F8 in UK
 

Jim

You may have seen these already. I think the vehicle has changed ownership .Looks like a repro tub on it.. as it is straight and tidy .

Mike

Day 88
 

Things were slow this week. My helper, Bob, got a bad case of tendinitis in his right wrist and as a result we were only able to work on the truck two days. In any case we did accomplish the following:

Finished the upholstery work, completing all four pieces.

Installed the master cylinder

Installed all the remaining brake lines

Installed one of the rear brakes (Bob left some of the parts of the other rear brake in his other vehicle which is a stick shift; forgot to transfer them to his other truck which has an automatic and a lot less painful to drive with that bad wrist.) :(

Installed the emergency brake cables

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

Day 95
 

The past week has been another one of picking up on the details. Here's what we accomplished:

On Day 89 had all the remaining outside body pieces (fenders, etc.) loaded into my pickup truck and on Day 90 took them to the stripper.

Finished installing the brakes. Whew! The devil was sure in the details on that aspect of the job! :devil:

Installed the brake and clutch pedals assembly.

Installed the emergency brake assembly which is located under the cross member. (Thanks, Mike, for the CD that covered the maintenance manual for the Ford; was a great help! :note:)

Packed the wheel bearings with grease and installed all the wheel hubs. Made new gaskets for the rear axles.

Purchased a new innertube to replace one that had a short stem and dismounted the tire and replaced that one.

Installed a new seal in the differential face where the drive shaft enters it.

Picked up a 5" wide, 70" long piece of channel iron for the front bumper. Got it at the same yard where I scrapped the original bed. Was a break-even situation! :(

Got a call earlier in the week from the steel fabricator that the new bed sections and the tail gate were finished so picked them up. They look good!

Installed all the wheels on the axles in preparation for filling the master cylinder, bleeding the lines and adjusting the brakes on Day 97. (Am still short lug nuts, one "L" and one "R"! :eek:)

That was it for this week!

Regards,
Jim

brakes
 

Jim

You know this already:it may be a good idea to check all of the brake unions and M/cylinder fittings for weepage .. before you attach all the cab/body bits . After the cab and rear body are mounted on, the brake unions amd M/cylinder can be a pain to access if you have to tighten or alter anything. This is the case on the C8 anyway.

Mike

Mike:
You're right on target about checking all the unions and fittings for leakage! That will be done at the time we fill the master cylinder and begun to blled the brake lines. It's a mystery to all who have seen the position of the master cylinder as to how it was filled; looks both difficult and messy!

By the way, we have purchased some clear plastic tubing to place over the bleeder fittings to keep that job a less messy one. Will be showing that technique in a future post.

Regards,
Jim

Hard to fill master cylinder
 

Hi Jim

Yes the provision for filling the master cylinders starts off in the Pattern 11 being difficult and very slowly gets better through Pattern 12 and 13 only being made reasonable I think in 44.

What you need to do is make up one of the filler bottles shown in the manual.

A reasonable substitute can be made with out of a brake fluid container and some copper tubing. Back when brake fluid came in a steel can with a steel top I made up one by soldering two lengths of copper tubing in the top of a top one of the tubes was 3/4 of inch shorter than the other. When you insert the can upside down with the tubes sticking into the cylinder the fluid runs into the can until both tubes are covered by brake fluid. Then as you bleed the system and the fluid level drops the short tube is uncovered and lets air into the can allowing just a bit of brake fluid into the cylinder. I'll try and find mine and take a photo.

Day 101
 

Some major milestones were reached this week:

Filled the master cylinder, bled the brake lines and adjusted the brakes. That was a several hour job! (Thanks to Mike and Phil for your suggestions!) We had only a few seeps or weeps and they were quickly fixed. One of the tricks we used was to loosen the bleeder valve and affix a clear plastic tube to it. This tube was then stuck down in a clear bottle with about 2" of brake fluid in it. (The fluid in the bottle kept any air from re-entering the line.) We then allowed gravity to force some of the air out, eventually applying pressure to the brake pedal. It was easy to watch the air bubbles in the plastic tube turn into a solid stream of fluid without causing any mess! :cool:

Cut the pieces to length for the windshield frame. We had earlier had a machine shop slice a 1/2" by 1" rectangular steel tubing down the 1" side. The original frame that held the glass was badly rusted. However, the flange that screws onto the pipe frame was salvageable. So, using the original frame as a pattern we welded the glass holding frame pieces together. (Discovered that the angle that the windshild slopes up to the center of the frame is 85 degrees. We then cut the flange pieces off of the existing whole frame and then welded the new glass holding frame to them. We put the frame back together for attaching to the outside pipe frame as it was originally done. I'll be taking the frame to the stripper for cleaning next week than back to have some epoxy filler applied to smooth out the rough spots before taking it to the painter.

