Summertime, learning to weld and other hot things

 Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

Hard to believe it, but today is Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer!  Time to get to work!  But wait, I've been at work all summer long!  Granted, only during limited morning hours.  We all know that I'm a fair weather worker...but I'm good with that.  Even with limited morning hours, I've managed to get some solid progress made.  As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to learn how to weld.  This is necessary for me to learn, so that I don't have to pay someone else to weld in my patch panels.  Those patch panels are being added to replace the rusty (and I do mean rusty) areas in the cab.  So, I broke out the old flux core mig welder, bought some weldable sheets of steel and got on it.

Surprise, surprise, welding is not an intuitive skill!  I watched a bunch of online videos and read some how to articles.  To the surprise of no one, it still takes a lot of practice.  To set up the following pics, what I'm doing is to cut a small piece of steel and add a flange to one end.  To that end, I also add several 3/8" holes that are meant to replicate the holes that are made when I cut out spot welds.  I then attach a 2nd piece of steel under the first with sheet metal screws.  This is to hold the two pieces together while I try to weld them.  Here's what it looks like:

First try at welding

Here, you can see the flange and both pieces of steel.  In the background, you can see tons of splatter....  Splatter is common with flux core welding.  To me, it's no big deal.  It just means some extra grinding to get everything smooth.  Onward and upward....  Here's another shot showing progress!

Front of practice piece

Back of practice piece

Wow!  Looks like good penetration of the weld!  Now what?  Time to put it in a vise and see if a ball peen hammer will bend the metal or break the welds!  Well...they broke.  That means that the weld penetration wasn't as good as it seemed.  Back to the drawing board.  The online research on how to weld included stuff about my welder.  Nope, not a top of the line welder.  One common "upgrade" was to change out the welding wire that came with the welder and get a name brand.  I fought that suggestion as long as I could.  Feeling like I was up against a wall and not making progress, I broke down and bought name brand wire.  Keeping things honest, here, what a difference the new wire made!  It burned way hotter and struck the arc before touching the metal.  The old wire had to physically touch the metal to strike the arc.  This new found capability did require upgrading my welding helmet from permanent dark to auto darkening.  The reason was that I got light zapped twice trying to get the electrode close to the metal.  The auto darkening helmet takes away that chance.  Since then, I've been practicing welding the worst of the worst pieces of metal that I have.  Reattaching old pieces to other old pieces.  I've had some success, some fails.  All in all, though, I think I'm making progress.  I have two new pieces of metal in the garage.  My plan is to do a real test with good metal and see if the resulting welds can now withstand the ball peen hammer test.

While all that was going on, I was also taking some time to start the actual sheet metal work!  I decided to start on the passenger side of the truck, as that side had sunk and the whole cab leaned to the right.  After thinking about it (a lot) and talking to my friends on the truck forum, I decided to start with the rocker panel.  The reason for starting here is that the rocker panel fits into a channel stamped into the floor pan.  On top of the floor pan sits a trim piece.  All three pieces have the screw holes in them to accommodate the screws that hold the trim piece to the floor pan.  Those screw holes all have to line up, so they are the landmarks that I was looking for.  Everything else will key off of the rocker panel and the rocker panel will key off of the floor pan screw holes.  At least, that's my plan.  Here's a pic of the old rocker panel with the bottom of the hinge pillar still attached:

Old rocker panel

And the spot that is now open:

Space for new rocker panel

The holes from drilling out the spot welds are clearly visible.  The white hash marks on the lock pillar and the seat riser are where other spot welds are located.  The seat riser spot welds will not be drilled out.  The ones on the lock pillar will be drilled out as that is the end of the cab corner, which will get replaced.  Here's a pic of the new rocker panel being test fit into the opening.

New rocker test fit

The white hash marks on the new rocker panel align with the screw holes.  I used them as a guide for setting the rocker panel in the correct place.  To the right you can see where the missing hinge pillar used to be....  So, with the test fit a success, I removed the rocker panel so I could have easy access to the cab mount and cab corners.

