64 Tweety Bird

[ironminer]

looks great!

[Uncle Skip]

Got another piddling little chore done today.
Pre-wired the dash insert and getting ready to put new Ron Francis plugs on the wires.
This way, if Daryl needs to remove the dash for anything he only has to remove the speedometer cable and un-plug the insert and it can go on the bench.
No dealing with lose wires or light bulbs. You all know what I'm talking about.
Overkill?
I don't think so.

[Uncle Skip]

A little more progress on Tweety this weekend. Lots of little things but nothing you can actually see. The devil is in the details.
Details like I just found out today that the heater valve for the Vintage Air system is electric. Really bulky, ugly and no place to mount it properly so we experimented. Came up with a way to hide the electric actuator in the fender well and the valve itself on the inner fender like its supposed to be.
But as a little teaser, here is a shot of the vinyl that will be going on the seats and kick (speaker door) panels. Probably finish the seat with a little dark brown just to highlight the tan. The headliner is about the same color tan but has a suede finish. Seat and woofer box going to the upholsterer Thursday for covering. I'm thinking dark brown thread on the seat too. What do you think of this combination?

[rickairmedic]

I think that Tan will look great with the Yellow myself.


Rick

[1965fordf100]

Love it!

[Uncle Skip]

Another one of those got a lot of stuff done but it doesn't look like it days.
Vintage Air is one of the finest vendors around, but the vents and vent consoles suck for a Slick.
I spent a good part of the day working on a face plate to mount vents, remote radio controls, and A/C controls under the dash. Tricky because when you put in a full width unit, you normally can't use the glove box door because of the way it opens out and down.
Actually, after a couple of trys, that turned out to be pretty easy to solve and I'll show pictures when we get it ready to bolt in, but the rest of the day was spent planning the plumbing and routing of the heater and A/C hoses so it looks like it belongs in the truck. Mounted the condenser (the biggest Vintage makes) using their brackets (modified of course) and bolting them to the condenser unit and the top of the core support using a threaded Nut-zert.
I love that tool.
Then we drilled the bulkhead fittings for the heater hoses and located and mounted the heater valve. They actually have a 5/8" O-ring fitting with a hose barb for heater hoses. Looks really professional, but I do wish someone would come up with a substitute for the old style screw clamps. They're butt ugly on their best days.
After a lot of discussion, "what if we's" and just laying stuff out, we did come up with a plan for the A/C hose routing and will finish that out when I pick up the extra fittings we're going to need from our supplier. Pictures when that happens.
After Pate.
And finally, we trial mounted the new AOD Lokar floor mount shifter Daryl got from Terry Wall.
Like my hero, Hannibal Smith used to say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

[Uncle Skip]

By the way.
Just so nobody gets the wrong impression, I am not building this truck.
Daryl Davis, who is a master craftsman woodworker is doing the greatest majority of the work and he's doing a killer job.
I'm just helping him along.
Like I said, he can make a wood project sing Opera, but he didn't have a lot of mechanical experience when he started Tweety, so I'm teaching him on the fly.
And today, he achieved a milestone.
He took ownership of his project.
By that I mean, I offered a solution to a problem, he chewed on it for several minutes and then said, "Well, what if we do this?"
And his solution was ten times better than what I suggested. I thought of it before but dismissed it as being to involved. But when he showed me what he was thinking I went ..... duh.
Before we closed the shop down tonight, he was already coming up with some more new ideas and questions.
Makes me proud.
Anyway, make no mistake, when Tweety is finished, it will be Daryl's vision and Daryl's truck and no one else's.
Keep up the good work bud.

[Uncle Skip]

Tweety marches on.
Worked all weekend making the under dash radio, A.C vent and controls panel fit without interfering with the glove box door.
I think we've got it worked out and I'll take pictures after we cover the panel in seat matching tan vinyl. Stretches from the instrument cluster to the passenger side door. I think its going to be pretty sexy when we're done.
And, I think we can cover the other two round A/C vents themselves in vinyl to match the panel.
We tested the idea on an old vent housing and it looks damn good for the first try. Probably going to get the seat cover guy to do it for us when he covers the seat. Some things are best left to professionals. Know what I mean Vern?
Also finalized the A/C and heater plumbing inside the cab and in the engine compartment.
Film at 11.

[Uncle Skip]

More progress.... finished indexing and fitting the A/C hoses and will have them crimped tomorrow.
And then, the new radiator came in so we had to mock that up and locate the fans on the shroud.
Might have to build an aluminum cover to go over the top of the radiator to match the radiator.



This last one is of the hard lines from the condenser to the compressor and dryer. They're aluminum but I put protective spiral wrap on to keep them from chafing on the core support.