Attached are some pictures of this process. (By the way, I have a complete set of uncut window holding frames that have not been cut to length. If there's anyone out there who needs a set for a F8 or C8, please let me know.)

Installed the remainder of the grease fittings and greased the truck.

Bolted the rebuilt transmission to the engine. This transmission was finished earlier this week. We'll be painting it on Day 104 for installation in the truck on Day 106.

Lately, the weather has cooled down nicely, days running right around 100 F; nights have been right around 75 F. Down right balmy! :D

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

Day 110
 

This week's work entailed a major milestone in the F 8 resto project. We accomplished the following:

Bolted the transmission to the engine and installed same on the frame.

Installed the carbuerator, alternator, distributor, starter solenoid, spark plugs and wires, coil and fuel pump.

Installed the transmission cooler.

Whoa! Installed what? :confused Well, here's the rest of the story. For those of you who were aghast at my scrapping the bed right off, converting to a 12 volt system and installing an electronic distributor, hang onto your seats!

I am a paraplegic having contracted polio some years back while working as a civilian for the US Air Force. I use a wheelchair to get around and use hand controls to drive my vehicles.

When I purchased this truck I was struck by the very narrow space for the foot pedals and wanting to not only drive the truck myself as well as others not needing hand controls, I decided to install a converter and an automatic transmission.

I purchased a Flat-O-Matic converter which comes with a bell housing that fits the rear of the flathead as well as the front of a Ford C 4 auto tranny. It also comes with a new light-weight flywheel and torque converter. I picked up a C 4, had it rebuilt, and this week we bolted engine and tranny together, painted and installed them.

Bolting the tranny to the frame required having a 5" by 8" by 3/16" steel plate cut and holes drilled as the new mounting holes were located about 3" beyond the originals in the cross member.

We have also ordered a custom length driveshaft as well as a transmission top mounted shifter (Lokar). On the latter I believe that we may be able to install the original shifting arm to maintain the original look. In that regard we also drilled and pinned the clutch pedal arm to the shaft that it shares with the brake pedal so that there are now two brake pedals.

I've kept all the original pieces so that any subsequent owner may use them to retro-convert if they so wish.

Well, that's the rest of the story! :D You may fire away at will! :no4:

Attached are a number of pictures of the work we accomplished. Enjoy!

Regards,
Jim

PS The last picture shows how little space there is between the pedal assembly and the exhaust manifold! I'm really concerned about the space available and whether all will fit! :eek:

Jim,

I like the early CMPs, but am concerned about squeezing my 6'6" frame and size 13 boots inside the cab. But this is nothing compared to your handicap. I commend you for your determination to drive a CMP truck! :salute:

Hanno

Hanno:
Thanks for your kind words! Forgot to mention that I'm 6'5" tall and darn near have to use a shoe horn to fit into my Kubel. Well, not quite but you get the picture!
Regards,
Jim

The way I see it, there's one more F8 back on the road because of you. Its only right that you've made it possible for you to be the one driving it!

Day 116
 

Thanks for the support on the deviations from original on my truck; hoped you all would understand! Thanks especially to Hanno and Chuck for your very kind words!

Was somewhat busy this past week. The weather has turned nice with the temp hovering right around 100 F, a great aid in working outside!

We accomplished the following:

Installed the floor temporarily to see what our tolerances were for all the engine and tranny parts.

Installed the new drive shaft.

Cut and tack-welded the frame for the bed. We were using 110 and Bob took the frame out to his house to complete the welding with his 220 welder.

Bent and adjusted the new shifting lever to fit the internal; body panel. Had to do a bit of cutting on the opening but it's covered by the rubber boot. (Although I had hoped to use the original shifting arm, because of the shifting traverse space required will not be able to do so.)

Placed the 5" channel on the bumper frames after doing a bit of grinding to get them to fit inside the channel. Need a couple of bands and four "U" bolts made for the brush guard. I'm having these made on Monday.

