Managed to get that pesky door to kinda sorta fit.

 Sorry for repeating a lot of stuff, but the focus of my concern is getting these panels to line up, specifically the doors. This is probably one of the biggest problems most guys face when working on these old trucks and mine is no exception. In fact, it is probably worse than most, as at least one of the doors didn't belong to the truck. 

I've got a panel beater lined up to do the tuff stuff for me and hopefully paint the thing in time, but for now I am slowly slogging away at the little bits.

Good news with the aluminium shroud. I have a guy called Nathan making me up a custom shroud to accommodate the Davies Craig 16" thermatic fan. He is even fitting it up for me, and might be ready by the weekend.

Still no news from the engine builder. Two months already and no sign of when he is going to start working on it. He even asked for more money the other day and I found that very strange as he already has 7 grand deposit and hasn't started working on it yet. Got news for him: balance on completion. 

Why do I have these problems? Why don't things flow smoothly with this project? It must be me. I must have a t shirt on that says, "let's sting this loser" or some such thing. Well, I AM being a little melodramatic, after all, I found James and Nathan in the one week. 

Anyway, enough rambling!

Some success with getting the door on. Still gonna need a lot of work, but might not be the nightmare I thought it would be.

Further to the tailgate saga, I coughed up and bought a nice rivnut kit with the correct 5/16 18 rivnuts and a big 16" tool off Temu. 

I've had mixed success with this company, but I have been shopping around to find an imperial mandrel to suit and I just can't find anything from Bunnings or Supercheap or Total Tools etc. Actually, I think I did find one locally, but it was like $180, and this one I bought was less than half that. I hope it lasts a while. It came with 10 piece mandrel set.  I then forked out on an imperial rivnut kit from eBay.  I wouldn't have had to buy all this stuff if the technique offered by Mar-K was effective. Maybe it was just me again, but I did everything the instructions suggested and still managed to stuff up both rivnut installations. Well, at least they are fixable now. 

This weekend I plan to do some serious fitting up of panels and getting the truck as together as possible. There is a good chance James is nearly ready to receive the truck. Check back soon guys for more updates, and thanks once again for your valued support. 

Mar-K tailgate latch for the truck

 This Mar-K tailgate latch came with the project when I bought it off Garry. It has been sitting in its box for nearly two years while I got onto other aspects of the project. I have to confess I was a bit chicken about fitting it up and spent a lot of time thinking about it. 

And even though I thought about it for a long time, I still sorta managed to stuff it up. 

This was my experience fitting the latch up.

PS. I think Mar-k may have discontinued this design as their website (correct me if I am wrong) doesn't mention this model at all. They seem to be more focused on the rifle barrel lock and load style that looks a lot neater. Anyway, I have this thing, so I went ahead and fitted it up 

Good friend Rob began the work on the tailgate initially, cutting the big square section out on the tailgate itself in readiness for the latch. 

Here we have the latch basically mounted to the side of the tub. The tub has a  tubular section on it that enables the drilling of this hole without showing through. More on that in a minute

Another angle of the latch. Sits neat. Wondering what is gonna stop that thing from banging around.

Maybe I was doing it wrong. The instructions said put the nut on the bolt about an inch up the thread, then put a washer there and then a piece of scrap steel with the correct size hole drilled and then put that flanged stud thing on the end of the bolt and then hold the whole deal together with an allen key holding the bolt while you hold the scrap metal and wind the nut off with a spanner. It is possible to do, but you really need two people I think. Anyway, I must have done it wrong, because I damned near stripped the thread of the bolt unwinding it. It was hard as hell to do.

The instructions suggest widening the hole with a file. Here I am, nailing it!

According to the instructions, this is how you are supposed to wind the flange nut off, by somehow twisting it and kind of crushing it into the hole.

I did this according to instructions, but was only partly successful. On one side the flange didn't sit well and started. This was not good because it had locked itself into the tub, rendering the tightening of the bolt that eventually goes in there impossible. 

The other one tightened up well, but the flange nut thing somehow twisted inside the channel and I was not able to get the bolt to thread up without stripping it.

A success? Hardly, but the good news is the latches close and I didn't drill in the wrong spot. 

There has to be a better solution than this fit a nut up. Maybe one of those nutsert tools is the go, and the more I think about it, it might be a worthwhile investment. 

 

So, just when things started to look like they weren't getting anywhere fast, I was lucky enough to find a guy who is a panel beater and spray painter who said he was happy to take the truck to the next level and get it tidied and painted. He won't be able to start for a few weeks, but I don't mind that as I want to get stuff finalised and at least bolted on and fitted before he takes it away. He advised that I should try to line up all the panels and have them fit neatly before he begins tidying up the panels. It's still a very big job, but definitely not as intimidating as it once was. 

The other news is the engine rebuild should get underway this week. Peter has again reiterated his desire to stroke the engine to a 408. His argument is, since I have gone roller rockers and alloy heads, I might as well make it worth the while and stroke it. He reassured me it was only going to be another couple of grand over and above what I am already committed to. 

Initially, I wasn't that fussed. This was never going to be a speed machine, so why put all that money into a powerful engine when all I will be doing is cruising down to the lake for fish and chips every weekend?  Peter's opinion is that it will be no burden to carry, and if I ever need that extra power to get past trucks etc, I will have it on tap. 

We're still thinking of using the Holley Sniper EFI setup.

I've got a feeling this project is gonna go ballistic!

The other thing is we have decided not to go with black cherry paint and go with a straighter colour. Something like a dark blue. 

Something like this:

Stay tuned guys. We're hanging in there and we hope you do too!