New project

[jdcrawler]

With the back of the fender bolted down, I also want to bolt it down where the inside side panel comes down to the axle housing.




So I went hunting for something that would work and I found these two, 2-1/2 inch conduit clamps.
I found the first on with the short lag screw at Lowe's but they only had the one clamp.
I found the other one with the long threaded rod at the third place that I went to.




These clamps are made out of forged steel.
I cut one side off the round area and ground it down flat with that side.




Then I cut the head off a pair of 1/2 inch bolts and tightened the threaded end in the vice to flatten the threads out a little.
Using a vice grip, I screwed them into the clamps so they are a very tight fit.




The clamps are just the right size to fasten around the axle housing.




I bent up a bracket from 1/8x3/4 inch flat steel and drilled several holes in it.




This is fit up inside the fender and held in place with vice-grips.




This bracket is then welded to the inside of the fender.
Instead of welding the second hole in the lower part of the bracket, I drilled this hole out thru the sheet metal of the fender and I'll explain why I did that later.

 

[jdcrawler]

The second vise on my welding bench has been turned around so I can make use of the anvil.
I brought over the " V " block from the press and got out some of my specialty hammers.
With these tools, I have started forming a strip of 1/8x3/4 inch flat steel.




This will be the bracket that will fit up under the fender to give it more support..
.... Before you even ask ... the answer is No. The bracket isn't anywhere as close to the tire as it looks in the photo.




With one bracket finished, I use it as a pattern to start shaping the other bracket.




The bracket is welded to the inside of the fender.
The bottom of this bracket is fastened securely to the top of the bracket that I had made earlier.
A single pocket weld at this point between the two brackets might crack later on so the two brackets are bolted together at this point and the nut is welded to the bolt so it can't come undone.

The bottom bracket is also welded to the bolt on the clamp.




The fender is primed.




And mounted back in place.








One last bracket to make up is this one.




This bracket bolted in between the axle housing and the upper side of the fender.

 

[jdcrawler]

It is getting to look kind of funky now like something out of an old Jules Verne movie.

 

[JDJake]

Very Time Machine/ steampunk look to it.

 

[UncleWillie]

Looks great. All it lasks is a spinning governor on top to confuse people.

 

[jdcrawler]

Looks great. All it lasks is a spinning governor on top to confuse people.

I'm sure they will be plenty confused just the way it is.

 

[jdcrawler]

Starting to cut the trailer bed in half.






Checking the alignment of the cut to the supports for the backrest.






I sanded down the bottom of the bed and found that the spot welds on the two support ribs were broken loose in a few places so I welded them back up.
The lower area of the left rib is dented in about 3/8 inch deep. ( the photo doesn't show it as well as I thought it would. )




A 1x2 inch steel tube fit tightly inside of the rib so I hammered it down to push that dented area out.
I thought that I would do this to both ribs to get the dents out of them but I changed my mind after doing the first one.
The other dents in the ribs will be hidden with the ribs sitting on the back frame rails on the cart but this area will be sticking out beyond those frame rails.




As you can see, it did a good job of flattening that area out.
I had thought that I could just clamp a vice-grip tightly on the end of the steel tube and hammer it back out of the rib.
All that did was just make the vice-grip slide off the tube so I ended up putting a small strip of weld on the end of the steel tube so the vice-grip had something to grip too.
That worked alright but it still took me about three times as long to get the steel tube back out as it did to hammer it in.




I finished sanding down both sides of the outside of the bed.




Then I primed the outside.

 

[jdcrawler]

Cleaning up the inside of the trailer bed is next on the list.





This " half " trailer bed will fit into my sand blasting cabinet but I couldn't use it to clean the outside because the metal was too close to be able to sand blast it.
With the bed turned around to do the inside the metal is now far enough away so I have room to operate the blasting gun.




Once the sand blasting is finished, I took a piece of 1x1/2 inch steel tube and cut part of each end off to leave a flat tab on both ends.