Turned the truck around in preparation to running some water through the engine to do some flushing. Discovered that one of the tires has gone flat and will need to be dismounted and checked to see if a new tube is warranted. : (Will add the two lug nuts I was missing; purchased a couple of replacements and they arrived today.)

Stopped by the painter and picked up all of the outside engine compartment body parts. He showed me one of the doors which had to have both the inside and outside skins replaced; he's done a great job! After revisiting the door ordered some replacement door handles from Macs.

Found that the air cleaner I recently purchased is too bit for the space as it intrudes into the underside of the control panel box! :wacko: Am watching a couple of potential replacements on eBay.

Purchased another fan on eBay after finding that the tapped holes in the alternator pulley don't match up with the fan I have! :mad: Hopefully the "new" one show up next week!

Searched eBay and found a set of manifolds, the right side having the lower profile. Am hopeful for success in the bidding!

Some aggravations but some progress! :D

Regards,
Jim

jim, keep up the the good work and keep this thread going because you have "lots" of info which others can use done the road. also i like the trans so you can drive the cmp when you are finished. being colour blind i don't let that set me back. i have worn pink thinking it is a grey with a smile on my face. i just laugh about it in the end.
also i like the fact you are not cheaping out on the repairs, you are spending your money wisely.

thansk
KoO
Published Author

Day 123
 

Work was limited to three days this week as I had a dental appointment on Monday; broke a portion of a tooth off and am having a silver crown put in. (Couldn't afford a gold one as I've spent my discretionary funds on the truck...... :()

In any case a fair number of tasks were completed:

Bob finished welding the bed frame at his home where he's got a 220 MIG welder. He also sanded down the welds before returning the frame to my place.

Cleaned and painted the windshield wiper motors. The grease inside the chamber had solidified and the vacuum "paddles" were stuck.

Welded the frame to the bottom of the bed and, after cooling, bolted it to the frame. (As you may recall, the original bed was beyond saving so I had new bed pieces made up at a local steel fabricator.)

Made up a set of spacers to go in between the base of the brush guard spring "legs" and the inside of the 5" channel bumper. We made these from 1 1/2" heavy wall square pipe, using 1/4" flat bar to seal off the top and provide the "step" for the bottom of the "legs" to rest on. Drilled a 1/2" hole to provide for the bolt heads that hold the individual springs together. We used Allen head bolts to reduce the size of the hole as they will be hidden by the spacer.

Had a set of "U" bolts made up to affix the guard to the back of the bumper. We then put it all together to check for fit and then disassembled it to take to the stripper and painter.

Got some neighborhood help to lift and set the sides of the bed in place and then clamped them to the bottom in preparation for welding both in place on Monday. By the way, when we cut the cross pieces for the bed frame we left the pieces that bolt to the truck frame just a bit long. This enabled us to rest the bottom of the side pieces of the bed on these slight extensions making the job of clamping them on straight a certainty.

Pushed the truck into the driveway where it slopes down to the street and stuck the garden hose in it and did some flushing of each side of the engine. Although the use of air pressure did blow the vast majority of the sediment out, more did come with the water treatment. We'll do the same with a flush when we've installed the radiator and run the engine for a short time.

The fan arrived and I was successful in having the winning bid for the replacement manifold. I expect it'll be here some time this coming week and we can get back to working on getting the engine started. We still need to alter the exhaust pipes, purchase a muffler and install the exhaust system.

Today I stopped by a local specialty lumber store and had the pieces for the gas tanks support cut. They were cut from ash wood, a common wood used in early automobiles here in the US. The top planks are 1" by 6" and the bottom plank is 1 7/8" by 8". More to follow on this task in the near future.

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

floor
 

Jim

this is the floor layout on the C8 ?????????

Mike

pic
 

Jim

This is a pic of the floor .. an original 1A1 body . Maybe the F8 has a different layout . Someone else may add more .

Mike

Mike:
Your drawing and picture are indeed correct! However, both Bob (my welder) and I, after having a close look at the bed that came with my truck, determined that the original design was not sufficient to support repeated heavy use. Because I intend to use the truck at reenactments, we altered the design of the bed frame to meet the expected loads.

Regards,
Jim

Day 130
 

This past week was a bit of a slow one, mostly measuring, more measuring, discussing, cussing and other assorted important digressions. However, we did accomplish the following:

Welded the sides of the bed to the floor.

