Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands

[Alex van de Wetering]

After I made the first few cages, I noticed they were really tight around the square nut...much tighter than the originals and therefor not allowing very much play when assembling the cab panels, so I welded some material onto the sides of the cut and ground it down so it was slightly oversized. I used a washer to create some more space in the other direction. The result was much more like the original...with the nuts allowing to rattle in the cage.

Well...that's it....a lot of pictures and text to describe a simple (and fun!) job

Alex

p.s. Square nuts came from the Filling Station by the way.

[Alex van de Wetering]

The centre section of the frame isn't welded to the arch bars fully round, leaving space for water and dirt.... creating the perfect environment for rust. I decided to weld up the gaps after I sand blasted the frame. You can sort of see the difference if you compare the first two pictures.

After two coats of primer and a base coat in green I installed the arch bars to the chassis and removed the temporary braces.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

I didn't have much luck with the bumper bolts... Even before sandblasting the chassis at the start of the restoration, I tried welding on some nuts to the studs that remained after the bolt heads were broken off......hoping I could get the bolts out....I tried several times, but no luck. So at the time I cut off the last remains and used a centre punch to prepare for drilling out the studs.

Now two years later I was ready to drill out the bolts. Drilling went OK, but tapping new threads proved a bit more challenging. I broke the tap in the last hole.....now what? I tried heat, huge amounts of penetrating fluid, pliers and punches....but in the end I decided to try a tool I got from Ebay, A Tap extractor from Walton. It's basically a holder with 4 pins, that insert around the remains of the tap. With some patience....WD40 and even more patience, the broken tap came out. I was able to tap the last bit with new tap.


Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

I was afraid the bumper wouldn't fit properly as one or two holes I drilled were at a slight angle, but as you can see in the pictures the holes in the bumper have enough play to get all 8 bolts in!

The extractor is quite a simple tool , but it worked. The pins, or flutes, sometimes break, but even with a piece broken off they will still do the job. You can also buy seperate new "flutes". The only trouble with the tool is that they only work for one size tap....so if you have a habit of breaking taps, you will need a variety of different size extractors.

Alex

[Bob Carriere]

Amazing these CMO have lasted so long when one considers the rush in which they were built......

Never seen such and extractor for broken taps....... quite the tool.

There are very few time that a welded nut on a stud will not work...... in such instance apply mega heat on the casted piece might have done the trick.......

Nice work Alex.....

Cheers

[Russ Gregg]

I have a full set of those 4 flute Walton tap extractors in my tool box at work, unfortunately they always buy 3 flute taps.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Guys, Thanks for your comments.

Bob, sadly I didn't have the tools to get enough heat in the metal. Drilling was OK, but the challenge was keeping the drill straight as it seemed the casting was far easier to drill into than the old bolts
Of course the tap broke in the last hole as I was rushing to get the job done, before it got too dark!

Russ, the Walton tap extractors are also available for 3 flute taps....and even for 2 flute taps! Maybe you have to convince the guys at work to buy matching taps.....or just don't break them

Alex