Is this the end of the road?

Well, I have pretty much exhausted all my options. I'm not the kind of guy who has a lot of friends around him. In fact, you could quite accurately call me a lone wolf kinda guy.  Not for any particular reason, but it just seems to be that way and has been most of my life. 

But there comes a time when we all need a bit of a helping hand, and right now, I am kinda thinking I have exhausted all my avenues. The final straw came today when a guy I had been communicating with for about three weeks was scheduled to come down to help. Well, the difference between the bullshit talkers and the real workers occurs when you lay it on the line and say you need their help now, so put down your phone and come and help. Shit, I was offering him what he asked; ie fifty bucks an hour. 

But, no show.

I had a guy turn up here two weeks before, and he was so full of attitude and aggression, I immediately went on the defence. No way this bastard was going to get anywhere near the truck.

Christ, we've already gone through the ordeal of David McC*** and his Surreal Custom experience. 

I've already lost thousands due to him. 

And now I have an engine in a workshop and they never bother replying. Ten weeks later!

Am I getting pissed off about nothing?

Maybe, but I am totally over this truck and totally over getting stuffed around by bastards.

My last bastion of hope lies in a smash repair shop down south. I sent them some photos and a story and hoping these guys can work some magic.

Will I be here beyond this?

Time will tell...

July 2024 update: things have stalled

 Well, it has been two months since the engine has gone in to get rebuilt. I hear the shop is having some staffing issues. At least I am not waiting on the engine to get rebuilt in my daily. Just a little peeved that in the last five calls I've made to them I am told they will get back to me, and they never do. Looks like a visit in person next week.

I've managed to pick up two months of near full-time work which will keep me occupied until late September. Certainly could do with the extra cash. This truck has been eating into my savings at a rapid rate. 

The person who said this hobby was for rich men wasn't joking!

Anyway, I've pretty much reached the stage where I need some extra help with the body as far as lining up panels and smoothing out the cabin ready for paint. I have a new guy coming this Friday, so hopefully he can give me some guidance and help get these panels into better shape.

A few important things have happened: Joined the Dapto Classic Car Club and am looking forward to attending a few of their runs. A little premature, I know. But it's probably a step in the right direction.  Who knows? There might be someone in the group who can help me, and vice versa.

Haven't been spending too much on the truck lately. Apart from purchasing a few rubber products, fender welt, cowl to fender seal, cowl vent seal and cowl lacing. Doesn't sound much, but that little lot tallied well over $100!

I've redone a couple of areas as far as welding goes. Made them a little prettier as my skills improve. 

Knocked up a couple of cowl inspection plates and fitted them up. Came up a peach!

Had a brainwave the other day as I was pondering how to attack the driver's side of the truck which is almost hard up against the brick wall of our garage. Dunno why I didn't think of it before, but realised I could move the truck from side to side using a set of wheel dollies. And once that idea hit me, everything seemed inconsequential. Once I am able to move the truck, I can tackle the problem door and it's basically accessible for painting in our garage. 

Stay tuned! August sounds like it could be a very productive month! Let's hope so! We're getting closer to our deadline of 18th April 2025 for the Australian Street Rod Nationals!

Will we make it?

Update on the F100 June 2024

  Well, nothing much has been going on with the truck. I wouldn't say things are at a stand still, just that lots of little bits need fixing, and that all takes time. My main concern is the alignment of the panels and the preparation of the body for painting.

I re-did the seat frame after making a complete mess of my first attempt. This time I opted for 150mm x 50 x 2 rhs steel for a more rigid frame and reinforced it by welding a couple of support braces in between the rails. I think it works really well this time and it gives me an extra 25mm height which is what it really needed. 

So, that takes care of the seat frame. Still have to send the seat off, but that comes much later.

Did some work on the firewall. Hit it with KBS rust seal but decided I didn't like the look of it and thought it best to have the firewall painted the same colour as the rest of the cabin, so have since rubbed it back. Plus, there were a few areas on the firewall that I was not happy with, so it is back in primer again. I bought a spray can of 2k hi fill primer and hoping that will iron out a few uneven areas.  At the end of the day I am not going to get too hung up over the end result, as it is just basically an old truck. And that is something I keep telling myself.

