E361T Progress - NEW PROJECT!

[oldspwr]

Then we drilled the holes in the fender and fit the front mounts over the pins…



After the front was done we moved onto the rear and drilled the holes on both sides, again with the hole saw.



And here is everything said and done…





More to follow…

[oldspwr]

A few weekends ago I decided I wanted to remove the buffer screw and install the jake brake switch. After we let the motor warm up, we shut it down and replaced the buffer screw with the switch. I screwed it in a little too far and we when restarted it the motor took off to around 1500 rpms or so, just enough to make me replace my shorts. We pulled the emergency shut off and the motor died down but wouldn’t shut down. Joe D. was standing next to me at the time and said the flapper wasn’t closing tight enough… So we decided to take the bonnet off and see what was up. It turns out I had the screen closest to the door instead of the metal plate. In other in words the flaps hit the screen and the motor was able to suck wind around the screen. So we flipped the gasket and tried it again. It worked better but the motor still wouldn’t shut off. So last week we took the bonnet off again…



So the right order is the bonnet, a gasket, a 16 gauge steel plate, a screen and then the blower. Well it turns out I had the first gasket upside down… Notice how the radius’ don’t match…





I couldn’t figure out how I came up with the order of the gaskets & plate, so I dug out the original one. On the screen gasket, you can clearly see that it was installed tight to the bonnet due to the indentations. So someone else before me put it together wrong and I just followed suit… Lesson learned…

During the course of the week we ran the headlights wires from the driver side to the pass side and wired in the foglights as well…



Then we wired up the lights on the pass side stainless skirt…



When the skirt was done we installed it and tried the lights out (still need a pic of that…) so that means we were 100% done on the pass side of the motor.

More to follow…

[oldspwr]

Since I needed to free up the lift, we decided to start working on the fenders. We pulled the pass side down and made some gaskets to put between the mounting brackets and the fender…



If you remember, I drilled 1/4” locater holes in the brackets and fenders before I removed the brackets for paint, so we were able to line everything up the way it was before. And then we installed the fender!!!!



Needless to say my Dad is thrilled….



And before wrapping up the night I took one aerial pic!



Well that’s it for now…

[Emery Johnston]

WOW!!

Emery

[STRETCH]

I think the photo of your Dad will be priceless....If you think he is pleased now? He may just be uncontrollable when your done

Next time I come through, I will definitely call Tomcat for a cup of coffee ....on me!!

Looks great guys!!


Stretch

[paulgcgpr]

It must be exciting times for all of you.

[Emery Johnston]

SWEET FLEET!! I love the overhead! (and wonder of wonders, Stretch is buying??)

Emery

[pat ardhiere]

Tom, .. Your Dad looks proud standing next to that Beautiful Brockway! Great Job!!!

[STRETCH]

I'm thinkin'..with the way that fleet is growing, they will have to add a extra bay soon.
Getting three Brocks in that garage may get a little crowded.

I'm one to talk..all mine are outside

Stretch

[ak huskey 69 359]

wow I can't believe the progress its been a while since I've been on here. The truck looks great guys . Hope to see it soon at one of the shows . Thanks for keeping all of us updated on progress .

[Junkmandan]

Per the manual, when adjusting the buffer screw, don't raise the speed more than 25 RPM over the base idle by the buffer screw as shutdown issues could result.

[Emery Johnston]

There's a full fendered picture on Tom's FaceBook page! I'm sure we'll see it here before the Turkey is done!

Emery

P.S. It's drop dead Gorgeous!!

[oldspwr]

Things have been busy over the past few weeks but we have slowly making progress on the truck. We were trying to finish everything up on the driver’s side of the truck so we could install the fender. One of the roadblocks we hit was the small triangular shaped piece that the back of the hood latch bolts to. From the factory, this piece is pitched too far in (toward the pass side). It was angled so much in that the latch actually wore through the hood. On the passenger side where the air cleaner tube passes through, they used a piece of 1” flatstock tied back to the fire wall to push the sheetmetal out parallel to the grill shell. So I was thinking about a conversation I had with Doug R last summer and I decided to make an angle shim. Instead of steel or aluminum, I decided to use a stiff plastic I had in the garage since it would be easy to machine. So I bolted my angle table to the mill and slowly shaved the piece down to the right size…



And here is what I wound up with…



And for reference here is the triangular piece I am talking about…



It took some time, but after all was said and done it worked our perfectly and the piece now sites parallel to the hood and the latch won’t rub the hood…

More to follow…

[oldspwr]

Then we moved on to the aluminum for the fenders. If you remember, we sanded the ‘diamonds’ off of the fiberglass fenders so we could use real aluminum. For the rubber gasket, we bought Mack B Model fender welting from Restoration Specialties. And slowly we started working the rubber around the aluminum using tape to hold it in place. We pie cut the corners and used a hole punch for the mounting holes…



And the finished product…



Now that we finished that, I moved on to the headlights. So we pulled out the brackets we made, painted them and installed the headlights buckets. The plastic buckets actually came from Craig M that he had for sale at Harford a number of years ago…



And then we installed the buckets and 700 series bezels…



And then I started running the wires for everything on the fender (turnsignal and marker light, headlight, beehive light, etc…)



And then we did a quick test and it looks like everything is working !



More to follow as time permits…

[oldspwr]

The last thing I had to do before mounting the driver side fender was relocate the radiator overflow catch can. I had it mounted tight to the radiator right below the horns, but forgot about the angle brace that keeps the sheetmetal filler piece parallel to the cab. So I dug out some aluminum I had and cut a few pieces to relocated the catch can…



And here is the finished product…



And then we moved on to the driver side fender… It was a lot easier installing everything with the fender off of the truck!!!



So finally we installed the fender, connected the wires and backed it out of the garage!!!





This was a week ago this past Saturday… so we went for a 5 minute ride up route 307 and FROZE (30 degrees out with no windows …) but it was all good… And it was a good thing we did, because 2 hours later we got about an inch of snow and the cinder/salt trucks were out in full force…

More to follow…

[oldspwr]

This past week we decided to work on the doors. We decided to install power windows so I purchased a set from Balls. They are made in the USA and have used these before in a ’30 model A…



This kit is made for straight glass (in lieu of curved) and here you can see the new window channels vs. the original on the bottom. So I didn’t need to trim them…



To hold the motor and the track, I used to 16 gauge sheet metal and started marking the mounting holes…



And here it is mocked up… I used a 3” dimple die to add some strength to the panel. I will also tie it into the lower panel that the weather stripping attaches to as well…



And here are a few better pics of it…





I forgot to mention that we did install new window channel as well in both doors and well as the horizontal fuzz strip. This stuff also came from Restoration Specialties. The channels fit very well and the window goes up and down smoothly. We are going to use the traditional GM chrome power window switches since these have been in use since the 60’s and should look ‘right’ in the truck. The problem is that the new motors are reverse polarity (in other words they have 2 terminals, + on one and – on the other makes it go up and when you switch them the window goes down). But it turns out they reproduce these switches for use with the new motors so I will probably buy those. I could use original switches but I would have to add 4 relays to make them work…

In the meantime my Dad ran the coax cables for the CB and FM radio..



And then we took it outside for some more pics…





And that’s it for now!!!

[Emery Johnston]

I'm Speechless!!

[Sled Dog]

Emery; You being speechless makes me and I am sure others, SPEECHLESS.

[Emery Johnston]

Well Darn!! I would have bet on Stretch being first on the pile!!

But isn't that a beautiful truck??

[jse123]

Absolutely beautiful work Tom . You and your father should be very proud