[Uncle Skip]

Daryl picked up the seats last Friday. His is done with the tan and a special snake skin insert, and mine got fixed from where I spilled RED fuel stabilizer on it.
Take a look.




However, as good as the insert looks, the other parts that get covered will be the regular tan vinyl.

[Uncle Skip]

One other thing.
I had Mario put an extra 1/2" - 3/4" of foam on the edge of the drivers side of the seat to keep from beating it down and sagging toward the door after a couple of years.
I did it to my seat when I got it covered and its worked exactly like I thought it would.
Something to consider when you get your own seat re-done.
I don't even think he charged me for it.

[Uncle Skip]

Another milestone. We finished mounting the radiator and fans and laid out the wiring for the relay and power to the fans.
Remember I told you about the big gap between the radiator and condenser. No more gap.
Thanks to Terry Wall who cut the aluminum tabs for me so I could relocate the radiator mounting position.

Premounted without shroud and fans.



Finished mounting with shroud and fans.






Next task - - - - - finish mounting the A/C evaporator, hoses and controls in the cab.

[Daryl]

Don't be fooled, if it wasn't for Skip I would burnt the damn thing down. He is the master and I be the grasshopper. Got way over my head on this. No how to books. Working on the hood. FYI it's a BIG hood!

[Uncle Skip]

Here are the pictures of this weekends progress. Finished the condenser mount and all the hoses for the A/C, new belts and then the under dash panel for the A/c vents, radio plate, and data power port.
Mario actually covered the vent housings with the vinyl and the under dash panel will have the same vinyl as a covering. More on mounting the panel to clear the glove box door later.

[CM Sackett]

Man-O-Man... what a SMILE MAKER!

[Uncle Skip]

We're starting to get to the point where when we accomplish something, it actually shows.
I've been obsessing about how to mount and hide the starter solenoid. I think this is a pretty cool solution.
The A/C condenser is finally in place with all the hoses and control wires in place. It has to be mounted as a complete unit because there is NO room for any kind of wrench. And finally, the under dash control panel with the A/C vents, radio face plate, A/C controls and data charging port are all in place and the panel is ready to be covered in vinyl and mounted. Now the wiring starts.

[MadMaxetc]

Looking nice Skip!

[Uncle Skip]

Nothing is ever easy.
Here's the covered control panel. And I think it looks great.


........ we have to build another panel. The controls stick out about 1/2" to much and hit the condenser unit. Probably will swap the radio and A/C control positions. And, the charging port is to deep too, so it has to be relocated.
Sucks being me.
But having said all that, it does look good and it WILL work out. Just a little more work. And if this is the worst thing that happens, I can live with it.

[oldtrucks]

But...... Isn't customising fun. Measure and plan till you go blind and, get everything situated just like you want it and CRAP how did I miss that. We had to redo the console in our truck 3 times befor we got it right and now it has to be painted again. Had to re-do the upper valence twice, had paint lifting issues, but like you said these are minor issues and the game plan is still on track and when it rolls out of the shop for the last time it will all have been worth it. NEXT

[Uncle Skip]

The new under dash panel is about ready to have the mounting tabs put on and then be covered.
About those mounting tabs.
Originally, there wasn't a lot of surface area available to attach the panel to the mounting tabs so we tried some epoxy weld material. It held pretty well but turned out not to be permanent enough for this application.
If you're not clear what I'm talking about, take a look at the uncovered under dash panel pictures above. After re-measuring we shortened the mounting tabs considerably and used three instead of the original two.
My point of all this is do not try to structurally bond metal with epoxy metals like JB Weld or Putty Weld. I doesn't have the shear strength to hold something like this.
But If you're going glue metal pieces, use the real deal panel adhesive and forget the rest. Expensive for such a small project, but its the only thing I think will actually bond the metal.
After having to re-cut the panel we found a way to minimize the mounting tabs and come up with enough material to actually mechanically attach them to the panel.
This time we're using counter sunk stainless 6-32 screws and aircraft style lock nuts to attach the two pieces.
Smaller 4-40"s would probably work just as well and if we run into a clearance problem we will use them.
I'll post a picture this weekend after we get it done.

FYI
In order to mount a panel like this under your dash, the mounting tab has to be bent at a 110 degree angle for the under dash panel to hang down straight.
Also, when you mount a panel like this you need about a 1/4" spacer between the mounting tabs and the back side of the dash. We took care of this little problem by using a small UHMW plastic cutting board and a 1" hole saw to cut the spacers.
Works for all kinds of places where you need thick spacers and keeps metal to metal contact down on painted pieces.