E361T Progress - NEW PROJECT!

[oldspwr]

Thanks for everyone's comments... Here is a quick update from this past weekend...

It’s hard to believe but my son Tommy turned 7 this weekend! So on Saturday we spent the day doing birthday things and then headed back out to the garage on Sunday. My plans are to take the cab back off over the Thanksgiving weekend so that can finish the sheet metal work on it. If you remember from one of my earlier posts, I repaired the original rear panel. It still needed a ton of work and while I was at the first spring fling I was able to buy an original replacement from Peter. This panel has the correct ‘X’ broke in it which is what I wanted… This was bare metal and covered with light surface rust so I figured I would take advantage of the nice weather and DA it…

Here is what I started with… The panel is in nice shape with minimal shelf wear…



It even had the factory part number on it, 517568. So I dug out my Brockway/Mack Cross Part Number Reference book and was able to find it on page 129… The list price was $45.46 and the net price was $29.54!



So I started with 80 grit on the DA…



The one corner was tweaked a little and when my buddy Mike stopped over I had him straighten it out…



And within an hour this is what I wound up with…



More to follow…

[oldspwr]

Then I flipped it over and started working on the back side…



We wound up sanding the window channel by hand …



It looked pretty good when we were done sanding but there was some heavier rust on the bottom edge that I was concerned about…



So I pulled out the small sandblaster and went over the bottom edge on both side and well as the inside mounting flanges. This little sandblaster has come in handy a few times…



After a few minutes with the blaster everything looked great…



I figured I better put a coat of primer over it so it didn’t flash again so I mixed up some self etching primer and gave both sides two good coats…





That’s it for now!

[H762TL]

Looks great! Saturday was Tommy's birthday? My cousin turned 7 yesterday!

[Emery Johnston]

Looks great Tom. Happy Birthday to Tommy!!!

Emery

[oldspwr]

We have made some decent progress over the past two weeks. I wanted to take the cab back off of the frame but I didn’t want to use the wood dolly I made for the 155W. I wanted something a little more substantial so I decided to make a new one. With the exception of the casters, everything I used was POH (parts on hand…)



So I had some 1 1/2" x 3” along with an 8’ piece of 6X3”, so I cut everything with the band saw to be approx 5’x3’6”. After everything was cut, I drilled holes to mount the casters, inserted 3/8” bolts through the holes and then welded the heads of them to the box steel (keep in mind that once everything is welded together I wouldn't be able to access the tops of the bolts…)



Then we clamped everything together and started welding…



I quickly realized that where I wanted to bolt the risers for the cab to was directly above the casters (in other words I couldn’t drill straight through the box and run a long bolt). So we drilled a hole and welded a nut flush…



Then I made risers for the cab, with the two front ones 12” tall and the rear one 18” tall, and bolted them to the frame…



Then we put a coat of Rustoleum’s finest bright red paint on it and let it set for two days. After it was good and dry, we bolted the casters and risers back on it…



It turns out that not only does it work well for holding Brockway cabs, it also makes an excellent table to hold Chicken Nugget Happy Meals for my kids (who like to clown around…)



More to follow…

[oldspwr]

This past holiday weekend we finally finished up mounting the stack brackets. I used Peterbilt mounts from Grand Rock, and out of the 6 of them I bought, 2 of them were not straight (probably from how they were welded…) So I was able to exchange them on Wednesday and pick up two more. So here we are installing that last 2 brackets. We had the frame leveled off so we used a level to make the stacks true…



When we were done with the stacks I figured I would take one last picture with the cab on the frame!!!



Then we flipped the forks on the forklift, slid the extenders on and moved the forklift into place…



And finally the cab is back off the frame! It just cleared too… I will have to raise the cab slightly higher next time we go to put it back on the frame…



More to follow…

[oldspwr]

Before setting the cab on the new dolly I decided to lay it on it’s back so that I could reweld some of the floor structure I replaced. When I first made all of the floor bracing I had a smaller 120V mig and wanted to go over some of it with my larger Miller…



I quickly realized that the rear cab mount was crooked as well…



So with the help of the cutoff wheel I removed it…



And then I cleaned it up and re-welded it on…



Then I finished working on the floor structure…



Later in the day we flipped the cab back over and set it on the dolly (and surprisingly enough it fit )



So finally last night we start working on the rear piece of 1/8” plate that the rear cab skin folds around… My Dad also wiped off the last few years of dust that has accumulated on it as well…





Well that’s it for now!

