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Been getting scads of emails from these two. American Shifter looks like Lokar...

Just curious.

Our local historical plates are 25 for life. It has to be the year of the car hence a 1934 plate on a 1934 ford. With this type of plate you only need to run one plate on the back. I bought a 34 plate for $10, had it refurbished by a guy for $25 and good to go. No restrictions on use of the car like some plates require.

If you buy the white historical plate with just numbers on it you have to renew it every year, not sure of the fee and you have to run one front and back.

Now that's what I would really love to have. A plate of the year of truck's birth... LOL

Unfortunately, the local government hasn't caught on that all they would need to do is charge the tax and not have to produce the plate. Just set standards as to its authenticity.

My52Chebby

$25 bucks and worth every penny  

Our personalized plates cost a one-time charge of $169.50 including Tax (go figure, here I thought the license plate themselves were ALL TAX).

No additional charges per year though, just your car's registration fee.

My52Chebby

A while back I asked for suggestions for a personalized license plate for my 1952 Chevy pickup... Well, I finally got my plate. It's going to read:



Not Anno Domini (Instead of BC) but rather Advance Design, my truck's designation.

I thought I was very lucky to get that plate.

My52Chebby

I would consider using countersink bolts to make it even cleaner

Sorry but countersunk bolts would not be feasible, the escutcheon plates are thin and the holes underneath them are oblong, some have even been badly hogged out of shape.

Those button head bolts came in a complete stainless steel bolt set specifically for the truck and match all other bolts on the truck so they won't look out of place.

Thanks guys...

My52Chebby

I did one exactly the same way. I used a pair of Nissan pickup handles mounted sown near the floor, and connected by a cable to operate them.

Mine will all be electrically operated but I am thinking of an emergency setup secretly accessible from the outside/underside of the truck.

When I started this installation, I thought it would be a lot more difficult than it actually was. I think the first side took about an hour to do and the other side even less.

Here is the original door jamb.



Placed the installation kit plate over the jamb in the location I wanted the pin to hit the latch. Trace the location and cut the hole. Had to cut the hole a bit bigger than the plate to remove the old hinge recess.


Fitted the installation kit plate and tacked it in place with the mig.


Fabricated a filler piece to fit above the plate I welded in and tacked IT in place.


Decided where the hinge bolt should be located on the door and marked it. Then I cut out the old hinge area on the door.



Welded a plate for the new bolt.



The whole job was a breeze.

My52Chebby

p.s.: The reason for the bolt being in the door instead of the cab is twofold. Firstly, there was not enough room in the door between the back edge of the door and the window track for the large bear claw units. Secondly, with the bolt on the cab I was told that it sometimes gets caught on your belt as your getting out of the truck.

A while back I posted how I made escutcheon plates in stainless steel to clean up the hinges in my door jams (see quote below).

Some of you might be wondering how I found the locations where to drill the bolt holes for the hinge bolts. Well this is how I went about doing it:

Firstly, once the doors were adjusted, I pinned the hinges to the doors :

    - One 1/8" drill bit through the door inner structure at each hinge leg.



    - Then I pinned the hinges to the cab with 3/16" pins



         - I welded the pins to the hinge itself from the front of the hinge
           letting the pins protrude about an 1/8th on the mating surface side of
           the hinge.

[/img]

         - Using the pins meant that I didn't even have to bolt the hinges in
           place for them to be in the proper (registered) location and it left the
           front of the hinge flush.



         - Then I placed clear packing tape over the bolt holes

         - I could then clearly see the bolt locations through the clear tape that
           and marked the bolt locations on the clear tape with a black marker.

         - I then placed white plastic tape on the back of the stainless
           escutcheons followed by clear double sided tape.

         - Then I pushed the escutcheons/white tape/double side tape
           sandwich in location around the hinge leg.



         - It was then a simple matter of pulling the hinge assembly off the
           cab, placing the whole assembly upside down in an open vice (that I
           had previously taped up so as not to damage the escutcheon
           surface). Looking from the back, I could clearly see the 'X' markings
           the bolt locations.

         - Using an automatic punch I marked all the bolt locations then used a
           step drill to drill the bolt holes. A step drill is less apt to catch and ruin
           the thin escutcheon.

This is what the finished fit looks like... I'm pretty stoked.



What do you think?

My52Chebby
p.s.: Still need to sandblast the hinges, change the hinge pins and finish paint them.

http://images58.fotki.com/v85/photos/8/20008/9260696/P1090829-vi.jpg[/img]

I machined two bucks, one for the upper hinges and another for the lower. They're reversible so I could produce four plates with two bucks...



The plates still need final buffing but I'm really pleased with the progress so far...

My52Chebby

p.s.: Click on the link to check out my project albums : http://public.fotki.com/skylark/1952-chevy-pickup/

I know that's an expensive mistake but it is also an improvement to my exhaust system and of course better access to pulling off the distributor and the valve covers

.