There is a real conflict here: I just want a nice old cruiser that is a fairly cheap budget fix, but my wife wants the full on respray using the best materials. Maybe she has a point, but the cost factor is going to blow this project's budget way outta the room (which it has already) 

The rhs rear cab corner is coming up quite nicely. Better than the other side. I was able to retain that tricky curved piece inside the door pillar which I wasn't able to do with the left side. This made fitting it up a bit easier. 

The left side piece is a real mess. I still have to align the door correctly to get a better idea of how far out the corner panel is, but looking at this photo, you can see at the moment it is way out. The door does have to go up about 1/4 of an inch and I have to do something with that curved angle which I think might have shrunk due to welding for too long and not cooling down. 

On a happier note, the fuel tank hole in the cab is coming together well. A little bit of spot putty and it should come up really smooth.

And finally, after many months of to and fro with the supplier, I was able to secure the classic gauge cluster for the truck in kilometres!  Took a bit of negotiating with our supplier in Australia but we got there. Check this thing of beauty (and whopping expense) out!

This weekend am finishing the dashboard and doing as much as I can to tidy the cabin. Then I guess we can see if we can find a panel beater/ spray painter to do the final touches!

The engine build is still in progress. I hope to have an update next week. 

Duct season! Blam!

You can clearly see the ducks aren't even happy about it! 

 So, here's something for you to mull over while you are sipping your favourite beverage: why is it that the aftermarket sells 1956 F100 ducts that are leftward leaning and not designed to accommodate a more centred approach? Of course, the other thing is; does it even matter? Probably not, in the end.

I bought a set of heater ducts for the old tart last month from Autoware. Yes, sir, I buy a lot of stuff from these guys as their prices are quite fair, and they always seem to do that little bit extra to help you. 

Anyway, two ducts turned up. Immediately I thought the silly buggers have sent me two left (or right) sided ducts, and not one each side. 

A quick scrounge on Goober yielded no firm results on the existence of a left and right side duct. That is; the aftermarket only make one side.

Why is that?

I searched for other models and found a set for a 1957 F100 with both left and right, but NOTHING for the '56. So what gives?

The only thing is just go ahead and fit them up (which I haven't done yet, so I might just be having a dummy spit about nothing in particular), but I am suspecting there is gonna be an awful lot of rubber hose circulating under that dash and around the wiring and so forth needlessly. 

Some positives with the cab corner and news on the engine!

 I was messing around again with the front cab corner trying to get the panel to sit flush. I must confess, I have not actually stood there and spent lots of time figuring it out. Until the other day, when I stood there and considered why the panel was not lining up flush with the rest of the body, and I came to the conclusion that the aftermarket piece needs to be bent more inwards. I proved this with a screwdriver and managed to get the panel quite nicely in line. And, so, no real development, but I was pleased to note it can be made to fit, and on another happy note, lines up quite nicely with the door with a good even gap.

This mightn't sound like much to you, but it is a HUGE relief to me. It means I can probably move forward and work towards welding it permanently into place. The other side sits a little better and is not a great problem. What IS a problem with the other side is the door. 

And that is another story.

The other issue is this uneven gap between both panels. A bit of filler could fix that, but I would rather remove the panel and get it as straight as I can. The less filler the better.

There is a bit of work needed on the opposite side of the panel. Too much of a gap and the panel needs to squeeze in under the panel on the right for a neat fit.

Gives you some idea of the unevenness of the panels. The lower piece is fine, but we gave the top panel a hard time when removing the spot welds. 

The panel sits flush on the right. That is, the two pieces sit nice without any raised section. As you can see, I still have a lot of cosmetic work to complete to get this panel looking halfway decent.

A couple of other things I have been doing...

Changed the springs on the old Dodge seat. Changed the wire as well. Was a cheap fix and easy to do. I bought a set of springs from Bunnings and some heavier wire. I drilled a hole in a bolt on each end and fed the wire through the hole then tightened it up. Works well.

Another thing I am doing is fitting the headlight buckets to the new lights. Discovered I was missing the ring that locks the headlight into place. Apparently fairly common to a lot of Fords and Falcons, but nobody is willing to part for them cheaply, so I opted to buy a new set for not much more.

Here are the headlights just for reference. Hella brand and very good.

