Slick 60's

Greg D:

Did you use the same dimensions from the links above? If not, can you attach them?

What stock did you use that they're so darned heavy? 1/8"?

I got the cab floor sandblasted and primed:

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I still have a ways to go...

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I got some more sandblasting done last month.
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The previous owner's patches were braised in, and he mostly used the patches as covers and never cut out the old rust, leaving me with a mess to clean up.
Here is an old patch that I have to cut out and reweld, plus some new rust holes to fill. the underside looked worse, but I didn't get a picture of that
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I did manage to get a coat of paint on the bottom of the cab last night.
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Hopefully I'll have time to put on a second coat tonight.
I bought some 2x3 square tubing and some 1/8" plate so I can fabricate the cab mounts. I'm going to wait until I get the cab on the frame to line up all the metal before I do any drilling and welding. Hopefully it will line up better that way.

cab is looking great.

Roof progress:
I used the grinder with a scotch bright pad to rough up the primer on the places I had previously spot sandblasted.
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After a skim coat of bondo and two hours of hand sanding I pulled out my electric sander.
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I put another skim coat of bondo on and sanded, the electric sander helped knock down the high areas, then I hand sanded the rest, then cleaned her up and shot a light coat of primer:
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The primer seemed like it didn’t lay down very flat (I didn't thin it at all, that may have been my problem), looked like orange peel almost. I still have to buy some long sanding blocks for my finish sanding.

That is looking realy good.

I finally got all my transmission parts from my supplier, I bought a new clutch kit, flywheel, and starter. I started getting the engine coupled to the transmission. I attached the flywheel before I realized I hadn't slid on the block plate so off with the flywheel, on with the block plate and then I re-torqued the flywheel to 85 ft-lbs. one bolt seemed to not be torquing properly, I pulled it back out and low and behold I had stripped the thread I called my engine guy, hopefully I can get it in there next week and have him drill the threads and re-tap the hole for me. I grabbed the clutch and flex plate and set it on for fitment, that’s when I realized I didn’t have any bolts that go from the flywheel to the clutch finger plate thing. I called ford and found out they are m8x20mm and I should need about 8 of them. ford wanted $10.21 for one of them, so I think I'll make a trip to the hardware store to try to find something to fit.

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I did get the throw out bearing and clutch fork back in. I also bolted the bell housing onto the transmission. I threw on my shifter handle for a picture op.

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love the progress, looks like you are moving along great... keep up the great work and keep those pics coming....

It turns out I didn't have to take my engine into the machine shop. I had only pulled out a couple of threads in the crank because I was using the torque bolts from the flex plate for the automatic transmission. I didn’t realize that the torque bolts for the manual transmission would be longer because the flywheel is thicker than the flex plates. Once I got longer bolts everything torqued down fine. Also, the torque bolts are a little bit different length from truck engine to car engine. I had the parts guy get me a set for an 88 mustang (which is what the transmission is out of) and a set for a 1986 f150 (which is what the crank is out of). the truck ones were longer and the bolt tops had a 12 point top on them instead of the standard 6 side.

I got six 8mmx20mm bolts from the hardware store to bolt the clutch plate to the flywheel and got that together.

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The transmission slide right together and bolted right up.

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Except of course where the two top bolts on a manual transmission are shorter than an automatic, which I found out after I had already been to two different places to get hardware (the auto parts store for the torque bolts and the hardware store for the flywheel to clutch bolts).
Here is a picture of the bolt turned in as far as it will go.

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I went back to the auto parts store, but they didn’t end up having the correct length, and by this time of night the hardware store was closing so I just cut about a half an inch off of the bolts and ground off the rough part and torqued them into place.

I set the engine in the frame because I was excited to see how everything fit with the new aftermarket cross members. Nothing is bolted down, it’s just held in by some c-clamps and blocks of wood. It seems like the engine is sitting to high in the front, but I’ll fine tune it when I get the cab set up there with it. I need to rig up a cart for my engine and transmission so I can move it around when it’s not setting in the frame.

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sgart- hope those tail lights help the effort. Truck is looking great. Let me know what you want to do with that bed.

Hey sixty6, The tail lights will work out great. I'll send you a pm about the bed. I wish I had all your space, I'd probably have a row of donor truck lined up along the corn. It was nice to meet you and see your project. Your frame looks great, good luck with your build.

