all dressed up

Another weekend working on the truck project.   I went to a bridal shower on Saturday, and Brian got the final holes cut in the boxed-in part of the frame with the new drill.  On Sunday, Brian worked on tearing down the rear dually axle from the DT so we can scrap it.  One axle cap was actually WELDED on (assuming because some of the bolts were broken).  Just craziness.  The brakes on that side were obviously not working because they were COVERED in grease.  Maybe that's how the truck got the front end damage!  Brian had to use the torch to get the axle disassembled.  Even tore into pieces, that thing is HEAVY so we should get a decent amount for scrap price for it.  While Brian worked on that, I worked on cleaning up the front end - with wire wheels, pick tools, and a toothbrush and paint thinner, I got is scrubbed up pretty good.  Good enough for a few coats of gloss black.  I think it's lookin' good!

Now, with the hubs painted, we can put the front wheels back on, set the engine back in, and start work on the rear next weekend!  We are going clam digging next Sunday, so it will be just one day to work on it on Saturday though......  which might just be preparing the 'new' dually axle for transplant :)
As I was taking pics, Tucker was really interested in what I was doing........

''Whatcha doin' mom?  Don't you want to take a picture of MEEEEEE?''

killed a drill

Brian had today off work, so we had another day to work on the truck :)  In the morning, he finished the welding on the boxing of the joint between the two frame pieces, then started drilling 3'' access holes in them.  He JUST finished the 4th hole, and the half inch drill died :(  At least he got one side done though.  I will go drill shopping tomorrow so we can finish the other side this weekend.
It's hard to see in the pic, but here is the driver's side finished with the 3 holes drilled on the inside of the boxed in part:

 The latter part of the day, I worked on wire-wheeling the brake caliper and the hub and got them painted (on the driver's side).

 ya, that is the firewall/dash/cowl on there (just seeing how it looked!)

here is a pic of the boxed in notch he had to make to lower the engine in the front:

fish plates and boxing

Well, another weekend working on the Diamond T project.......
One solid semi-parallelogram shaped 'fish plate' put in on the inside of the intersection between the spliced frames covering both weld joints (plug welded and edge welded):

PLUS, boxing that portion in too (tacked for now, more welding possibly tomorrow since it looks like Brian has tomorrow off):

And, my alter-ego ''Joe'' grinding on the plate to box the other side:

Haha.  Ya, that was my beer too.  Brian wasn't in the drinking mood today, so I had a beer for him :)

the tale of 2 frames......

We have a frame marriage!  I will tell ya, it wasn't a match made in heaven, but with some coaxing, they have become one!

 It went from this:

To this over the weekend!

There will be fish plates and boxing to come still, but I think it's looking great!  All the math involved to figure out *where* to cut the front sub-frame so that it was even with the width of the Diamond T frame,  the angles needed on that cut, the angles needed on the Diamond T frame - I think it came out very well if I do say so myself!

I got the dash taken apart while Brian welded......  it's almost ready to get sand-blasted :)

close to a whole frame.......

Well, Brian and I worked on the Diamond T project most of the weekend.......

After digging out geometry from the recesses of my brain, we got angles determined and got the Dodge front clip removed from the rest of the frame:

Then, we moved the rear portion of the Dodge frame out and moved the stripped Diamond T frame into the work space.
After we removed the old rear axle........  Brian cut the 'drop' portion of the frame from the box van's frame.......  and then we did some more math, and he cut the front clip off the Diamond T frame.......

 My ''studly'' benches worked well for holding up the frame square (so the frame wasn't 'racked' at all while he cut).  Too bad they are too tall to hold it up to attach this portion to the Dodge front clip......

Luckily, this is where we realized we made a small error in the figuring of the cutting of the length of the 'drop' part of the frame.... we measured the length we needed on the 70* mark instead of the 90* that the drop pieces were to be cut.......  so, we re-figured out math and Brian re-cut the drops longer.  He wanted the part where the cab rests to be 1'' lower than the original Dodge frame was.  And, now it will be (and will be straight back until the rear axle, not like the Dodge frame that the only flat spot was where the cab sat, which wasn't a big enough spot for the DT cab).

This is where we got flustered and tired and gave up for the weekend......  We need a better solution to be able to hold that frame to the right height and still be able to micro-tweak it's position side-to-side and front-to-back so we get it as close to perfectly square and straight as possible.  We might have to build some cribbing or something, not sure yet.  The wheels were definitely not doing the trick, LOL.