'62 Unibody Still Plugging Along

[390fastback]

Dude....Wow!

[JOSHF100]

Super job LM!!

Looks like the BBW glass probably got shattered? Are they reproduced or will you find a used one?

Randall

[LM14]

I got this section out of a truck Rickairmedic owns. When he got the truck it came with another back glass so I have everything to put it in. Got all the trim, the glass and the cab section from him.

SPark

[foodstick]

No messing around on that gate to be sure....

That repair is gonna be drawing attention like flies to honey.

[LM14]

Got the left half welded and ground down Friday afternoon. Will tackle the right half Monday. Trying to get all the final welding done so I can prime the inner fender, gravel shield, hood and a few small parts I've bead blasted.




Took the weekend off to hit the swap meet in Lathrop, MO. Had a good time meeting up with "Mr Jones" (Dan), walking around looking for treasures. Didn't get anything for the slick but did pick up a pair of NOS, still in the original package, 1937 Ford headlight lenses. Functional and something left over to display! Struck out on any slick parts.





After getting home, I picked up another friend (oddly enough also named Dan) and headed to the first ever race for the newly formed National Sprint League 410 Sprint car (formed by Tony Stewart) series in Burlington, Iowa. Great night of sprint car racing. Made for a long day but it was all fun!

SPark

[LM14]

Finished 43' of solid welds and another 6' of stitch welds today. Everything is now welded, ground and had a 60 grit disc run over it. Cut off all my braces that kept everything held in place while it was welded and smoothed everything with a quick once over.





Also finished the inside. This is where the bottom of the main skin meets the return to the pivot bar. This just clears the floor when the gate is closed.




These are the ends of the gate where the steel rods that support the gate hang when the gate is closed.




Speaking of the rods that support the gate in the down position, I rebuilt my originals. Straightened, built up the pivot areas and bead blasted. Once they were in good shape I cut the holes to mount them in the gate.




Next it's on to the latches. figured a smooth gate needs something other than the original exposed latches. Once that is figured out, I can put the stiffeners along both outer edges of the tailgate to make the edges a bit tougher and give a nice finished edge to the gate on the sides.

SPark

[foodstick]

You know I have been telling Bill it wouldn't be that hard to build a gate. But man you thought it out well, and did an exceptional build.
I'm impressed as heck...

I just hope you haven't opened a can of worms when everyone else wants you to build THEM one too ! hahahaha

[Mr. Jones]

Steve,
Wish I'd read your build post sooner,I was a bit clueless Sat.when you mentioned the uni..Very focused plan and execution,good job.
Dan

[The Big M]

Great work on the gate!

I have aspirations of building a new gate from scratch, but I was going to cheat and draw it up in 3D CAD first, then have the pieces plasma cut.

Thanks for sharing your technique, that looks like a very solid piece.

[LM14]

Plasma cut would be OK. I had a local welding shop sheer all my steel to size so I didn't do much cutting. The only thing I would have liked to get cut was the 4 pieces that form the bulge beside the taillight. I sold my big brake when I retired from racing so I didn't have anything big enough to brake pieces this long. It would be a lot easier if you could get some pieces bent to shape and save a lot of welding and grinding. With the right bends you could cut it down to 2 or 3 long welds (from the 6 I did) and the end pieces. My local shop isn't precise enough to make the bends and his radius gets too big so I elected to do it this way. Sometimes have to work with what you have. I have time and a grinder and welder.

I started on latches and have one "prototyped". It seems to work fine so I'm going to copy it for the opposite side. You could also use the stock latches with this setup but that doesn't compute in my warped mind.

Hopefully more pictures tomorrow if things go well. Had to spend the last couple days doing chores for other people. Don't they know I'm busy playing?!?!?

Thanks for the comments.
SPark

[LM14]

Tonight I built the latches. I used a barrel latch system that is spring loaded. Based it on a piece of 3/4"OD by 1/2"ID DOM tubing, a piece of 1/2"OD x 3/8"ID electric weld tubing, an oilite bushing that is 3/8" OD and 1/4" ID, a pair of 1/4" bolts, a compression spring, a 7/16" x 3/4" NC bolt and nut, a 1/4" washer and a chrome drawer pull. For some reason the drill pull didn't make it to the photo shoot on time. I do not own a mill or a lathe so I do things the hard way! Everything was done with a hand drill, drill press, bench grinder and bench mounted belt sander.