 Before you do this ...Think about something .....  :?    Are the distributor & valve covers removable now  :?:  ( Maybe a little "tight" but removeable  :?:  )

Try removing them NOW before you move anything ....  See how hard it actually is .....

 Just how often do you plan on removing the distributor & valve covers  :?:  :?:  :?:

I just hate to see you mess up work that has been completed VERY nicely .......
Bob...........

Ugly Olds,

I took your advice and checked if the valve cover could be removed without much hassle and it came off easily.

All I had to do was tilt the valve cover towards the header a bit and it rotated around the rockers no problem.

So, I will NOT be moving the engine forward, which will help in the electric fan department. I will install the Pro-Clamps I bought for my exhaust system though.

Thank you very much for your sage advice.

My52Chebby

Started working on the 1952 Chevy pickup truck project again... Before Christmas, we were averaging 2 days a week on it. We got the door gaps adjusted at 1/8"-3/16" all around. Got the bear claws installed (pictures on request) and the power windows are in too.

What follows is the work I've been doing in the shop the last couple of days.

First series of pictures are the steps I took to fit these VW Passat seat back release handles on my truck seat (WiseGuys seat, MUCH modified, some modifications to fix glaring manufacturing errors, some mods to please my taste).



These are the parts I fabricated...



Here is what the looked like during a preliminary assembly (square shafting needs to be cut still)



Next I welded the 1" square tubing to the seat frame, assembled the parts so that I could then measure and fabricate the link rod...





Another thing that I just had to do was to replace the awful looking escutcheon plates that fit around the door hinge coming out of the door jamb on the cab. In this picture, you'll see the mangled existing plate, a cardboard template, a thick aluminum plate buck and the finished stainless steel plate I formed over the buck.



I machined two bucks, one for the upper hinges and another for the lower. They're reversible so I could produce four plates with two bucks...



The plates still need final buffing but I'm really pleased with the progress so far...

My52Chebby

p.s.: Click on the link to check out my project albums : http://public.fotki.com/skylark/1952-chevy-pickup/

Your first attempt SHOULDN'T be stainless... It's the hardest metal to shape by spinning. You have to bring the metal to white hot (I have a jewelry kiln) and then cool it slowly in a bucket of sand, place it on your buck on the lathe and use a bronze (brass will do) drift to push against the spinning piece.

In my case, I had to repeat the heating process (annealing) on each piece twice in order for the adapters to snug firmly against the buck.

I had bought a book on metal spinning but it was mostly on how to construct the bucks. Most of my info on metal spinning came from YouTube.

Good luck...

My52Chebby

[Here is the set I had purchased a few years ago.A while back I showed you I spun a pair of adapters out of stainless to fit the TPI-Tech gauges to my dash... I had ordered a set of TPI-Tech gauges a few years ago and they were state of the art back then but I recently came across a new set by Dakota Digital that just blows them out of the water. With the TPI set, I made special adapters to fit the gauges in the stock holes in the dash, the gauges are smaller than the stock gauge openings in the dash (1st compromise), adapters are shown above, they're stainless and I spun them on my lathe. The TPI gauges had the speedometer in one gauge and water temp, oil pressure, fuel level and voltmeter in the other gauge. Rumpums could be viewed in the small "information center" where the mileage usually appears, but no tachometer needle (2nd compromise). What follows may seem like disjointed information but the reason will become apparent soon enough. I also had to find a place to locate the left and right flasher and high beam indicators. To do that, I bought this cute little unit with a block containing three LEDs (green-blue-green) and three fiber-optic strands coming out of the block to locate in 1/16" holes somewhere on the dash around the gauges (3rd compromise). I had also bought a Lokar shifter boot that showed the PRNDO in a small LED window framed in the boot base (4th compromise).Now for a short description of the new Dakota Digital gauges. They are digital/analog, but that I mean, they are completely digital but using stepper motors for the needles, for all intents and purposes, they LOOK analog. The speedometer gauge also incorporates the smaller fuel level and voltmeter gauges. The full face tachometer gauge incorporates the smaller water temp gauge and oil pressure gauges. The left and right flasher and high beam indicators are somewhere on the speedometer gauge face. BOTH gauges have an "information center", one can display miles whereas the other can display some other info like the clock, trip odometer, resettable service messages, hour meter, 0-60 mph (or 0-100 kph), 1/4 mile timer, etc... The gauges can also tell you when you're in cruise mode, parking brake is on, check engine. The instructions state that for the gauges to display the transmission position info, a special adapter is required. I checked before ordering and the Lokar unit that I had already purchased is produced by Dakota Digital and is the same unit used for these gauges. I will eventually be selling the TPI gauge on eBay...Here's what the new gauges look like mocked-up in my truck's dash.I love this technology... All connections are with phone-like jacks between the gauges and to the modules... LOVE it...My52Chebby]

Here is the set I had purchased a few years ago.



A while back I showed you I spun a pair of adapters out of stainless to fit the TPI-Tech gauges to my dash...