[Turbo590]

Again, Tom

Superb workmanship...I love seeing the progress moving along.

When you get it started and running for the first time....we have to have some video to "treat" ourselves too.

Happy Holidays, Kurt

[H762TL]

Again, Tom

Superb workmanship...I love seeing the progress moving along.

When you get it started and running for the first time....we have to have some video to "treat" ourselves too.

Happy Holidays, Kurt

In the last 5-6 posts on page 19 theres a link to a video of the first start.

[oldspwr]

This past Saturday we decided to work on installing the new rear cab panel…



The replacements panel bottom edge where the panel get folded over was cut with tin snips and was a little jagged so I decided to clean it up before we installed it. Based on the panel I had made for the 155W, I felt it would look a little better if the bottom edge wasn’t cut a full inch up (where it folds over…)



Since the pass side needed work regardless, I decided to add a 1/2" on both sides. So I found a piece of 20 gauge and welded a piece in…



After I was done welding it I ground the weld down and trimmed it to fit…



Then I moved over to the pass side..



This time I had to fold a little over the edge to fill in the gap…



And this is what I wound up with…



More to follow…

[oldspwr]

With both bottom sides done, we moved onto folding the bottom edge over. This really can’t be done with the panel on the truck since the center rear cab mount will not allow the panel to be folded over when it’s on the truck. On a side note, this area was notched out on my 155W… So I pulled out a 5’ long piece of 3” angle and using a 12” wide 1/8” plate I clamped everything together with just about every C clamp I own…



Then with a body hammer I started folding the lip over, working from the center out…



And within a short amount of time it was done…



When we done folding the lip we moved onto the 1/8” plate that the bottom lip folds over. The original piece was 12 gauge but I opted to go with 1/8” instead. For the end pieces, I welded 1 1/2" pieces on…



After giving it a coat of self etching primer we trial fit it on the truck but did not bolt it in place..



And then we started to install the rear panel…



We started from the top of the panel and worked our way down. When we got close to the bottom, we slid the 1/8” plate up 3/4", pushed the bottom of the cab panel into place, and then let the 1/8” plate fall into the folded lip (if that makes any sense…) When I was happy with how it fit, we had to run the 1/4" bit through all of the holes and then bolted it in place. After we were done bolting it, we welded the lower 1/8” plate in as well…



More to follow…

[oldspwr]

There were 1/4" sheet metal type screws that held the back of the panel in place, almost below the rear window… There weren’t symmetrical on both sides so I decided to drill new ones. There rear structure has a 2” x3” piece of 1/8” flat stock welded to it just to the sides of the map pockets so I had plenty of room to drill another hole. Instead of using a sheet metal screw, I tapped it for 10x32 machine screws… Sounds like a lot of work but really only took 5 minutes…



By the end of the day on Saturday we set the roof back in place and called it a day…

We only had an hour or so in the garage before dinner yesterday so I figured we would start on the drip rails. I picked up 2 sets of replacement aluminum drips rails from Stan over the past few years and dug them out… You can see the originals on the far right. The actual drip rails themselves are only used over the doors…



For the front and rear of the cab I bought aluminum edge molding from McMaster Carr, the same stuff I used on the 155W, and here is a comparison between the new drip rails and the edge molding…



Since I will have to drill all new holes for the drip rails and edge molding, I like to rivet the roof to the cab so that I can remove the moldings before we paint everything (I like the bare aluminum look verses painting them…)



And after taking a handful of measurements, we started drilling the new holes and then running a self tapping #8 screw through them, one at a time. After the holes were drilled and tapped we installed the new piece with #8 oval headed screws.



And that’s it for now!

[Emery Johnston]

Looks great Tom. I like the idea of unpainted drip rails too. How about running them over the buffing wheel as well?

Emery

[Scranton 761]

Beautiful work Tom. In reference to your craftsmanship......... I'm speechless!

Happy Holidays!
Paul

[oldspwr]

Thanks for everyone comments...

Emery, the aluminum is anodized so I didn't think about polishing it, but you never know...

Last week we finished up the weekend with installing the driver side drip rail, so that ‘s were we picked up this week…



The first thing we started on was the back side. This really took some time since we riveting the old holes, drilling new ones (7/32)” for the trim and then running a #8 self drilling screw through each to create threads… I found out the best way to do this was to run tape around the perimeter, draw a line around the perimeter, drill and tap your center hole, and then work your way out from both sides one at a time. This is tedious, but if you mark holes at 6” on center, your farther out holes will start to drift. So using the tape and the line, you can fasten the piece and work your way out.