As I mentioned above, the cab leaned to the right.  To start to rectify this, I used factory holes in the firewall and mounted a piece of 1x4 to the cab.  I then used the floor jack and raised the cab until the gap between the frame rail and floor board was at the specified height, which was 1.78 inches.  Here's a pic before raising the cab:

Floor height measurement

If you zoom the pic, you can see that it's between 1.25 and 1.5 inches.  Once I got it withing range, I used scrap 2x4's attached to the 1x4 to brace the cab in the correct position.  Then, I used the floor jack and more scrap wood to raise up the rear of the cab.  Once the rear was correctly raised, I used a 2x6 scrap to hold the rear of the cab in place.  Now it was time to remove the "body mounting shackle", better known as the rear cab mount.  Here is what it looked like on the workbench:

Body mounting shackle

The two pieces on the left are shims installed by the factory.  They'll get cleaned and reused.  Disassembled, the shackle parts looked like this:

Disassembled shackle

Once the shackle was disassembled, it was obvious that the shackle bolts had to be replaced.  There were press fit into the shackle side bar.  I was able to knock them out and replace them with new shoulder bolts of the correct diameter and length.  Here is the comparison:

Shoulder bolts

After disassembly, it was back to the old refurbishment process of removing the flaky scale, spraying with the Rustoleum Rust Reformer and Rustoleum Satin Black.  After restoration, the parts looked like this:

Restored shackle parts + replacement parts

Once it was reassembled, it looked like this:

Restored shackle

At that point, it was time to reinstall it on the truck.  That looked like this:

Restored shackle installed on truck

While I was there, I took the time to spray the frame section that was exposed.  It got the same Rust Reformer and Satin Black treatment.  It's not as good as doing the whole frame, all at once, but I'm not doing a concourse restoration.  In fact, I'm thinking about clear coating the exterior of the truck to preserve the "patina".  We'll see....  Here's another pic of the shackle before restoration.  In this shot, I've removed one shackle side and you can see the rubber bushings installed in the brackets, with the bolts protruding.  This shot shows you just how nasty the shackle truly was:

Unrestored shackle

Once the shackle was reinstalled, the brace in the rear was removed and the cab sat perfectly level and at the correct height.  That's a win in my book!

So, this catches you up and brings me to the end of summer/beginning of fall.  This is prime time for working on the truck and my first fall in retirement.  I'm hoping to spend a lot of time in the garage!

I'm also writing a journal on the https://www.stovebolt.com/ .  The journal is where I'm writing about the detailed, day to day progress on this phase of the restoration.  If you are interested in the daily goings on, then I'd encourage you to visit the site and follow along.  If you like working on old Chevy trucks, then this is the place to go!

That's all for now!  Thanks for reading!

The Gray Ghost blog passes 10,000 page views!

Hello Gray Ghost fans!

Our blog has just passed a milestone.  We've now had 10,000 page views!  I'm not sure what expectation I had when I wrote the first post, if I had any expectation.  So this is very gratifying.  I've tried to write all of my posts to be informative and a potential source of help for first time restorers like myself.  I've also taken the writing style or perspective of telling my friend what I did over the weekend, while sitting in his office on Monday morning

I hope everyone has enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!  Rest assured, there will be plenty more to come in the near future.  In the meantime, you can always enjoy the library of pictures that's attached on the side.  Here's a teaser pic of current, ongoing work that will make it into a future post...enjoy!

Layout of hinge pocket

 Thanks Everyone!

Looking Back At The Rabbit Hole

Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

Well, the title of this post says it all,  I'm finally out of the rabbit hole! That means that I finally wrapped up the cleaning of the engine bay and a complete refurbishment of the front suspension wear points!  But first, a reminder of where we started:

Passenger Side Frame Before Cleaning

Steering Box Bracket and Pitman Arm Before Cleaning

Passenger Side Front Shackle Before Cleaning and Replacement

So, lot's of crud and old, worn out shocks.  That much was obvious.  What I found out was that there was a hidden failure (cue the logistics support analysis of yesteryear,  I think that there is a code for hidden failures).  The hidden failure?  This guy:

