Fix that door latch mechanism.

For a while I have had some problems with the door latches. (It only flew open once while driving!) These are old school latches much like your common household door latch, not the more modern bearclaw latches. On the driver side it the latch pin would not seem to have enough return spring to hold itself behind the striker and the passenger side outer handle seemed to be lacking a few degrees turning to fully retract the latch pin from the striker. The interior handle worked great but the exterior would not disengage the latch.

I finally took the mechanisms out. What a chore! You have to take out the window rolling mechanism as well to get access to take it out.

Once out it didn't take much to see what was wrong. The square hole in the pics is where the exterior handle slides into the mechanism. It turns the unusual shaped metal piece which pushes against a larger plate and pushes it into the door frame thus retracting the latch pin. Well, although the pics are poor, 60 years of service wore the metal contact point on the rotating mechanism (you can see the lip of metal that is very thin and worn back about 3/16". In conjuction the mating surface which cannot be removed or photographed easily was also worn the same. This created a situation that when the exterior handle was turned to open metal pivot could not push the plate far enough inboard to fully retract the latch.

First I added more metal back on the pivot piece with my welder and cleaned it up with a grinder.

Next I used a small piece of angle iron sheet metal which you can see was welded on the flat plate. It is hard to show but the angle part drops down and covers the old contact point which was badly worn away. Since I could not remove that part of the mechanism I could not simply add metal by welding I had to basically add an overlay patch.

Once back together the degree of latch pin retraction was noticably better. The hardest part of this was to replace the metal cover over the pivot mechanism. It is a bracket with three tabs that pass through the latch assembly which are then bent 90 degrees to hold it in place. It was a bit tricky to do this. I darn near welded them in place.

Not shown is the addition of a couple of return springs for the drivers side door which fixed it's problem. (It was ugly redneck engineering I don't want to see the light of day.)

E-Brake 101

The emergency brake setup took me a while to figure out. This is what I finally came up with. I had a rear axle from a 97’ Jeep Cherokee. I got the left and right e-brake cables but none of the connections to the front. I have my original e-brake handle which previously activated a transmission shaft brake.

I connected the Jeep cables and welded a steel tube under the cross-member for them to run through. I then used some cable clamps and created a loop at the end of each one. They are asymmetric due to the cabling having to run to the passenger side of the transmission where the e-brake handle is set.

I cut a piece of angle iron about 7” wide, drilled a left, right, and forward center hole and rear spring return hole. The Jeep cables were attached as seen in the picture.

The original handle was mounted to the floor of the cab using a bracket made from steel plate. I welded and bolted it to the removable cover over the transmission. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. I kept the extension rod and used 3/16” cable and cable clamps to create a cable to span the distance from the extension rod to the angle iron cable attachment in the rear. The spring is needed to help return the handle to the normal position. I had to fiddle with the tension but on the street I can lock up the rear wheels. If I ever take it out I would probably add an extension under the e-brake handle to increase the throw of the lever. Currently you have to about bury the handle into the seat for it to activate, but it works and keeps the close to original look of the truck!

He's got a BED!

I have been busting my tail lately to get this project done. I have been having a blast. Jessie continues to be an awesome support. We went to the local Boise Roadster show on our Friday night date and she saw a cool 55 Ford truck she liked and a 66 Fastback Mustang.

I have now mounted the bed. Each of the side had about 20 holes drilled into them that required plug welding each of them. There were areas that had bondo for some unknown reason. I ground it off in some areas to weld and didn't bother to put it back so cosmetically it is a bit ugly but hey, it's my truck, not yours!

A traditional bed is made of the two sides, front cap, tailgate, and multiple solid wood slats separated and bolted together with chrome strips and stainless steel hardware. Although I love woodworking, the cost alone got me thinking about this project. It will never be a perfectly restored truck and for sure will never be a high dollar show truck. I want a daily driver that I don't have to worry much about. So I decided to bolt it together with a piece of plywood. Later I will likely cover the plywood with tongue and groove hardwood flooring and coat it all with epoxy. It will eventually rot but it won't be that hard to replace.

The pictures show how I got it onto the frame. Initially my wife and kids helped me hoist it up so I could mark the main frame support holes that needed drilled. They went to bed, I drilled the holes, then manhandled it up on the frame using my muscle and the engine hoist.