Welded the angle iron braces onto the ends and sides of the bed sides. These took the place of the flanges which had been formed from the single pieces of the sheet metal that made up the bed sides for each side of the bed.

Repaired the ragged hole in the left rear end "cap" (torch-cut during ithe truck's civilian use...) to match the factory-made one on the right side. We had saved both end "caps" when scrapping the old bed... :cool:

Welded the underbrace to the bottoms of the end "caps" and then welded the brace to the end of the bed.

Removed the old sheet metal from the original angle iron (which we had the foresight to save when we scrapped the original bed.... :D) which fits around the sides and bottom of the front of the bed and sides. We're having this important piece of angle stripped and then we'll affix new sheet metal to it and then bolt all to the front of the bed.

Propped the new tailgate into place just to see if it fit. (Whew! It did!) By the way, we saved the old tailgate and will remove all the old furniture, including the fold-down step, and install all on the new one. More to follow on this.

The replacement right-side manifold (which has the lower profile) arrived. We may get it installed next week. Depends on how excited we get about finishing the bed.......;)

That's all for this week!

Regards,
Jim

Day 138
 

As the angle iron that wraps the front of the bed did not arrive back from the stripper yet we turned to an avoided project, the reconstruction of the exhaust pipes. :ergh:

Suffice it to say, the job of taking a set of exhaust pipes that were designed and manufactured to exhaust out the right side of the frame and altering them to exhaust out the left was not an easy job. :bang: It required making 11 different cuts in eight places on both pipes but when we were done both fit like they should! :D

Prior to installing and trying the pipes for fit, we installed the replacement manifolds, the right side having a more shallow profile. Below are pictures of the maniolds, old and new, showing the difference between the two.

Also shown is a picture of the right side pipe where we altered it to fit the space betwen the manifold and the driver's side foot space. A picture of the reformed exhaust pipes are shown as well.

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

Day 146
 

This past week was an almost non-productive one. Bob, my helper was out for a day, and I went over to California for a long weekend starting on Thursday. I buy, sell and trade militaria of all kinds and was at a militaria show in Pomona. Didn't sell much but have nearly cornered the market on size no. 3 British gaiters, having purchased some 35 pairs! :ergh:

We were able to attach the front frame to the bed. As mentioned before, we had a new bed made and it was a bit smaller width-wise and so we had to cut and weld the original piece. It had also been twisted and bent and that took a bit of finesse to get it straightened. I'm picking up the steel plate that goes over this frame tomorrow. Pictures are below.

Now for some bad news. When filling the radiator, we soon noticed water coming out the back of the oil pan, not a good sign. :eek: We stopped with the water, took off the pan and put more water in the radiator to see where the leak was coming from. It was the No. 4 cylinder, right rear.

We then removed the head and pushed out the piston and found at least 4 holes in the cylinder wall, one the size of a three pence piece! :blink: Needless to say I was astounded as we had just the week before ran water through the heads to flush out the water jackets. We must have by chance left the piston over these holes and thus did not discover the damage.

I am pursuing legal remedies regarding this matter and cannot got into details of the purchase of the engine. I will say that I took what I considered to be sufficient steps to protect myself on my purchase and my attorney has agreed with me.

End of story! Well, not completely! Not to be discouraged I immediately beat the bushes and located another engine which is for sale by a local antique auto parts store who has guaranteed it to be a "runner." I'm having a look at it tomorrow and will be sure that I obtain a well-written, cover-my-tush, bill of sale!

Lesson learned! One can't do too much to be sure the engine they're buying is everything the seller says it is!

Engine woes
 

That's terrible!

I hope you can get things sorted without too much expense or trouble.

I was just looking at your photos of the rear tranny mount and I see you have it mounted solid . You must have a rubber mount there as the engine twists in the frame. You will break your rear mount pad on the tranny if you don't.It should be made the same as the original auto trans mount. Just thought I would save you more grief.

Ledsel:
Based on your post I've reconsidered the manner in which the tranny is bolted to the frame. Although we used the original bolt holes which were lined with rubber, we are going to switch out the metal spacers we added to the plate and replace them with a pair of hard rubber bushings. We definitely lost rack of the fact we were dealing with an aluminum housing not a cast iron one!

Thanks for your recommedation!

Regards,
Jim

Don't forget to put a rubber on each side of the plate. It has to be able to have movement both ways. Good luck.