Failed Cork Grease Seal

This failure, once discovered, led me into the rabbit hole.  Turns out, it lead me to find even more hidden failures.  These hidden failures:

Worn Front Shackle Pins

Worn Leaf Spring Rear Pin

Worn Leaf Spring Rear Pin and Bushing

In other words, all of the wear points were in fact worn and in need of replacement.  New Old Stock for the front shackles looked like this:

NOS Front Shackle Kit

No pics of the new leaf spring rear pins.  I got those from an online parts house.  Those came with minor issues with the threads.  A quick thread chasing and they were serviceable.  Once the front shackles were assembled with the new grease seals and serviced with the grease gun, it looked like this:

Passenger Side Front Shackle

Driver Side Front Shackle

The leaf spring pin looks like a bolt....  Here it is:

Driver Side Leaf Spring Pin

Old vs new shocks:

Old And New Shocks

Once everything was clean, painted and replaced, it all looked like this:

Engine Bay Ready For Business

 

That was the money shot!  Now, on to the elephant in the room...rot removal!  I've got the patch panels and all of the tools to get this job done.  But first, I am going to do some practicing on scrap metal.  I really want to get this done as a one and done project.  That means lots of thought, planning and practice before I start really cutting and welding on the Gray Ghost.

In the meantime, enjoy your summer!  This may take a while....  I'll make some interim posts to keep everyone up to date on my progress.  CYA!

Light At The End Of The Rabbit Hole

 Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

I've been able to get out into the garage this week and do a little work on replacing that worn out front shackle.  As you may remember, I was waiting for delivery of parts.  They came in and looked pretty good:

NOS Parts Box

NOS Front Shackle Parts

Nothing like using NOS (New Old Stock) parts.  You know they'll fit, assuming that you bought the correct version and no one, over the last 70 years, put the wrong parts in the box that services your truck!

Time to get to rebuilding!  First up, pressing in the bushings.  To do that, I'm using the same tool that I used to remove the old ones.  It's a 5/8" piece of all thread with a washer and nut on either end and a piece of 1" ID pipe on the far end.  I'm using the old bushing as a spacer to help drive the new bushing into place.  The tool assembled, both the spring eye and bushing pre-greased and ready to press the new bushing in, it looked like this:

Seating the new bushing 

Both bushings installed looked like this:

Bushings installed

Next up, pre-greasing inside the threaded bushing and the shackle pin, then threading it onto the shackle bushing.  It looked like this when installed:

Shackle pins installed

All of that was the easy part....  Now to add the sides to the shackle.  This will entail aligning all of the openings and pins and getting the shackle bolt installed to hold it all together.  

Try #1 did not line up!  Somehow, the spring had moved about 1 1/2 inches inboard....  Can I move it by hand?  No, I can not!  What to do?

Try #2: get creative!  Down to the basement, back with a C clamp and an extra long bolt.  The thought here is to get the shackle sides in place on one pin each, use the extra long bolt to keep the sides from falling off and them use the C clamp to move the spring outboard and (hopefully) into the other pins.

Did it work?  Yes it did!  It was an incremental process, requiring some gentle taps with the ball peen hammer (hey, the shop manual says to do that!) and further tightening of the nuts on the extra long bolt.  Once the space between the shackle sides had been closed enough for the regular bolt to fit, I switched to that bolt.  At that point both shackle sides had engaged all four points on the shackle pins and it was just a matter of properly tightening the bolts.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention what started this whole evolution....  Did you remember?  Yup, the darned cork grease seal!  Thankfully, I only forgot to mention it here.  In the assembly process I remembered!  The Factory Assembly Manual requires 8-10 ft lbs of torque on the bolt.  Got out the old torque wrench, did what the FAM requires and when said and done, it looked like this:

Fully Assembled Shackle

Here's a shot looking behind the shackle at the neoprene grease seals:

Neoprene Grease Seals Installed

With the right (passenger) side completed, it's off to the driver's side for the same process.  I already have those parts, so it's just a matter of disassembly and rebuilding.  Sounds simple, right?  What could possibly go wrong....  I guess we'll all have to stay tuned to find out.

