1951 F16

[kb426]

O&S tried to set a record for least accomplished today. Somedays, not much goes right. I started off by bolting the hinge to the frame. I doubled the frame where the gas springs attach and welded the ball mounts on. I fabbed a pin for the bear claw latch and have it mounted. When I put it in the bed, I found out that how I planned to mount the hinge wouldn't work. I removed the hinge and flipped it 180 degrees. I mounted the bear claw latch and started on the gas springs. This cover will have 1/4" plywood and Haartz convertible cloth material on it. It will be way less weight than the steel unit on the white 51. I had ordered 2 gas springs of the same capacity as the white 51. They were way too strong for this. I had some that were less than 1/2 the capacity of those. I installed them and used them for mock ups in reality. The frame works well now but there will be around 30 lbs. added with the cover so I will possibly be buying more gas springs. My plan was to get the frame mounted and in primer by the end of the day. I'm just one day short of my goal. LOL.

[kb426]

O&S ended the day at where I wanted to be yesterday. I have the latch operational. I welded nuts on the frame to run the elevator bolts through. The elevator bolts are spaced a foot a part on the perimeter to hold the bed cover on to the frame. I had thought about machining some spacers to fasten the bolts to and decided that I had spent enough time on this until I'm sure all my design works as intended. I shot black epoxy on the bed frame for time being. After I did the latch, I had a couple of thoughts. The 1st being that I could machine a rod to align the 2 rod ends to where they are parallel while operating. I didn't have any 3/16" rod to do that with. That will be rectified. The next was that if the latch handle was flush mounted in the tail gate, It sure would look nice. This would involve making a wood buck in the shape of the handle. Then forming a panel and welding it into the tailgate. I would have to cut a an access panel on the inside to be able to planish the weld on the outside skin. This would be something I could do later on in the year. I need to make a gasket to go behind the handle also. When I ordered the handle, they didn't have a gasket listed for it. I should have done some more research to see if one was available.

[kb426]

O&S was tying up loose ends in preparation for the next cold snap. I made some brackets for adjuster / stops at the end of the bed. This cover doesn't encapsulate the tail gate so there wasn't anything to level it out. I'd like to tell you that I made it and the pressure in the gas springs perfectly level but that isn't true. When putting the bed cover frame back on, I had no. 8 screws attaching the hinge to the front bed panel. I drilled and tapped them to 1/4". I believe that I'm ready to move to gluing the foam and Haartz material to the plywood for the cover. I have a friend who is an interior guru who told me what to do, not how to do it.  

[kb426]

O&S had a plan today. 1st thing this morning I was moving vehicles around and had the heater started in the shop. My wife commented that I was moving with resolve. I removed the bed cover frame and sat it on saw horses. I clamped the plywood to the frame and drilled the holes for the elevator bolts. I bolted the plywood to the frame and seated the elevator bolts. I removed the plywood and placed it on the saw horses. I laid out the landau foam and glued it down. I used a 9" paint roller to apply the glue. I laid out the top cloth and made sure there were no wrinkles in it. Then I glued it down. I left the underneath side edges longer than they need to be. When this gets taken apart for paint, I will probably trim some excess back to around 2" of overlap per side. My left over gas springs aren't strong enough. I will look over the charts and get 2 more on the way. I need some kind of wiper to seal up the edges. Time for more research.

[WZ JUNK]

Looks good from here.  I plan to use some old gas cylinders for my tilt front end assembly.  I will drill them to remove the remaining gas and then use them to limit the amount of tilt.

[kb426]

O&S had a plan. It met failure. I thought I could trim a piece of abs sheet and make most of the headliner in one piece. After a couple of hours of trying, I admitted defeat and cut it in two. The seam is overlapping and glued together. The ends have 2 more parts. One is the tight radius in the corner behind the door heading to the rear window. The other goes straight up from the door frame to the top. I'm not done trimming those parts. I used 2 more of the small led lights for the dome light. I have the area behind and under the seats left to do. I purchased enough black carpet to do all of that. I think I will use the abs to do the radius from the door post to the flat area on the back of the cab. I will have to heat it up and put a radius in the panels. Once I trim the carpet to size, I will need to get the sewing machine out and edge all of it. I am an amateur at this so it takes lots of time and the results aren't great. More learning ahead.

