2017 at the Hammond Barn

[Jordan Baker]

As for your cross section of the top channel. When I had mine made up at the shop they were trying to figure out how the original was done too. The first and second bend would be easy. The 3rd bend is the hard one since the first two bend would now want to close down onto the die. What the shop figures was done is the third bend was made until the first two closed down on the die, then the panel was placed into a form in a another press brake and then pressed down. One my sample you could make out the third bend wasn't as tight of a radius as the first two.

[Bob Carriere]

I have been tackling the wood portion of my roof in the last few days ....... and I have gained a great respect for our Aussie friends who are restoring trucks that has a lot more wood than mine.

Might be easier on a new vehicle but when trying to fit the wood to the steel that has been deformed, twisted, bent, cracked, stretched and heated to fill in numerous bolt holes it is frustrating.

The small "L" reinforcement in the 90 degree corner of the cab had cracked along with 3 inches of the roof...... of course it was spot welded with far two many spots...... which I removed by grinding from the inside with a stone and made replacements out of 16 gauge steel.... and welded back in place....using a grinder in that corner is very difficult....... at least part of my welding will be behind the wooden brace.

Now building a"jig" that will allow me to cut the bottom 8 or 10 inches off the back of the cab YET retain the same dimensions and not twist or sag. Will do one half at a time...... based on a newly made angle iron bottom. Not looking forward to the long "butt" weld which must be perfect as it is visible from both the inside and outside of the cab...... lots of stitch welds, hammering and grinding and more stitch welding, ect. ect......... not sure yet if I will spot weld the sheet metal to the angle iron or use the new auto body glue..... I have used it before and it did a good job...... no heat to cause warping and it seals the space between the cab rear wall and the angle iron .......an area prone to rusting.

Hints, comments or suggestions welcome.

Cheers

[Bob Carriere]

Everyone knows that storing your CMP in a relatively air tight, fire proof and secure space is the ultimate. Well a "sea can" can accomplish all of these BUT it has the disadvantage of being very narrow. Been using a sea can for quite a few years since the cab 11 chassis was mobile under its own power. Crawling over the rear section of the frame was fine for a while but since I have installed the cab and rear cargo box it has become a Yoga exercise everytime I want to take the truck out.

So we designed a door that would open..... inline.... with the driver's door of the cab 11. Measured at least 3 times than cut. The task was complicated by the sea can location 100 meters from the barn and nearest power source. so we used the backup house generator which powered the plasma cutter quite efficiently. The vertical cuts, from the inside, using a guide bar, were by far the easiest. The remaining cuts were done with a hand held 4.5 in. rectifier grinder. It would have been nice to capture the moment the cut out section fell down..... but all hands were on deck and the section quite heavy.

The section of the sea can we removed will be recycled as the door skin. The door frame is a 2 in. square tubing and the door perimeter will also be a 2 in. tubing. The frame is now installed and the door done but will be part of my next posting with photos.

It is amazing how much light gets in the container when that section is removed.

Finally tested the opening by driving the cab 11 back in place. Plenty of room to enter and exit and access to the battery box for the Winter months.

Eventually a small 2 step wooden landing will be built for the benefit of my sore and old back.

Details of progress will follow.

Bob C

The once orange Sea can recently paint with a home blend of multiple leftover oil based paint and resulted in 3 gallons of dark near OD green!!!!