While I was waiting for my NOS parts to arrive, I did manage to find some time to test out the process of drilling out spot welds.  All in preparation of the next phase (rot removal and sheet metal repair).  Here's a shot of the first piece of rot removal!

Rotten Piece Over Replacement Piece

As the caption says, I set the rotten piece that I removed on top of the replacement piece to show what had rotted and what was left to be replaced.  This is the inner front cowl on the passenger side.  This view is from the inside of the cab looking at the part.  To put it into perspective, this is what you'd see if you sat in the truck and looked down at your feet and the inside of the cab.

That's all for now.  I'll wrap up the whole engine bay cleanup/front end suspension rebuild when I get done with the process.  Stay tuned!

The Rabbit Hole Gets Deeper....

Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

A quick update to keep you posted on progress towards the "great welding experience."  As you may recall, I've decided that I'm tired of getting all the old crud on me, every time that I crawl into the engine bay.  To fix this, I'm cleaning off the muck.  In the process, I discovered that the grease seals on the front shackles had to be replaced.  Well, today, I got the passenger side shackle disassembled....

What I found was that the shackle pin and bushing on the bottom were severely worn and in need of replacement.  The pins are shown below, with the upper pin on the left and lower pin on the right:

Passenger Side Shackle Pins

It's pretty obvious that the pin on the right is damaged.  I haven't removed the bushings, yet.  I'll need the replacements to help drive the old ones out of the springs.  At this point, I'm down hard, waiting for parts.  Hopefully, it doesn't take too long to get them in.

I know what you're thinking, what about the cleaning?  Fair enough.  Here's a shot of the before and after on the passenger side of the frame:

Before cleaning

After cleaning and primer

A keen eye will notice that the shocks are removed in the "after" pic.  I have replacements that I'll install after rebuilding the shackle.  The primer is my favorite Rustoleum Rust Converter.  I'll lay down a coat of satin black after all of the other work is done and before the shocks are installed.  Frankly, it's a "10 foot" paint job, but that's ok.  Most of this will be covered up by the inner fenders, so it's just for me and keeping it from rusting too much more.

I'll do a complete write up on the cleaning with lots of pics, once all of the other work is done.  So stay tuned!

 

Shackle(d) To A New Project

  Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

As I told you in my last post, I'm retired!  So that means more time to be in the garage!  Making good on that strategy, I did spend some quality time out there this past week.  My goal, get the front end (chassis, steering linkages, etc) degreased so that I can work on removing the floor pans.  Why is this important?  Because everything up there is caked in grease and consequently, I get a good coating of it on me every time that I climb into the engine bay.  It was time.  So off I went, putty knife and dental picks in hand.  What awaited me?  Here's a pic to show you what i was up against:

Steering gear assembly and pitman arm

Passenger side front shackle

Even for Gray Ghost standards, these are pretty gnarly!  If you look closely at the picture of the shackle, you can make out the bottom grease zerk.  What other hidden treasures could there be?  The factory assembly manual has a clue for us:

FAM Sect. 3 Sheet 4.00

In addition to the zerk on the bottom, there is also one on the top...time to get cleaning!  After about 15 minutes of digging with the pick and putty knife the top zerk comes into view:

Top zerk starting to show

This pic really gives you an idea of how much grease and crud was really built up.  There definitely was old grease and mud in this lump, but I don't think it was all old grease.  Just like other areas of the truck, it had tons of old oil mixed in.  It further reinforces my thought that this truck was used on dirt roads that were oiled to keep dust down.  That would explain the layers of oil/mud with pockets of grease...but back to the main attraction, stabbing at that lump of crud.