So after some time we were able to wrap around the rear cab corners. One of the screw holes was right at the start of the bend, so using a small piece of 2x4 and a hammer I coaxed the aluminum trim around the bend without it kinking at the hole…



After we cut and filed the end to match up with the factory drip rails over the doors, we had to drill one additional mounting hole, 1/4" from the end and then counter sink the hole…



And here is what we wound up with for the rear piece…



Then we moved on to the front section…



After listening to some advice from Doug R, I decided to weld the roof on instead of using the 1/8” rivets. So I ran #8 self drill screws through all the existing holes to hold the roof tight to the upper package tray. Then one at a time I removed each screw and plug welded the holes…



After grinding each weld down, we marked a centerline on the roof and started installed the trim piece, working from the center out. I was able to wrap the corners by hand and all we have left to do now is trim the piece to length and drill the end mounting holes…



That’s it for now…

[Emery Johnston]

Just a note about the anodized aluminum. If you soak it in Lye water or use "Oven Off" Oven cleaner (which is basically(no pun intended) the same thing) you can remove the anodization and polish the aluminum!! So it's a little late for that but it looks great!!

[anthony masone sr]

Tom you do excellent work there aim’s no doubt about it.
But easier said than done I have tried to do that two times and was not able to make the bands without it kinking.
I sure wish you would have made a video of your work.
Thanks Tony

[DzlNut775]

I hate to push during the holidays Tom, but I need a fix. It's been too long! Any new progress? Hope you & yours have a great holiday!

[oldspwr]

Sorry for the delay guys but hear are some updates!

I am on vacation the week between Christmas and New Years and like always I have a list of things I would like to get done on the 361. One of the big things I wanted to tackle was the dash. Besides the original dash from the truck, I also had one from a '68 361. This was the same truck that I had bought the doors off of for the 155W. I decided to use the '68 dash since it was a lot cleaner than the original one (no poorly drilled extra holes, etc...)



I trial fit the dash a while back and trimmed about an 1/8" off of both sides. Now it won't scratch the paint when I go to install it after everything is done.

Our original dash was a dark woodgrain similar to rosewood on a guitar neck. We wanted a lighter woodgrain (which may have come factory on some trucks????), but we were sold on the lighter woodgrain after seeing the dash in the Best 358. We looked a a bunch of different options to woodgrain the dash including vacuum forming real wood veneer. But after talking to Doug Richardson, he mentioned there was a company in Maryland call Interior Design Solutions that carried a 3M product that was dead on. It's called 3M Di-Noc and its and architectural grade vinyl used for commercial applications. So after browsing their website, we ordered 5 different samples...



After comparing the lighter samples to new Bostrom seats we have, we settled on FW237 (which I think they call Oak...). I wound up ordering a 5'x4' piece which is enough for 2 dashes (and their minimum order...) It comes rolled up as shown here...



So this past weekend we started getting all the dash pieces ready...



There was only 1 bad hole in the whole dash so we filled it. I also wanted to install a boost gauge for when we decide to install the turbo. There wasn't any room left in the bottom panel we made a while back so I decided to mount this in the main dash. I wanted to put it between the speedo/tach cluster and the water/oil/volt/air/fuel cluster, but to clear the cigarette lighter (or 'cigar' lighter according to the factory), it would be mounted too high and hit the defroster ducts. So I decided to relocate the lighter about an 1" lower than original and mount the boost gauge at the same level as the top 2 small gauges. So we plugged the orignal hole...



After welding, grinding and drilling this is what we wound up with...



That's it for now, more to follow...

[oldspwr]

Then we moved on the the smaller panels. First we sandblasted them and then I DA'd them with 80 grit...



After I primered the small panels, I decided to try my luck with the vinyl on those as 'test' pieces. So I set up a small table in my basement and gave it a shot. The original vinyl was trimmed off at the edge, but I talked to the sales rep and he did not feel it would be an issue if I folded the edges over. He claims the only way this material would peel is if some one 'tried' to peel. He did recommend an adhesion promoter so I bought that as well. So I started with applying the promoter to the edges...



And then I cut a piece to fit, approx. 1" longer on all sides...



And then I started trimming and folding, one side at a time...















And then we trial fit some gauges!!!



That's it for now, more to follow...