This steel tube is welded in place across the front end of the bed with the flat tabs sticking out to cover the cut off ends of the bed rails.




I cut a panel out of the 1/16 inch sheet steel to fit across the front of the bed.
Here I'm ready to make the first bend in it.




Making sure the first bend in the panel is correct.




Then I make the second bend in the panel.




This panel is welded in place to form the front of the bed that is shaped to fit the contour of the backrest supports.




The rest of the bed is now primed.

 

[jdcrawler]

I made up a couple of mounting brackets out of angle iron with two threaded holes in each of them.




These bolt to the brackets on the trailer bed where the trailer axle had been bolted on.




The bed is put back up on the rear frame rails and these angle iron brackets are welded to the back seat frame and to the rear frame rails.




Here is how the angle iron brackets look with the welding finished and the brackets primed.




The bed is put back on and bolted down to the new brackets.






Another shot of the overall side view.

 

[jdcrawler]

Tomorrow is the big day ! Tomorrow this cart is coming down off the work table and I'm going to test drive it.
For tonight though, I still have one last part to repair.

This is the tailgate and, as you can see, it needs to be sand blasted and this one corner is rusted up pretty bad.




It is rusted in between the angle iron frame and the sheet metal in this corner.
After sand blasting, I'm using the saw blade to cut the first two spot welds loose and dig the rust out.




With the rust cleaned out, I flatten out the sheet metal as best as I can and clamp it down to the table so I can start brazing it back together.




The brazing is finished on the flat panel and I need to repair the corner of this side edge now.




I bend up a piece of 1x1/8 inch flat steel.




This is set into the inside of the corner and welded in place.




Then the corner area is brazed up. This is how it looks after I sand blast it to remove the brazing flux.
If you look close, you can see flow patterns where I made puddles of the brass and let it flow out to build up the thickness.
This joins the rusted edges of the sheet metal together and brazes them to the angle iron frame and that piece of 1/8 inch thick metal that I put in there.
It also fills in the holes with a layer of brass.




This is how the area looks after it has been ground down.




The tailgate is primed and put back in place. The top right corner is the repaired corner.

 

[jdcrawler]

One little tidbit that I realized that I forgot to post. ......

There is a gap between the back of the seat and the front of the trailer bed and you can look down there and see the battery.




So I made up this little metal piece.




This fits into that spot.




So when you look behind the seat the battery is now covered.




The piece is primed and fastened in place with two flat-head screws.

 

[KennyP]

Won't be long and you'll be putting some color on it!

 

[jdcrawler]

I'm stumped ....

I have completely wired both houses and cars and when I worked for a used car sales back in the late 1960's, I did all of their electrical trouble shooting and repairs.
I'll admit that I am lost when it comes to anything electric on this new stuff that is using computers but I'm not exactly a dummy when it comes to working with electrical systems on the older things like this engine.

This engine ran fine six years ago when I brought it down here but when I tried to start it today it wouldn't go.
As you can see, there is a good hot spark coming out of the coil.




Using a continuity checker, there is a good connection between the inside and outside of the center coil terminal on the cap.




There is also a good connection at both of the plug terminals.




The rotor is working as it should. I sand blasted the center spring and the outside rotor edge and the carbon point in the center of the cap is leaving a good mark on the spring's cleaned surface so I know that the rotor is making a good connection there.




Yet when I put it all back together, there isn't any spark at the two plug terminals ?
You can see in this photo that the mag drive is spinning over.
I'm sure that whatever is wrong is most likely something very simple but I just haven't been able to figure it out yet.

 

[jdcrawler]

I think I may have found the problem.
Before I tried to start this, I pulled the distributor cap off and found that the rotor had some carbon build up on it so I cleaned that off and also cleaned the plug terminals on the inside of the cap.