Received an invoice from Peter Niven (Illawarra Auto Specialists) and the bill is quite reasonable. 

A little higher than first quoted, and haven't received quote for alloy heads and roller rockers nor the 408 stroker kit, but I think I will stay with the mild build and keep the old closed chamber cast iron heads, unless the price is not too high.

Thank God this truck only has four cab corners, because I have had to replace them all!

 With some trepidation due to the fact that I really don't know what I am doing, I manned up and attacked the fourth (and thankfully final) cab corner. Now, the front cab corners are still only tack welded. That is because I want to get all the panels fitting together harmoniously before I (or someone expert) welds them in for good. But the back ones are a different story as once they are on, they're on forever. 

The final corner was the very awkward to get at rhs corner. The truck is in our two car garage, and in those days (back in the 90's) cars were probably quite a bit smaller, and when they designed these garages, they weren't factoring in F100 trucks into the equation. So, it just fits in there, backed up tub end first into our two-car garage. 

Quite understandable! 

Anyways, long story short is, I have about 60 cm of space to crawl around in to reach the cab corner. But I managed to do it with my back against the rear wheel and my feet forward underneath the cab. In that position, I was able to access pretty much the entire back section of the panel. All I can say is, I am glad nobody was around with a camera catching footage of me trying to extract myself from that small space. 

I now have a deep affection for sardines and submariners and people who crawl into small spaces.

Now, if you promise not to laugh, I will show you my handiwork so far. I had been welding some slightly different grade steel the previous week and forgot to reset it to suit the very thin metal on the cab, and I was too lazy to change it...why? Read the fourth stanza again! So, it is what it is, and of course I have yet to grind it off and patch up any holes etc, but the good news is, it all more or less fits.

I had to grind some of the welds off to adjust the gap between the replacement piece and the original, but that is just par for the course. I could have just left it and slapped some bog over the whole deal, and at most it would have been less than 2 mm of bog, but it didn't take much more effort to get it flush. 

Now, these aftermarket cab corners are notoriously bad fitters. There are scores of horror stories with guys trying to fit them evenly. It does appear to be an impossibility. The cab corners I received were both out buy a good half an inch and maybe more on either side. The first rear cab corner I fitted, I kinda made a bit of a meal over as I flush fitted the rear panels very well, but when it came to aligning the tricky folds of the inner door pillar, I was in a bit of a situation. I managed to just cut and weld one piece of plate at a time following the contours of the inner pillar, but the final results (which I haven't finished yet) are not excellent. 

For the other side cab corner, I simply left that tricky curved original piece where it was as it was not rusted and cut the rust out a smidge back from the pillar. You can see it in this photo. This way, I had a nice flush fit with only the back to worry about.

The back was a nightmare. I couldn't believe I had to chop that much metal out just to get the back to align with the inner cab corner panel. I got there in the end and it looks okay, but I wasn't sweating over the end result as much as you are not going to be able to see this part of the cab corner once the tub is back on. Still, I wanted to get it nice, and once I grind it off and clean it up, that should be the case. 

You can't really tell how cramped I am here, but see that brick to the right of my foot? That is where the wall starts. I am actually sitting on the rear tyre looking down. Yes, I am STILL wearing white shoes, but not the same pair. I go through about four pair a year. Just sayin'. 

Check out all the tools etc I brought with me; hammer, Dremel, G clamps, welding gun, wood, drill, texta markers and so on.  Notice the split piece just below the inspection hole. That was how much I had to cut out to align the cab corner to the inner panel. A good inch easy. 

Driver's door won't close. Significant alignment issues.

 This does not surprise me in the slightest. 

I was expecting it when it came time to test fit the door after a very significant amount of new steel plating had been applied to the front cab corner of the '56. If you go back through the blog, I am sure I have added some photos of just how bad that section was. When I first saw it I was in a state of disbelief. In fact, I don't think the magnitude of the damage hit home until after the new steel started replacing the rotten stuff. Peter (and to a lesser degree, myself) cut and welded some substantial pieces of plating in that area. I replaced the entire rocker panel on that side as well as a brand new pillar. (I already had a pillar piece, but it didn't come with the hinge, and then I saw that they made a piece with the hinge already incorporated, I lashed out and bough one).  This was a godsend as it saved a hell of a lot of work (none of which I have the skills for).