First order of business was making the latch bolt. I cut the heads off the bolts, ground the ends to a point and welded them together. Once they were welded completely, I ground them back to the original diameter of the bolt. I needed to weld 2 bolts together because I could not get a single bolt that was long enough to cover the whole span. For the final assemble, I will probably order a pair of stainless bolts in the correct length so I can polish them.






The drawer pull was threaded for 8/32". I wanted 1/4" so I drilled it oversize and tapped it to 1/4"NF.



The next step was making the removable guide for the latch bolt. It needs to be removable so I could weld the barrel body into the tailgate without killing the spring. I ground the head of a 7/16 bolt smooth and found the center by scribing across the points of the head. Once that was found, I clamped a 1/4" drill bit in my drill press vise and set the bit square to the chuck in both directions. Once that was done, I put the bolt threads up into the chuck and locked the bolt down, drilled and quickly had a nice straight hole thru the center of the bolt.








Now you can see what the latch bolt looks like and how the pieces fit together.




Next was the barrel section that will be welded into the tailgate and contain the latch bolt. I cut a piece of the 3/4" DOM to a length just slightly longer than the width of the end section of the tailgate. I also cut a small length of the 1/2" EWT to fit inside the DOM. It is the same length as the shoulder on the iolite bushing.



Once everything was cut, I bolted the 7/16" NC nut to the end of the 3/4" DOM, welded it then ground it back smooth.





Now you can see how everything fits together. The 1/4" washer is the last thing to get welded to the latch bolt.



I now took around 10,000 measurements, stared, cussed and discussed with myself where to mount the latch in the side piece of the tailgate. With the taillights, steel bars that hold the gate in the open position and the corner of the stake pocket, it soon became clear I only had a very small area to get it all to fit. I am 6.5" down from the top of the gate and 1.5" out from the main face of the gate. Anywhere else and something was going to hit. I drilled a 1/4" hole from each edge at those measurements and inserted a 1/4" rod thru the hole. This let me see if the holes were parallel to the top edge and back face of the tailgate. They were not. I made a "best guess" and marked where the holes needed elongated and used a die grinder to make the holes slightly larger while moving them slightly to square everything up. Once I had a better hole to work with, I used a step bit to drill them to 3/4" on each side. I inserted the barrel (which is still too long) into the hole and marked the exact length the barrel needed to be to fit flush on each end. I cut the barrel down, drilled a couple holes thru it at the end and plug welded the 1/2"OD EWT inside the 3/4" DOM tubing. I used the oilite bushing to get the correct recess for the 1/2" EWT so the bushing would sit flush with the end of the barrel after it was welded in. I then ground everything smooth again.




Once it was the correct length I welded it into the end pieces of the tailgate, ground it down and assembled everything without the spring. This dry run let me know where the 1/4" washer needed to be welded to the latch bolt to keep pressure on the latch and let you pull the latch open to get the gate down. After the test fit, I welded the washer in place and ground it down so it would pass thru the 7/16" nut I welded to the end of the barrel section earlier. It is only fair to note that my springs would not fit thru the 7/16" nut, they were a hair too big in diameter. They were close enough that I drilled the nut 1/32" larger than the ID of the threads in the nut and that little bit let the spring push into the barrel for final assembly. This removed about half the depth of the threads in the nut but it still has plenty to hold it tight. This is also the size the 1/4" washer was ground down to.






I assembled it once again and marked the length the bolt needed to be cut to so it would latch the gate to the box. I marked it, cut it to length, rounded the ends and assembled everything including the spring this time.




Now that it was all mounted and cut to length, I tapped on the drawer pull with a rubber hammer that in turn made a mark in the side of the box extension where the latch needed to be to line the gate and the end cap of the box nicely. For now I drilled the holes to 1/4". In final assembly they will be drilled oversize and a rubber o-ring will be installed so the latch doesn't rattle in the body.



The finished product. The latches are stiff enough to keep it closed going down he road but you can easily pull them and lower the gate at the same time with no problem. The latch bolt sticks 1/2" into the box end cap holes so it is nice and secure.





This may be really hard to see. These last pictures are inside the gap between the end of the tailgate and the edge of the end cap on the box. The shiny silver rod going left/right is the latch I just installed. The dull silver rods going up/down are the rods that hold the tailgate in the down position. The hex bolt is the end cap for the barrel body that holds the latch in the tailgate. They don't touch but it couldn't get much closer. You can stick finger in and rattle all the rods. My final plan is to coat the tailgate rods in plasti-dip like used on wrench handles so they don't rattle so much. I can also dip all but the very tip of the latch bolt to keep it from rattling against the rods. I also plan to thin the heads of the bolts in the barrels to gain some clearance. It's really tight.