I just took a caliper and measured the distance between the plug terminals inside the cap and divided that in two to get the measurement from the center out to each terminal.
Then I measured from the center of the rotor out to it's edge and I found that there is about .045 inch clearance between the rotor and the plug terminals.
I think there is too much gap now for the spark to jump across.

I was going to solder a small strip of brass onto the outside edge of the rotor but I thought I would see if I could find a new rotor before I did that.
Against all odds, I found a guy that has a tune up kit for this old magneto. It comes with new points, condenser and a new rotor.

 

[jdcrawler]

The tune up kit left Seattle, Washington yesterday evening at 9:41 PM. Meanwhile there are other things to work on.

The Viking cart is down off the work table.






I have a pair of old Ford hubcaps that fit the wire wheels on the Viking. As you can see, they are in sad shape.




I sand blasted them to remove the rust and the chrome plating. Then I used body fill to fill in the " V-8 ".




Once that has dried really good, I put them up on the lathe and I have started to rough sand the body fill down using 80 grit sand paper.




Then they are primed with a lacquer primer.




Then they get a coat of glazing putty to fill in the small pit holes and sand scratches.
When the glazing putty is dried, it will be sanded down with 150 grit paper and then they will be primed again.
That primer will then be sanded with 250 grit paper and then they will be ready for final painting.





Quite some time ago I bought a pair of lights off ebay just because I thought they were neat little lights and I might have a use for them sometime. ( I have always had a bad habit of doing that ).
It took awhile to find them and as you can see by the condition of the box, they have been hanging around in my garage for awhile.




Here are the lights.
With the style of the socket where the wires go into the bottom of them, it tells me that these were made back sometime in the early 1900's to the mid 1920's.
I'm thinking that they probably came off and old fire truck or some other type of emergency vehicle.
Someone had already converted them to 4 inch, 12 volt, sealed beam lights when I bought them.

 

[UncleWillie]

Those are neat lights. Can't wait to see what you do with them.

 

[jdcrawler]

I'm working on the lights inside on my train workbench.
Here is one of the lights taken apart and I've already taken out the old wiring.
Notice that there is only the front sealed beam light bulb and no light bulb for the red tail light.
A little light will show from the front light but not much because of the chrome plating on the inside the back of the sealed beam.




One of these is damaged and I hadn't realized it until now.
If you look close, you can see that the tube at the bottom where the electrical wire goes in, is bent sideways on the light on the right side.




I had to take them back out to the garage to straighten the damaged one back out.
While I was out there, I went ahead and sand blasted them before I took them back into the house.




Now .. back to the rear tail light bulb .....
Searching thru my stuff, I found a couple of bulbs, sockets and the springs to fit inside the sockets.




However there weren't any wires with the sockets but that isn't a problem.
I take the rivet part of a copper Pop-Rivet and solder it onto a piece of wire to form the terminal end.




I have an assortment of insulators in my train parts and I found two round ones that are just a littler larger then the sockets.




I clamp them up in the lathe and turn them down to size.




Then the wire and spring is assembled with the insulator and it fits into the socket.




I cut out a bracket from a piece of copper.
The socket is then soldered onto this bracket.




The light socket is then soldered onto the back of the light housing.

 

[jdcrawler]

I wrapped electrical tape a couple of times around the outer edge of the sealed beam and the tail light.
this is to keep the glass insulated from the metal so it will be less likely to chip or crack.




The lights are put back together and tested.




The original mounting brackets are re-bent so they can be fastened to the underside of the backrest.




I'm forming chrome plated copper sink water lines to use as the conduit for the electrical wires to run up along side the mounting brackets for the backrest.




Once they are both bent to shape, they are sand blasted, primed and painted.




The lights and the conduit tubes are fastened in place and the electric wires are hooked up.






Lights on.






These put out a nice amount of light.
One advantage of having them mounted on the backrest is that they light up the passenger area as well so it is easy to see all of the controls.

 

[UncleWillie]

Those look great.

 

[KennyP]

Nice addition, Ray!