It's been a while since I've posted any progress. I planned on working on the truck all summer, but we all know how plans go. I had some plumbing problems with my sanitary line backing up, and me, being the do-it-yourself kind of guy that I am, I started digging. I dug a little up to see if I could find the problem. long story short, I ended up digging 80 foot of clay tile by hand. it tool me 6 weeks to get it all out and replace it with PVC.

Here is me at about the half way point. I think my neighbors thought I had lost it.
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I know this is a little off subject, but I know some of you are into two wheels too. I acquired it as side project, and it has taken some of my time away from the truck because I wanted to get it in riding condition before the summer was over. It backfired all over the place, it was hard to start, the cam chain tensioners were making all sorts of noise, the fork seals were leaking, the clutch cable was sticking, the seat foam was shot, and those handlebars, foam grips and mickey mouse ear mirrors had to go.
Here is how it looked when I first bought it
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I tweaked the carbs and the exhaust and fixed the backfire, I bought a maintenance free battery and installed iridium spark plugs, it starts right up now. I took out the cam chain tensioners and re-installed, and installed new upper cam chain springs. I rebuilt the forks, installed a new clutch cable, new handle bars, new mirrors, new grips and a seat off of a 2008 Vulcan custom.
it's a fun little bike, I've put about 800 miles on it since I bought it, here is how it looks now:
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Just before I started on the sanitary line I had been working on getting my rear cab corners replaced. I have them welded in, and I with a little help from some bondo I have them smoothed out. I block sanded the cab with 150 grit paper and I shot a coat of primer on it.

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I just need to block sand with 320 and fill a few minor imperfections and I'll be ready to hit it with some color!

Nice to see the progress !!! On the digging side, I had to dig a 30 foot trench from my house to the garage a few years ago to get gas and wired internet to the garage. What a pain, since our area is all clay. On the bike side, I glad you got it running nice ... mine has 4 carbs and I can almost rebuild them in my sleep, since that's what usually made mine run bad. Anyways ... enough rambling. All the best !!!

I shot some color this weekend, first time shooting color. I have no idea how to tune my paint gun properly and I am disappointed with my results, but it's my own fault for going ahead and shooting the paint with out dialing in the gun first. I hate asking anyone around me for help, but at the same time I can't stand when I get poor results. One thing is for sure, I'm learning a lot from my mistakes.

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There is orange peel all over the place. This is what I get for being in a hurry ... as soon as it dries I'll sand it down and re shoot.

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I'm pretty sure that I had the fluid knob turned out to far, I know I mixed the paint exactly as recommended by the manufacturer. I'll be happier when I can get the paint to lay down like a sheet of glass.

Either way you need to sand the orange peel out. Although, you might be able to save it by polishing it perfect once your done sanding. I my old days of painting I would always wetsand and polish every paint job I did. The orange peel is pretty rough, but it's amazing what you can recover by wetsanding and polishing. Like I said just my 2 cents worth.

I was thinking that same thing...wet sand that coat of paint, and lay down a couple more. I have a buddy that can work magic with a spray gun, never really needs to wet sand between coats of color, but he does it anyway. Then he wet sands between coats of clear too. His paint jobs are beautiful!
Keep up the good work, in my opinion that isn't bad for your first spray job!

Thanks for the advice. I actually got off work a couple hours early yesterday, so I started wet sanding. I thought the paint might still be a little to wet, but it sanded out just fine. I think I'm going to try to tune my gun correctly and repaint. I plan on wet sanding and buffing everything eventually.

sgart- what are you shooting with?

sixty6 wrote:sgart- what are you shooting with?

If you're asking about the gun, I'm using an off brand HVLP gun that I picked up for $50 from walmart on clearance. it came with a touch up gun, a cleaning kit, a nice carrying case and two air gauges. I did pick up a gun at menards when I was painting the frame, it was around $60 for just the gun, and it didn't come any extras. Both guns seem to shoot about the same and I didn't see any point in spending big bucks one.

If you're asking about paint, I'm using Valspar tractor and implement paint on the cab and body work. It's single stage so I don't have to worry about clear coat, and it's inexpensive and I can pick it up at the local farm n fleet, plus they have it in rattle cans so I can do touch up work and smaller pieces without having to get out my paint gun and run the compressor. I'm using the hardener with it, and I'm thinning it with vm&p naphtha (I think that's the stuff)