So, we got stuck into repairing the side, and I must say, I think it came out really well all things considered. The proof of the pudding was in the fitting of the door...

And wouldn't you know it? It didn't fit. Had no intentions of fitting. I have to say, it is near impossible for me to get down and investigate why the door is not closing as the truck is almost hard up against the brick wall of our garage, but it hasn't stopped me formulating theories, and here are a couple:

We aligned the new piece of pillar to the original pillar. It only makes sense. Or, rather, I thought it did. But now I am wondering whether the truck has a natural taper, as the door seems to hit a rock about an inch from shutting, and all the issues seem to be concerned with that corner. You can see here we welded the new piece of pillar to the new rocker panel , and now I am thinking that is not such a great idea as there is no flexibility whatsoever. That is, if I wanted to get the rocker panel to come in more, I really can't because it's welded up solid. 

The solution might be to grind out that weld and try to bring the whole pillar a touch inward, or perhaps just some re working of the rocker panel might be all that is required. 

Doing some bench seat chopping! Hold onto yer hats!

 Well, after over a year, I finally turned my attention to the Dodge bench seat that I purchased for the truck. I never really felt it was a great fit from day one, but for the past year I have more or less relegated it to the garage until I decided it was time to drag it out and measure it up. 

Yesterday, I did just that. But not before I decided to drag out the sandblasting gun and a full tub of garnet to see if I could clean up some of that bad rust on the frame. I spent a good hour with the blaster and in the end decided that for the effort, it just wasn't worth it, so I hit it with a plastic seaweed style wheel. I went through four of them just trying to remove old rust from the back seat frame. It was better, but the seat has many areas that you just can't get into. Ideally the sandblaster should have gotten into those hard to get at areas, but the gun (Blackridge from Supercheap) was pretty useless. Either it worked for ten seconds flat and spewed out its cannister load in crazy time or it just refused to do anything. I really found the whole experience very annoying and time consuming with a pretty weak result.

The plastic wheel worked better but these things are expensive and don't last that long, especially on old rusty seats. For paint, they seem to work ok, but on a job like this probably the old trusty angle grinder is your best tool. Anyway, after several hours of trying to clean up the seat, I finally decided to see how it looked in the cabin, and whether it would fit.

Well, it didn't.

Yep, I will say that again. The damned seat didn't fit after all that. I mean, it was super tight, and it actually DID kinda fit, but it was just way too squeezy in there. 

I had never been totally convinced right from the start that this seat was going to be the one I would use, as I always held out for an original seat for a fair price. But that didn't happen. I chased a couple of Chevy seats in vain and even considered using an XF XG to XH ute or panel van seat, but at 1350 length, I always thought they were a little too small, and a little too "modern" for the look I was aiming for. 

This old Dodge seat certainly had that old style look that I was seeking, but now I was faced with the reality that it was just too big. My wife suggested I just chop the seat, but I told her it was much too much trouble to do that.

Later that evening, I decided to have another look at the seat to see if it was even remotely possible to chop a couple of inches out of it, and the more I looked at it, the more I realised it was probably quite a feasible thing to do.

So, today, that's what I did...

Here is the seat before I started hacking into it...

Looking down through the window at the passenger side of the seat you can see just how close that seat comes to the door. By the time you recover the seat you won't have room for door trim.  And the other side was just the same

Barely get a finger in the gap between the back of the seat.  And it got tighter further down.

Just way too tight!

This is the area I chose to take two inches from. There were fewer thing to interfere with the chop and it lined up perfectly with a row of springs on the base. I'd decided to take the entire row of springs out from the base. 

Well, here goes nothing. No guts no glory. And there is no going back now! Out comes one row of springs! 

Once frame was cut I welded the seat together, ground it down and then welded two plates over and under the cut for added strength. 

I didn't have any steel tube to slip over the cut line, so I slipped a couple of nuts on the line, welded the line together and then welded the nuts together and then welded the nuts to the line. Surely it won't break now! 

I cut a sleeve out of the bar I removed from the seat and used that to reinforce the bar. 

I welded the shortened rods together and slid a nut over the weld and then welded that to the rod for extra strength. Dumb idea? I dunno. Seemed sensible. 

