places, only to dry and harden. The only way I could remove it was with my die grinder and scuff pads. What a job! With all my bed strips scuffed up, I had three choices. Buy new, try to re-polish them, or paint them. Well, I think this will work for now ....................
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[paintman]

5......4......321................

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Img-NxEdUk0

[paintman]

Sorry my bad LOL................try this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auaDSwCWdCk

[Cape Codder]

Sounds sweet even a little raspy. Funny I have been subscibed since the beginning and watching your progress. When I just saw the alert for your thread I was trying to remember if you had started it yet. When I logged on and saw the vid link it was like Oh Yea. I am a big fan of the straight six.

[TJ's Chevy]

Sounds awesome! Really makes me want to get mine running. haha When I get the cab on next year I think I am gonna bite the bullet and start my 292 finally after almost 2 years of being done.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work, engine sounds good.

[CURSED GEARS]

That's great! I like your twin machine guns, uh, horns!

[paintman]

Well, you guys keep pushing me further towards the bottom of the page, So I figure it's time to get busy and bump the 46 back to the top.

Been pretty busy around the Paintman's place with fall cleanup. But I did get the bed of the truck back on and got the wood bolted back in. Also got the fuel door and battery box living in their new home.
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Also mounted the rear bumper. The one that came with the truck was ugly as hell so I got a rear bumper off a 47 on the cheap. Since I moved the rear cross member all the way to the rear of the frame, I couldn't use 46 bumper brackets. So I bought a set for a 47 and mounted them to the outside of the frame. I still have to weld the brackets and bolts to the bumper and shave the heads of the bolts off for that smoooooth look to match the front.
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I also got some panels made for behind the seat. Not sure what Chevy was thinking when they made the original corner peices, as they are way to small.
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Next up is getting some of the panels covered. I want to get as much of the interior done before I hang the doors. Paintman still plugging away at it!

[solidaxel]

Great idea on the rear panel, thanks for the suggestion, as we are still in upholstery jail !!

[paintman]

Originally Posted by solidaxel

Great idea on the rear panel, thanks for the suggestion, as we are still in upholstery jail !!

I wish I could put my truck in some kind of jail and have somebody else do the work. I gettin tired of this! I'm just going to try and do the best I can with some basic carpet (black or beige) finishing off the inside myself.

[solidaxel]

For this project I was able to pick and chose the parts I wanted to do, and farm the rest out, this was a fun project for me!