Ledsel:
Thanks for the clarification! Will do!

Regards,
Jim

Day 151
 

This was another short week being that Bob, my helper, was out on Monday. However, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday saw some accomplishment.

On Tuesday, we picked up the sheet steel, 14 guage, for the front panel for the bed, stopped to have a look at the engine I'm considering buying, and stopped at the hardware store for yet another expenditure for nuts and bolts.

The remaining two days we:

Installed the front panel to the bed. We drilled some twenty-plus holes for the bolts and then put 'er together. Looks good! We did deviate from the original when having the bed walls made in that we did not incorporate the outside "step" that was located around the outside about 2" below each of the three sides chosing instead to wrap them outside with 1" by 2" square pipe even with the top. We felt that this would better protect any riders from the original 1/4" wide edge plus give them a must better hand-hold.

Added the salvaged pieces to the new tailgate and installed it. We had been able to save the outside strapping, one of the closure hooks (The other was missing and Bob is fabricating another one which will match the original.) and the step which is located inside the tailgate. Didn't have the capacity to rivet it all together as originally done so bolted all together.

We must have either been very careful or very lucky as we had very little variance occur when fitting all these parts together. Things were really squared up! :note:

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

Excellent work! It's good to see your 8cwt retained the step on the rear panel. My C8 also has it, but there is no movement whatsoever.

regards,

Alex

Day 157
 

This has been a busy week! We accomplished the following:

Removed the damaged engine :( and pulled the transmission. The tranny is fine and will be reinstalled. Legal work on the damaged engine is proceeding.

Installed the copy of the tailgate hook that Bob, my welder, had made. See the picture of it and compare with the original shown in a previous posting; an excellent copy! :thup2:

A second piece of bad news! :eek: The master cylinder began to lose fluid early last week and continued until it lost it all. Removed it and am returning it to the shop next week. It was a new one, too, not a re-build!

Installed the wood plank (ash) upon which the gas tanks rest. This involved the use of a router to make a pair of channels for the steel hold-down strap. It was also necessary to rout out a 1/2" by 3" by 5"space for the drain plug area. (Please, no criticism on the preciseness of the cuts: we are metal workers not carpenters! :D) We also cut to shape, using a jig saw, the spacers for the top planks that cover the tanks. Holes for the drain plug access as well as the gas cap and emergency tank switch will be made next week.

When inspecting the original bed we noticed that the three vertical straps on each side of the bed did not continue under the bed to the opposite side but stopped at the bottom edge of bed. Sooo, we cut to fit 9 pieces of strap for each side, drilled holes in them and plug-welded them to the sides of the bed. We had noted the spacing measurements on the original beed so that the new bed would look the same. (Forgot to take pictures of these but will do so in a future posting.)

Welded a 3/8" thick by 2" piece of strap along the top of the front panel of the bed so that the profile matched the original configuration. We did cut a diagonal clip off of each corner as well.

Hauled the bed out to Bob's house for finishing off of all the plug and tack welds. Bob has been using a lightweight welder and wanted to finish all off using the heavy-duty one he has at home. Both are MIG welders. He'll also sand the finished welds. Pictures to follow in a future post.

That's it for this time!

Regards,
Jim

enjoyed the updates after not checking the website for a few weeks. keep the pictures coming with details.

thansk
KoO
Published Author

Day 172
 

Haven't done much the past two weeks:

Picked up the new (used) engine a week ago. It's a 1946 Mercury and comes with a guarantee from its owner! :) Bob has begun cleaning it in preparation for painting.

Began restoration of the control panel. Found that the speedometer and odometer work are in working condition. :D Ordered a new face panel for the speedometer and numbers for the odometer from Mac's. Picked up four new three-position push-pull switches for it. Checked all the guages and they appear to be ok. My order for a speedometer cable for the C4 transmission has arrived. Will pick it up next week.

Picked up the rebuilt master cylinder and reinstalled it. No leaks ...... yet.

Got a d--- bladder infection early this week and spent three days in bed with a bad fever! :( (Had planned on visiting my daughter for the week in CA with no work being done in my absence on the truck so timing of my illness was excellent! :rolleyes) Recovery is progressing nicely!

Spent Thanksgiving by myself but had several neighbors drop by with the turkey and stuffing! Restored my faith in the human race! :thup:

Should have more to report next week.

Regards,
Jim