Hey, look at how much space we have now! That's more like it! 

Plenty of space now. You can get your whole fist through the gap now! 

Whoa! She's looking extra sexy now in red rustoleum. Whattaya say, boys? My wife is gonna love me. I think I missed the plastic drop sheet.

Modifications to Tuff Mounts design to suit 351 Cleveland into 1956 F100

 Blake, from BW Fabrication, fabbed up some nice 6mm plates to allow the Clevo to be welded to the chassis of the f100. The universal kit that Tuff Mounts supply doesn't go anywhere near being long enough to allow the engine and the mounts to harmonise together. But thanks to Blake, this is all about to change.

A pity that he didn't quite make it in time to weld the whole deal together before the engine went off to get rebuilt, but that just means the boys at the workshop might be able to weld them in while they are fitting the engine back into the bay. If not, I'll get Blake to come back and weld them in. Trust me, one look at my welding and you'll understand why I won't be doing it.

The plates follow the same contours of the original plates, but have been extended quite a long way. They are definitely going to get trimmed by at least a good few inches. You will notice there is a tacked piece of plate top and bottom of the side plates and both Blake and I thought that would be necessary as a reinforcement of the unit due to its significant length.

Gotta say, I think they look great! Can't wait to get them fitted up, but by that time, the engine should be running!

So, is an air compressor totally worthwhile nowadays?

 Some time ago, about a year ago to be fairly precise, I was advised by a guy who was gonna do some spray painting for me, that I needed to invest in an air compressor for him to use.  If you scroll back through some earlier posts you will notice I bought this unit:

It was on special on eBay for $399 and I saved a whopping 45 percent on the unit. 

And so far it has proven to be totally excellent. I have used it plenty of times when bead blasting and spray paining panels (with very poor results- but I blame the cheap guns from Supercheap Auto on that one) 

The retired guy did use it a few times on some panels with good results using his own guns, and then I fired him on account of him taking two days to cut and shape one single piece of steel plate. And at $300 a day, that wasn't adding up so well.

But, back to the compressor. Apart from the fact that it is a nice thing to have, because it aesthetically looks nice in the garage, and (used to) serve a purpose, it IS a bit of a big thing in my small space and it IS noisy AF and the guy next door is a shift worker, and so on. PLUS, when I look around at other spray painting options, I see a lot of people using electric machines and cordless machines doing a reasonable job of things. And I don't mean only painting. 

I mean, you can buy a decent electric spray gun setup for under $100 and it will probably work better than my setup. Plus, it's portable and heaps quieter. 

And what about air tools? With the progress these cordless power packs are progressing, there seems barely a need for a compressor any more. I don't need to pump tyres up, and if I do, I just go down to the service station. I'm more or less done with spray painting as I have primered everything and I will NOT be painting the truck. I never used it for grinding, cutting and only used it a few times for bead blasting but I found it very dangerous and stopped using it (the glass beads positively got in everywhere, even under sealed eye goggles and that scared the shit out of me). 

I use an angle grinder ( a cheap corded Ozito brand thing that works well), cordless Dremel and an assortment of corded and cordless drills, and really not a lot else. I really don't see the point in having one?

I guess it will soon be on Facebook marketplace...

I've just seen one of the meanest looking engines on the planet living in one of the ugliest cars

 Well, I just saw this trawling through that perennial time wasting app: Facebook...

From what little research I have conducted so far, it appears to be an 11.5 litre, quad turbo, 2400hp road legal Granada. (Ford Granada, I am guessing, although I have never heard of one. ) 

Here is it below.

Reminds me of a cross between a mkII mustang and a Ford Cortina circa 1980. 

But just forget about the car and gaze at that extraordinary engine.

Legend has it, a Norwegian guy imported a racing Ford engine and bunged twin Scania turbo's from a truck and just for the hell of it, whacked some nitrous in the mix as well. And, you know, why not?

Is that engine porn? Most probably. Pity the heat shielding wrap reminds me of the extra snags I put in the fridge after yesterday's barbecue. 

Gotta admire guys that just take stuff to the nth degree and then some more. Not a fan of the car, and you couldn't actually call it a sleeper with that massive snorkel thing hanging off the bonnet, and it's not so beautiful that it makes people go wee wee's in their Levi's. That is, until they look under that bonnet. 