I had ordered a set of TPI-Tech gauges a few years ago and they were state of the art back then but I recently came across a new set by Dakota Digital that just blows them out of the water. With the TPI set, I made special adapters to fit the gauges in the stock holes in the dash, the gauges are smaller than the stock gauge openings in the dash (1st compromise), adapters are shown above, they're stainless and I spun them on my lathe. The TPI gauges had the speedometer in one gauge and water temp, oil pressure, fuel level and voltmeter in the other gauge. Rumpums could be viewed in the small "information center" where the mileage usually appears, but no tachometer needle (2nd compromise). What follows may seem like disjointed information but the reason will become apparent soon enough. I also had to find a place to locate the left and right flasher and high beam indicators. To do that, I bought this cute little unit with a block containing three LEDs (green-blue-green) and three fiber-optic strands coming out of the block to locate in 1/16" holes somewhere on the dash around the gauges (3rd compromise). I had also bought a Lokar shifter boot that showed the PRNDO in a small LED window framed in the boot base (4th compromise).

Now for a short description of the new Dakota Digital gauges. They are digital/analog, but that I mean, they are completely digital but using stepper motors for the needles, for all intents and purposes, they LOOK analog. The speedometer gauge also incorporates the smaller fuel level and voltmeter gauges. The full face tachometer gauge incorporates the smaller water temp gauge and oil pressure gauges. The left and right flasher and high beam indicators are somewhere on the speedometer gauge face. BOTH gauges have an "information center", one can display miles whereas the other can display some other info like the clock, trip odometer, resettable service messages, hour meter, 0-60 mph (or 0-100 kph), 1/4 mile timer, etc... The gauges can also tell you when you're in cruise mode, parking brake is on, check engine. The instructions state that for the gauges to display the transmission position info, a special adapter is required. I checked before ordering and the Lokar unit that I had already purchased is produced by Dakota Digital and is the same unit used for these gauges. I will eventually be selling the TPI gauge on eBay...

Here's what the new gauges look like mocked-up in my truck's dash.



I love this technology... All connections are with phone-like jacks between the gauges and to the modules... LOVE it...

My52Chebby

Nah... I'm just going to throw a Whoopy Cushion on the roof of cars and when it farts I'll stop the hoist... LOL

Seriously though, I do intend to relocate the garage door opener closer to the door, I had extended the chain run because that opener is for an 8 foot door and my garage doors are 9 feet. My ceiling/upstairs floor is made of 2 foot engineered wooden beams. I am going to redesign the portion of the ceiling above the hoist with 1 foot beams, giving me an additional foot of height.

That will give me 11'-4" floor to ceiling above the hoist floor. I should be able to stand up under most vehicles.

Thanks for your input and ideas.

My52Chebby

i was going to say.. we should all hoist one for you...

but..   you seem to have the hoist...

congrats anyway....


are  you going to install several piano wires across the inside of your shop  springs at one end.. through eyelets... and some kind of bell or switch when the wire gets deflected... so you know to stop the car before it smashes the garage door opener or the roof rafters..  

think of a tight bell rope on a transit bus...  yank the rope and the bell rings...  

either that or a mirror on the wall at an angle... or even one hanging from a rafter so you can look straight up while working the lever..


just ideas...

I have some questions about paint sequencing...

First question:

Right now, we have the firewall and underfloor painted final base coat/clear coat.



I know... It sits way too high right now but that will be adjusted...



In the near future, I will be working at fitting the doors (striving for 1/8" gap all around) removing/adding metal, adjusting hinges, installing bear claw power door locks, electrical wire looms in door jams, etc.

What I am thinking of doing (considering the interior will be shot a different color, except the dash, from the exterior) is to final paint the door jambs, window surround, etc. When we come to final cab paint, we would install the rubber (even if I have to replace the rubber afterwards) and glass (or glass substitute, hardboard), lift the rubber edges with a length of cord under the rubber. Mask the rubber and paint the cab final base coat/clear coat. I would even temporarilly install some rubber door seals...

Am I right in thinking that not much over-spray would get onto the jambs with the doors closed? I am using an HVLP gravity fed gun.

Second question:

The color I have chosen is a solid blue. No flakes, pearls or anything in the base coat or clear.

Can we paint the box, fenders, hood, running boards as separate units? Someone even told us that the parts have to be painted as they will sit on the truck. That is. don't lay the fenders on a table to spray them but mount them vertically as they would be on the truck!?!

Third question :

Do you have any other suggestions concerning paint sequencing?

Thank you all.

My52Chebby

I want to reserve/buy a personalized plate.

Here in New Brunswick, Canada, we are only allowed 7 letters (including spaces). That's three (3) letters short for "My52Chebby" and one (1) letter short for "52Chebby"...

Any suggestions??? Plates you've seen???

Here are some I've come up with but haven't checked with DMV to see if they were available :

FINALLY (it will be over 10 years before my truck is finished)
MyRRSP (similar to "My401K" in the US)
Or BUST (that's a reflection of the cost of the project)

Thanks

My52Chebby