Salt Lake City '58 W300M Thread

[homewood4]

Mike,
What have you done to clean up wheels? Paint or powdercoat. What was your source for tires? Decent price?
Thanks

[mdvberg]

Hi Homewood4,

Wish I could answer your question better. You must have noticed the one (and only) good looking tire that I am using on my '58, which is actually the spare for the '56. I purchased the two trucks together from the same previous owner. The '56 is mechanically sound, runs great, brakes work, I drive it just about every weekend. The previous owner put new NDT's all the way around, and also had the rims powder-coated at Les Schwab. I don't know what he paid for the NDT's, but they are of the Denman variety. A quick check for current prices on the internet for these seems to be in the 170.00 range. The price for the powder-coated rims (I have the original invoices) was around $18.00 per rim, but that was a couple of years ago, and I think that the price has gone up. I will say that the black power-coat looks great and also seems to wear well, so I'll do the same for the currently unrestored rims on the '58 at some point in the build. There is a large powder-coat operation a couple of exits up the freeway here in SLC that I'm going to check out. If I get any info from them, I'll post it. The split rings on the '56 are painted with a rattle-can cadmium metallic paint. These are wearing OK, but some rust is starting to bleed through. I think these can be powder-coated as well, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I am can chime in on whether powder-coating the split rings would impact how they seat on the rims???

[njjim]

Boby work

Mike,

You have done a fabulous job putting sheet metal back where it was. It truley is a labor of love as the results show a focused determination to get it right. Good luck with the rest of the rig. When the frame repair is completed post pics. Again, great job. Jim.

[mdvberg]

Thanks njjim,

Despite my wife, kids and neighbors thinking that I've lost my mind, it's been a good learning experience. I restored a '62 Chevy Impala SS as a kid, but this is the first frame-up restoration I've attempted. The body-work is not always an intuitive process, and my learning curve has been pretty steep at times. I'm really looking forward to getting to the stage that you are at with your '48...that is really a nice looking rig!

http://www.powerwagonadvertiser.com/...ead.php?t=9714

Goal for the rest of the winter is to get the frame repaired, blasted and ready for paint.

[mdvberg]

Frame Update - Crossmember

Worked a bit on the crossmember today. It's kinda weird...one end of the crossmember was bolted to the frame(and REALLY hacked up), and the other end was still riveted. It looks like whoever tried to make repairs in the past also tried to remove the crossmember, cut the end of the cross member up with a torch, and then quit, since the other end was still riveted. I removed the crossmember completely, and then worked today on reinforcing the area that they had cut up with the torch. Here are the results...

Crossmember removed:



Repair to torch hole:



Patch welded in, fish plate ready to weld in:

[mdvberg]

Frame Update - Crossmember

Pic of the fish plate for one side welded in. One more side to complete tomorrow. Once I'm finished with the other side, I'll need to fabricate some flanges so that it can be bolted to the frame.

[homewood4]

Repairs

I have college night school welding skills so maybe not much value in my opinion but your repair looks great. ..novice question butr why is it called fishplate? I've seen the term a few times here on board....

[Desoto61]

Worked a bit on the crossmember today. It's kinda weird...one end of the crossmember was bolted to the frame(and REALLY hacked up), and the other end was still riveted.

I'm no expert but I think that's factory. My truck is set up the same way and I'm sure that cross member has never been removed. The passenger side bolts are shared with the spare tire carrier in the front and the forward rear spring hanger in the rear.

Nice work on the crossmember. I just got my garage wired for my welder, though luckily I don't have that kind of repair to worry about. Mine are all going to be rust related.

Keep up the good work and thanks for the pictures.

[John S]

Did you ever find the frame and cross-member repair issues of the P W Advertiser?

[mdvberg]

Frame Update - Crossmember

Figuring out the rationale behind the previous repairs to the crossmember and frame gets ever more mysterious. After getting Desoto61's post, I went out and took a look under my '56, and it is definitely riveted on both sides of the crossmember. Maybe the crossmember was installed differently from year to year?

All this still doesn't explain the strangeness that I found when I removed the original ugly "patch". The flanges that were on the hacked up side of the crossmember were clearly welded on after the original flanges were cut off with a torch, but now that I look again, I was confused, and that side was NOT bolted, it was still riveted! How they welded on new flanges to the crossmember, but kept the rivets is beyond me, unless they actually did remove the original rivets and then replaced them with some new ones. Seems unlikely that they would have gone through the trouble of new rivets, but left such a lousy repair...but who knows.

John----I have not managed to find copies of the 2004 issues that covered this repair yet, but figured I could at least tackle the crossmember. I would still like to see how the repairs to GUS were accomplished. Do GUS's repairs look radically different from what I am thinking of doing with the diamond shaped fish plate for reinforcing, after welding up the cracked frame?

Homewood4--- I don't know where the term fish plate originated from, but it just refers to a reinforcing plate. The theory is that the elongated diamond shape helps to reduce stress risers, (and hopefully future cracks).

Unless the repairs to GUS are very different, the repair to the crossmember is similar to what I am contemplating for repairing my frame, except the reinforcing plates for the frame will be diamond shaped on both ends. Here's a link that shows what I'm contemplating. (Without the "Z" cuts)

http://forums.michiganclassics.com/s...ead.php?t=2700

[John S]

Here is a a photo of my paper templates. I used these as patterns for my repairs. I hope these are some help .

[mdvberg]

Thanks John!

Those look very similar to what I was thinking of doing anyway. The only difference is I was going to change the "square" end of your template to a diamond shape that I can weld in. The diagonal end of the frame template looks exactly like what I had planned (not really any other option with the double frame so close). The repair to the crossmember looks similar too, but yours appears to be a bit longer.

[njjim]

Frame Repairs

Mike,
For a first time ground up that crossover repair looks like it is really turning out terrific. I like working out in those cool spring/summer evenings. When you really start getting into something and forget about the time thats when the lights burn late and you are right people think that you have lost your mind been there. Be well, Jim.

[mdvberg]

Frame Update II

I agree completely njjim! It was unbelievably nice today in SLC! Cool temps, but not cold...perfect for wearing a coat all day, but not warm enough to make you sweat!

Made some more progress on the frame after seeing the templates that John S. posted earlier. Since they were close to what I was thinking of, I just went ahead and did it Also finished the crossmember. It does still need flanges, but I'm going to wait to test fit it in the frame before I tack those on.

No more crack!



Flip side - fish plated:

[mdvberg]

Crossmember

This morning:



This afternoon:



This evening: