How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Bob Carriere]

HI Chris

Of the 5 cab 12 and one cab 11 at the barn .....the rear wall does not wrap around the angle iron BUT finishes flush and spot welded..... I have only seen the wrap of the skin around on original cab 13 such as the water truck done at the Caldwells one year.

Cheers

[Jordan Baker]

I'd rather overkill it with the spot welds then under do it. On my original the welds were every couple of inches but it also varied a bit.

As for going around the corners it was really simple. The 18ga simply followed the bend of the frame. If I let it go it would spring back. But with clamps I could easily hold and pull it in tight.

I decided to smooth out my welds as I probably over did it with the heat a bit to get good penetration into the frame. On my original only a few of the spot welds were visible and that was usualy from the rust forming between the sheet and frame and pushing the sheet out.

[Jordan Baker]

Things moved along rather nicely over the past few days. I finished all the welding and fitting for the lower cab wall. I then cleaned and metal prepped the metal using the POR products. The wall was given a spray of POR15 to seal against hopefully any rust. Then the usual tiecote primer and final SCC2 layer.

For the anti-sqeak material I used the product Mac's Antique auto parts sells. It worked great and matches the original stuff pretty closely. For making the curves along the frame I had to take small wedge cuts. I used 3M spray adheiseve to secure it to the cab frame and make sure everything stayed lined up while installing the wall.

The only other issue I had was the the wall ends wouldn't line up for the bolt holes. I think this may have partly been caused by the wall frame getting pulled a bit from installing the sheet. Ratchet straps came to the rescue and I was able to pull the ends in one at a time.

Lastly I installed my rebuilt/NOS rifle mounts. Its nice to see parts making their way from the cabinet to the vehicle. Slowly.... but its in the right direction.

[Jordan Baker]

Last group of pictures for now.

I did have a lot of trouble trying to get the long cab to rear crossmemeber/spring all lined up. I found my issue was that I bolted the spings down tight before installing the cab. I ended up having to undo the mount to frame bolts and this let everything move around and fall into place.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Lovely work again Jordan. I also have the Anti squeak from MACs, but I think the original material might have been a bit more sticky(?). Maybe, it's worth trying to warm it with a paint stripper and than applying it?

Alex

[Bob Carriere]

My rear wall bolts on top of the dot and dash floor plate so I will have to use a rubber gasket/antisqueak soft enough to conform to the floor plate design.

I tested the bare wall frame and the holes do line up...... for now.

Been playing with test pieces trying to roll the proper curve at each end but with a full length / full width piece it is a bitch to hold over head when doing the second curve. Hoping to have a close fit.... preshaped panel that will require minimum clamping and gluing.

Was just toooooo hot and sticky for that kind of work today!!!!

Cheers

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks guys for the compliments.

Alex I was thinking along the same lines but that's why I figured using he spray mount would work. It really grabbed the anti squeak and I had to be careful while pressing it down. I stayed away from softening it up with turpentine as I didn't want to wash away any of stuff in the cloth.

I wanted to try and pre shape the panel but had the same difficulties of getting the other end all matched up. That's why I opted to clamp and weld and slowly move along. My worry was that I'd get the other end bent and it would be off.

When I do the roof my plan is the same to slowly work along except for the fact that I think starting in the middle would be best. Time will tell though.