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...