Think of how nice that engine would look sitting in an F-truck. 

Not the dark side of the moon

 Not the dark side of the moon. Just a neat patch panel that took me flippin hours to shape into place. Was worth it in the end as it welded up fine. It did dip a smidge during the welding as I probably went too quickly welding it, but should be fine with a thin smear of filler. 

Other thing I did was spend some time on the seatbelt mounts, but they're not coming together so well. Might have to scrap and start again. 

Squirted a bit of Ford blue on the tranny. Came up nice enough for me. 

Hot off the press and almost ready are these righteous engine mounts that Blake has fabricated for me. They look super solid and are ten times better than the flimsy kiddy mounts that came with the Tuff Mount kit I bought recently. Just to refresh your memory Tuff Mounts make a universal mount to suit the Cleveland into just about anything...except for a 56 F100. 

When I pick them up off Blake tomorrow, I will give you a better look at them. The plate at the top is for extra reinforcement. Gotta be happy with that! I suppose my only concern is whether the headers are gonna hit these mounts. 

If you are thinking they are way too long, you are right. Blake made them longer than needed but trimming them wouldn't be too complicated. Seems a shame to cut these plasma cut beauties! 

This must be love! Wife let's me put truck parts inside the house!

 

So, hands up who else's wife would let them store their panels and parts in the house away from the dust and spiders? I must be so lucky LoL! But every silver lining has a cloud, or something like that, and I do get the third degree from time to time, mostly relating to how long are these parts gonna be there? I point out to her that some projects can take years to complete. 

And that doesn't go down well. 

I am really trying hard to get this truck on the road this year, but we're already a third of the way through the year. 

Anyway, good news! The 351 is off to get reco'd tomorrow and I have finished spraying primer on the panels. 

More news soon! Stick around guys!

Not feeling the love at the moment...

 

Ever have those moments where you just take a step back and assess where everything is going? Like, where your life is going, and also where your priorities in life are leading you? 

Yeah, I'm having one of those moments. A moment that has been lasting quite a while now. And it's mostly about the truck, and where it is going, or not going.

Life just gets too overwhelming sometimes and you just have to take that big step back from things. I am the first to admit that I have thrown the towel in too many times with vehicles, and some of them I really should have kept and persisted with. But I don't think this truck is really worth the effort. 

I know I have come a long way, but there is still a hell of a long way to go. My deadline was to get the truck on the road for the 2025 Hot Rod Nationals in Bendigo. I have less than twelve months to get there. And as I stand back and survey the old girl, I am thinking...nah, not a chance. 

This week Blake is coming over to weld in the engine mount plates. That might just be enough to inspire me to continue. I'm very nervous about the fitment as I want to get the engine and transmission up under the cabin without surgery to the cabin floor, and I won't really rest until we do. He was wanting to come over this Friday, but I had to work. Judging by the threatening weather event  I probably should have stayed off the road instead of my usual 100 minutes each way drive. 

Once we get the engine in place, I will be booking it in for a rebuild. 

A lot of this stuff takes time, but it seems the last three months everything has more or less hit a brick wall. I know it isn't true; it just feels that way. Sometimes I look back at old videos I have taken of the truck and it makes me realise I have come a long way in a fairly short time. Here is an example:

My wife is probably right. She said I will feel happier once the engine has been built and fitted up and running in the truck. Everything else after that will probably fall into place...

Only time will tell.

The main thing I need to do now is just get home safely...

Day three of paint stripping. Boy, am I getting tired!

 Three solid days worth of stripping and sanding and what not else has finally produced this result

They're looking pretty reasonable so far. Still have the inside of one fender to finish and that is everything except for the rear guards which I won't be stripping as they are fibreglass. So, I am guessing a fairly gentle paper on those. I also have the tub to strip as well. It has some kind of excellent zinc coating on it, and I am wondering whether it needs to completely come off? 

edit:

Well, I was just reading this article from the manufacturer's website and they provide specific and clear instructions as to how to tackle the tub. Basically you rub with solvent, wash with detergent, rub down again (don't these guys know we have actual lives to get on with?) and then hit with fine sandpaper up to 240 grit. What could be easier?