After another half hour or more here's where I got:

Front shackle freed from the lump

What's really interesting to me, is that there are traces of green paint on the shackle!  I assumed that the factory painted them black, like the other suspension parts.  But you can clearly see the same green paint that the cab and fenders were painted.  Not important, but still interesting.  Here's the other side:

Passenger side front shackle inside frame view

Now, I know what you're thinking.  Good job, now you can move on to the cab floor project!  Not so fast....  Why not so fast?  This guy:

Cork washer bits

Referring back to the FAM, you may note that the diagram clearly shows a cork washer that acts as a grease seal.  As you can see in the above pic, mine are shot.  Ugg.  That means I'm in for either a shackle rebuild or replacement.  That also explains the pockets of old grease.  Those seals weren't working during one (or more) of the times that someone greased the truck.  Follow where the pick is pointing to see where the the cork washer should be:

Pick pointer to missing cork washer location

This is on the wrong side of the shackle, given what the FAM shows, but where I actually removed the chunks of washer shown in the pic above.  Maybe there is a washer on both sides?  The FAM is unclear, so I'll have to ask the truck forum or look at replacement shackles to see how many washers they come with.

Oh well, I'm retired, I've got the time.  So that's the next step in the process, after finishing up the degreasing.  You see, I've only shown you the front shackle and steering gear assembly.  Of course, there are rear shackles that are just as gross as the front ones.  They'll need to be done before I move on to the rebuild or replacement.  As for that steering gear assembly, it now looks like this:

Steering gear assembly first pass for cleaning

You can see that at a macro level, the crud is gone.  However, at a lower level (I won't call it micro) it still has a ton of gunk on it.  The little picks can only get so much of the crud off, given the texture of the cast iron part.  That's ok, the chemical degreaser will work just fine, when I get around to using it.

That's all for now, fans.  Plenty more of this kind of work left to do, so I'll get on it.  Once I know whether to rebuild or replace and get that done, I'll make another post.  Thanks for reading!

bp

Time To Get Serious

 Hello Gray Ghost fans!

It has been too long!  Ten months to be exact.  Keeping things honest and real, it's been a tough 10 months, between the worldwide pandemic and my own health issues.  But now it's time to get back to work...oh wait a minute...I'm now retired!  So no excuses.  Time to get back into the garage.

Major accomplishment this weekend!  I finally got the front clip (sheet metal) off of the truck!  I had actually removed all of the fasteners last fall, but never got around to separating it from the truck.  Last weekend, I was able to break it free from the cab and chassis.  This weekend, we rolled the truck out of the garage, removed the front clip and rolled the truck back into the garage.  The front clip is now resting comfortably in that beautiful shed I built last summer....  Now, the master plan comes into focus!  The truck, minus the front clip, now looks like this:

Unfettered access is now mine.  With unfettered access comes a few chores....  It is finally time to degrease everything.  I've mentioned before that I think this truck was driven on dirt roads where oil was applied to keep dust down.  The majority of the caked on crud is a combo of red clay and oil.  On the bright side, all of that oil kept the metal from rusting out.  There is rust on the top of the frame rails and the cross member where the radiator mounts.  I'll deal with that rust by scraping away loose rust and then hitting it with my favorite Rustoleum rust converter primer.  Here is a shot detailing the level of crud that must be removed:

This is a closeup of a part of the steering assembly and frame.  Just a little crud...!

Once I've dealt with the cleanup, I can move on to the real task at hand...removing the floor pans and installing the replacements.  As you may remember from an earlier post I discovered serious rot when I initially went to remove the front clip.  The rot was so bad, that fixing that became the priority while the engine was still out of the truck.  Here's a view looking at the firewall:

Yes, that's a basketball under my truck....  One of my grands must've let it roll under the truck.  Oh well.  Looking down at the firewall, you can see where there is a flange that runs across the length of the firewall.  That flange is where the spot welds are the I'll have to drill out.  Once those are all drilled out (18 of them), I can move inside the cab and cut the floor out.  The replacement floorboards will have to be trimmed to fit and I'll make a bend that mates up to the upper part of the flange and then plug weld the new parts in place.

The gameplan after that is to install the engine and reconnect the enclosed drive line.  Then I'll work on replacing the sheetmetal associated with the inner and outer cowl.

Here's that lonely front clip, waiting to go into the shed:

Really looks like a face.  One day, hopefully not too far into the future, we'll be putting her back in place.

So with that, I'm back in the game.  Hopefully to get it moving under it's own power before the cold weather shuts down the wrenching season.  Wish me luck and I'll keep you all posted.