[kb426]

O&S trimmed up some rough edges on the headliner and made a piece that is the beginning of a shifter boot. This part is underneath the dynadeck and seals the hole around the trans shifter tower. It is bridging over two voids that need some foam glued in to seal it off. This will allow the shifter boot plate to be flat instead of scuplted over different elevations. I didn't get a pic of this. I would have had to be under the truck to get a decent shot. I realigned the front end again. It drives very good. I wanted the camber to be 0 degrees and I'm out of adjustment. I'm .6 of a degree from 0. That's within spec but I would like it to be closer. More research down the road. The weather is changing so I'm out of business for a while.

[jaybee]

I bookmarked this method for making a one piece headliner. Mask off the car with the exception of the roof, slather mold release all over the roof, and lay fiberglass on the outside. Make it thin enough it remains flexible. Trim it to fit inside, then contact cement your chosen headliner material to the inside of the fiberglass shell.

[kb426]

Jaybee, one of my friends used to do that all the time. I'm not real excited about working with fiberglass. If this had been summer and I could do it all outside, I might have done that.

[WZ JUNK]

I have plans to do this method for the wz junk truck.   I have a spare cab top out back set aside just for this process.  Since it is chopped, and the headliner needs to be slightly smaller than the outside, I think the stock outside shape might fit the chopped inside. 

[kb426]

The new gas springs arrived for the bed cover. I am going to have to install a brace on the cover frame. The new springs are the correct capacity but the frame has a slight bow in it when it's closed. I'm out of material so a shopping trip may be necessary. The bed mat arrived. I laid it out both directions to see if I could flatten it. I think it will be 100 degrees in the shade before it flattens out. LOL. I worked on the latch some. I made a spacer for the 2" bolt going through the bear claw end and flipped the handle bracket to correct the geometry some. Today is the 1st day that it has got above freezing in the last week. I plan on making some more progress in the next few days.

[enjenjo]

The way to take the bow out when closed is to relocate the pivot points so once it's closed the strut is pushing it closed instead of open. You want it so at a point where the cover is nearly closed it starts pushing down instead of pushing up.

Bottom pivot near the cover, and top pivot extended down from the cover 2 to 3"

[kb426]

^^^^
Good point. I hadn't considered that because of not having a handle on the top to overcome the force.

[kb426]

O&S plodded along today and accomplished a little bit. I removed the 2 brackets that I made for the battery cable attachments and drilled and tapped one more hole in each one. The hole is on the angle part of the bracket. This allowed me to cut off the furthermost hole from the post and shorten the bracket. There's still nothing cool about it but it's less obnoxious than it was. The sniper's throttle actuation was hyper sensitive off idle. I had changed the cable and pedal arrangement 4 times trying to find a solution. I improved it but it still wasn't right. I googled it and found Holley makes a bracket to move the cable connection farther away from the throttle shaft to change the ratio of leverage. I was a little skeptical that it would make enough difference. I was surprised at the difference it made. I moved the point .875" which is around 30% more than the original. It fixed most of the problem while creating another one. The throttle pedal is now higher than I wanted. The pedal has to have more travel to compensate for the increased travel of the throttle lever. Raising it up from the floor was the logical solution. I think modifying the pedal will be next. I raised the adjusters on the rear coilovers about .4" from where there were. I keep adding weight to the rear and loosing the ride height I wanted. I have a spare tire in the bed but I will need a floor jack and some tools to be road ready. What I did may not be enough.    

[kb426]

O&S snuck away from yard work for a while today and painted 2 panels for color tests. In the photoshop pics my friend did, there was green and maroon in matt finish. In the low cost paint materials assortment, I ordered a quart of British racing green and wine red metallic. The green is very close to a color used on Mack and Chevy trucks. One look at it in the sun and that was a no sell. The maroon is a high intensity pearl metallic. The kind that only looks good in the sun. The panel didn't make me get real excited but it could be a very good color to go along with the shape of the truck. I took some pics later in the day and the colors don't look great in the pics. There are pieces of grass that have blown on them but not stuck to the paint.