I have about 6 hours work in the latches. So far I'm happy with them. It probably would have been easier to put the stock latches in this gate but I don't like stock stuff that well, and they tended to scratch the paint when used.

All that is left is a bit of work on the outer edges, a top strip to make the top edge the correct shape and a little putty and seam sealer for a few seams.

SPark

[LM14]

Today was the top edge of the tailgate. When I tacked the top 3/4" square rail in place at the very beginning, I spaced it down 1/8" lower than the top of the box. If you look at some of the previous pictures, you will see that the top edge does not match the top edge of the box. We're going to finish the top edge and fix that issue.

I first tacked a 1/8" x 1/2" strip to the top all the way across. Now I have a 1/4" thick top rail on the tailgate. Should help with stiffness and keep it from getting dinged as easily. This also made the tops match. I then welded it in place about 1.5" at a time followed by a few minutes of air across the weld area to cool it and keep it from warping. Continued this process until it was welded across on the inside and outside edge of the tailgate.






You can now see the top edges match again.




Layin' some killer beads today.



Ground down all the welds and created a small roll at the top edges.




My method of lots of tack welds, compressed air cooling until everything was in place, then welding an inch or so at a time and immediately following each short weld with another compressed air cooling cycle worked really well. The gate is straight and stayed square during the entire process. Couldn't have asked for a better top edge.





All that remains is finishing the outer left and right edge to stiffen them and it should work fine.

SPark

[PaycheckBlew]

Will you stamp the "Ford" script into the center of the tailgate?

[orangeRcode]

Outstanding work!

[LM14]

Will you stamp the "Ford" script into the center of the tailgate?

Nope!

This truck is being built as a "this is the truck Lincoln would have built if Lincoln had built trucks in 1962" exercise. I picture it as what would have happened if Lincoln pulled a truck from the assembly line in 1962, picked the parts they wanted to use and built a one-off engineering and design exercise. The trim will all be Lincoln or custom. The seats look kind of like Mustang/Ranger seats but are a bit more plush. Also using colors not offered by Ford on a pickup.

Why? Because I'm weird like that.

SPark

[foodstick]

I got all the way to the bottom of the last post before I realized you wer not talking about Abraham Lincoln .....

[Alan Mclennan]

VERY nice work on the tail gate Steve!..

[LM14]

I got all the way to the bottom of the last post before I realized you wer not talking about Abraham Lincoln .....

If Abraham Lincoln was doing it, you would have had to take what Kid removed from his top and added it to this one so the hat fit.

SPark

[LM14]

Finished the welding on the gate today! Also started filling the stake pockets and welding the seam on the box/end cap. This box was either assembled on a Monday or a Friday because it has places the seam is almost 1/4" different than the end cap. This must have been built before the "Quality is Job #1" slogan was started.

First I welded a small strip on each side to put the outer edges in the relationship I wanted between the end caps of the box and the sides of the gate. Also capped the ends of the upper rail and tied the upper rail into the back side of the gate.





The next step was bending a piece of 3/4" steel to fit the contours of the edge of the tailgate. Drilled it for plug welds and clamped it in place. Lots of clamps.





After everything was welded solid and all the plug welds were done it all got ground smooth for the last time!




After the welding was done, I finished up the basic latches. I welded a small plate over the hole the plunger comes out of that retains the oilite bearing and gives the area a finished look. Also drilled and tapped the actual handles that will be used. Didn't want to mess them up with all the welding and grinding.





All done! A little seam sealer in the corners, some mud to smooth out the welds and it should work fine.



Next it's time to concentrate on the big window conversion. Bought a nice spot weld cutter to see if it works any better than the 2.99 Harbor Freight cutters. I think steel was a lot tougher in '62 than it is today!

Also dropped the camera right off the bat today. Everything seems to be a bit overexposed. Dianne has been shopping for a new one anyway, guess I just forced her to shop faster! It still works, mostly. Makes a few funny sounds and is eating batteries faster than ever. Tech tip, don't drop digital cameras form 5' onto concrete floors. That's a free tip for all my friends.

SPark

[kstones63]

Looking good. I like the latch system that you built.
You are getting really busy on this truck.
Are you going to leave the hinges the way that they are. I plan to change Nick's to where they are blended in with the body. I have some ideas on that but I don't have it completely figured out yet.