Restoring Ham's 48; The Pace Quickens

The last week has seen the pace quicken. The biggest piece is the cab that is out of the paint booth now that the weather is decent enough to get enough warm air to paint. The interior is done, under the dash, floorboard and interior firewall, door jambs and rear wall. The paint is up to cut lines. Once the fenders, grill and other parts are assembled to the cab, the final paint will be done to make the paint match so that there aren't different layering depths on the different pieces. In most of the pictures, the paint appears as a brighter red than it really is. The one picture with just the white paper laying on the toolbox surface is close to the original Luzon Red.

Lots going on on several work places. Front axle work is coming along - one spindle is done, one needs another new bushing - one got broken pressing it in. Getting the bushing retaining keys out of the casting took a lot longer than expected. Sixty eight years of corrosion required it to be milled out with an end mill to get it to turn loose, nothing simple. We found one of the reasons that old truck was always so hard to steer - the bearings that the spindles rest on were totally frozen - the spindles were turning on the bearing housing - not the inner race.

The springs are mounted to the frame. The spring pack is massive - 11 leaves on the rear, 7 on the front. It really is going to ride like a truck! The brake kit is here, new brake drums on hand. The studs we got for the wheels weren't the right ones, too small to push in to the hubs, so off to get new ones. Next week we'll split the rear end and clean out the scale and doobers that form when a truck sits 35-some odd years. We can't find a seal for the pinion shaft, but that's one of the last pieces to go on.

Still a lot to get done, but it's not just a pile of rusty metal any longer.