Doors

No pics yet but this weekend I put the doors on. The passenger side is great but the drivers side has some alignment issues. Both however open and shut. This old dodge is interesting. They put a key lock only on the passenger side. To keep the truck locked you park the truck. Pull up on the drivers interior door handle which locks the door, slide out the passenger side and use the key to lock it. I guess they were worried about people opening/locking their doors while standing on the street close to traffic.

Me, I am not worried about a car thief. With the old style push rod floor starter most people would never be able to figure it out. You have to turn on the key, give a couple of taps on the gas with your heel, push the started rod to the floor with your toe, feather the choke and then use your heel to give a little more gas as it starts. You have to be pretty coordinated!

Chrome!!!

This weekend I took the truck for a few more laps again around my circle. My dad came up to visit so I had to prove that it truly runs under it's own power. I worked a little more on the doors. The driver latch mechanism is going to need some work. The passenger side turned out nicely with the patch in the corner. That was a bit of work. I took the chrome down from it's storage and started to work on it. It needed some scrubbing, bending, twisting, welding, and some redneck bodywork (hit it with bigger hammer) to get it to settle in but it seemed to come together quite well.

My son helped me put the hood ornament on which I still think is one of the coolest things about the truck.

If I can get doors and some temporary tail lights in place I may try to get tags before February is over. We'"ll have to see.

Mater's Test drive with his new face and paint job

I took Mater out for another run around the block. My son helped me get things ready and then stopped to take the video. As you can see the truck has the front sheet metal minus doors and flat black out of a rattle can. It looked better than primer gray. When he took the video he obviously wanted to make sure I made it all the way to the end of the street.

Brakes 101--Modern Safety Upgrades

Master Cylinder Upgrade

The original brakes had a small single chamber master cylinder. If it loses pressure you’re hosed. Newer systems use a larger dual chamber system. If one fails you only lose ½ of your brakes. The trucks original pedal pivots on a shaft integrated into the clutch bell housing. You push the pedal through the floor and it pushes a rod forward into the engine compartment and into the master cylinder. Unfortunately the old location of the cylinder is very small making a modern dual chamber MC very difficult. After searching the net an reviewing some mechanical issues I decided to keep the original pedal with a modification.

I fabricated an extension arm of 3/8” steel which created an arm that sits below the original pivot point and when the pedal is activated reverses the direction of force. I bought a dual MC for a ’67 Ford Falcon and created a large bracket that bolts to the frame and sits under the cab behind the pedal system. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the bracket I made. It’s pretty straight forward. It is an “L” shaped bracket with a brace, drilled to accept the new, larger, safer dual chamber MC. It took a bit of fiddling, grinding, measuring and thinking to finally get the thing to sit right but it works and seems to work well.

The picture shows the old pedal with some labels hopefully giving you an idea of what I created. For you PH owners you will remember there is a spacer between the brake pedal and clutch pedal. This plate I created is basically the same width so you drop out the spacer and slide this on without changing your pedal spacing.






E-Brake

The truck had an E-brake that was like a reverse brake drum. Out of the tranny shaft was a metal cylinder. When you pulled the handle it tightened what looked like a set of brake pads around the cylinder to create a braking effect. Since I pulled the tranny and put in the T-5 tranny I lost that system. However when I fabricated a new floor board for the relocated shifter I cut a notch and fabricated a mounting bracket for the original handle shown in the picture. I have not done it yet but I should be able to route the E-brake cables off of my transplanted Jeep axle to this handle and create a usable E-brake that looks like the original style.

Disc Brakes

Another drawback to the old trucks were the 4 wheel drum brakes. Anyone who has ever driven these old things realize they can fade, pull, and just plain not stop well. With my original plans I wanted and old truck but one that is usable everyday and on any street. I bought a kit from Charlie Akers which allowed me to keep the original spindles after stripping off the drums. It used GM parts from the mid 80’s to add 11” front disc brakes. The pics show my son helping me bolt on the “C” shaped bracket which will allow the caliper to bolt on. It also shows him with a Dremel tool carving out a little notch we needed to let the caliper fit better. It needed to be relieved by about 1/8” in one section, otherwise the kit was great. The only other problem I had was that with the truck this kit needs to have the left/right sides swapped to clear the front shock mounts. The other pic shows the 5/8” tap needed after the lower spindle holes were enlarged. I did that without taking them off the truck. I think my arms are still sore from drilling those out!