Work on My F8, No. 11

[Jim Price]

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!

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!

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

[Jim Price]

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? 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! You may fire away at will!

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!

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jim Price

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.

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!

Hanno

[Jim Price]

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

[Chuck Anderson]

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!

[Jim Price]

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! 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! 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!

Regards,
Jim

[king of obsolete]

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

[Ledsel]

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.

Originally Posted by Jim Price

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

[Jim Price]

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

[Ledsel]

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.

[Jim Price]

Ledsel:
Thanks for the clarification! Will do!

Regards,
Jim

[Jim Price]

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!

That's it for now!

Regards,
Jim

[Alex van de Wetering]

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