Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands

[Alex van de Wetering]

About time for an update!

Time for the wooden spacers; Phil Waterman uploaded some excellent pictures and measurements of the woodwork onto his website. I copied the measurements onto some new Oak, but of course I should have known better....the C8 wooden spacers differ from the C60S ones, as the chassis rails are quite different! So, in the end I combined Phil's pictures with the info and measurements that I was able to retrieve from my rotten C8 spacers and made the new ones.

I treated the spacers with a coat of Owatrol (a wood preserver) and made sure it soaked into all grain and holes. This was followed by a coat of black primer mixed with Owatrol, a coat of Khaki green with Owatrol and finally pure Khaki green. Only the last coat was done with the spraygun, the other coats done with a brush.
Soon afterwards I realised the long spacers were in fact too short! My original spacers were so rotten that I hadn't noticed that the straight edge at one end was not the actual end of the wood, but in fact the remains of a cut made to clear the steel cab floor supports. The spacers were about 20cm too short, so I took some more oak and fixed the issue.

The spacers are now waiting till I have the floor done.

Alex



Next update in two years

[Alex van de Wetering]

Next up was fitting the front suspention with some new bushings, pins and bearings. I was lucky enough to find a new set here in Holland. Removing
the old bushings and fitting the new ones was an easy job with help of the vise and a 19mm socket.
Afterwards the bushings had to be reamed to the correct size to accept the kingpin. The blades on my reamer were too short to work on both bushings at the same time....in other words there was a risk the surfaces of both ends would not end up inline, but at a slight angle. To solve this I made some plastic bushings on a CNC mill that would fit just around the shaft of the reamer and would just fit inside the bushing. I was quite happy with the result as the kingpins fitted perfectly after the reaming was done.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

The kingpin set did come with some shims, but sadly not the sizes I needed to get both pins within spec. I tried to find some extra shims here in Holland, but didn't have much luck in finding the correct diameters.I tried to have a few made, but the trouble was that I wasn't able to find anyone who was willing to make just a few....as they had to buy a whole sheet of material just for this job.
I did find a set of correct shims at Speedway motors in the US, but I was impatient, so I didn't want to wait to loose days to transport...So, in the end I visited the local department store and bought the first cheap stainless China product I could find that had a flat surface big enough to make a few shims. I think it was some crappy dinner tray.....but after some work with a Dremel tool, it's now part of my Front suspension.
I am very happy how it all turned out...all within spec.

Alex

[Niels V]

Where did you find the bushing and are they the same as on a C15?

[Mike K]

For my C8, I managed to buy a king pin kit from Keith Downey . From memory it is 1 1/8" , the smaller size from the 30 cwt civilian truck. . The local garage guy here reamed the bushes for me . Usually, the reamer has a long pilot that screws onto the end of the reamer and guides the reamer as it goes through the bush. Neat idea using the dremel to make the spacers

[Alex van de Wetering]

Niels,

I bought my kingpin set (bushings, pins, lockpin, dustcover, shims) from Prins truck parts here in Holland, (www.prinstruckshop.nl). I have just checked the bill and it's listed as "1947-1952 3/4ton + 1 ton" "order nr.39-208-1". I think I recently checked for Jacek...and C15 is different from C8.
Kingpin sets are also regularly for sale in Ebay, new as well as NOS.

usally, the reamer has a long pilot that screws onto the end of the reamer and guides the reamer as it goes through the bush.

Mike, hmm....I inherited a bunch of different reamers from my late father in law...I think they hadn't been used for a very long time and I think that pilot went missing a long time ago


Alex

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

Reading about kingpin repair, reminded me of something I learned the otherday. Here in the States there is an company that repair kingpins and spindles on the truck. They have franchised mobile repair trucks. They go under the name AxleDoctor or AxleSurgeon

The trucks have the equipment to cut off a damaged axle drive spindle align and weld on new one. They cater to the truck and trailer business they also do kingpin replacement and line boring and bushing. Talking with a local heavy truck repair shop, they use them all the time when a spindle is messed up, in our area it's a flat fee of $500 plus parts. A recent spindle replacement on a ton an half town truck cost $550. The town was expecting $1300 for new housing and $1200 in labor to swap out all the parts and install.

Don't know if outfits like this could help us with our trucks, but may be worth checking.

Cheers Phil