Transmission Cover Plate

I took a break from the hood and fender work because the child laborers needed to disassemble the body panels were unavailable.  Instead, I finally got around to cutting a hole in the transmission cover plate and eliminating the giant hole in the cab's floorboard.  This was not rocket science, it had just been on the back burner...

This is how it has been since the transmission was installed:

Cover plate before cutting the hole:

 After cutting the hole and laying it back in place:

 Shifter test fit:

Hood Install Part 1

The truck had a tilt forward front end when purchased, so the factory hardware for the normal hood hinge mechanism was missing.  I purchased a tilt forward hood system from No Limit online and the kit is fairly impressive.  Unfortunately, the nice folks that previously rebuilt this vehicle removed some firewall hinge mounts and welded over some others.  I fit the hood onto the truck just to check the alignment of the fenders and it all looked acceptable at this point.  The fenders are currently hand tight with three bolts in them and the radiator support bracket is hand tight with only one bolt holding it in place.  The whole front end is basically "sloppy."

 New hood roller bracket.  It looks good, except there are no mounting holes where there ought to be:

 Inside of the cab.  The holes have been welded over.  :o(

 Removing primer and bondo:

 

 

 You can see where the two holes were originally.  I'm going to have to measure, punch, and drill them out.

 The lip that tapers off on the top right hand corner of the stripped area is supposed to continue down the firewall and contain two more bolt holes for the factory hinge mounts.  It was apparently removed and I'll have to fab something back into place eventually.

 With the hood resting on the cab and fenders.  Not perfect, but a good start!

 

 

Front Fender Mock-up Part 2

Okay, its been a while since my last post...  I got back to work on the truck today and resolved the modified fender mounting studs from the previous past "Front Fender Mock-up Part 1."  The problem was resolved by cutting them off and drilling out pilot holes where the factory holes should have been on the cab.  It took lots of internet searching to find other projects with good photos of the cabs when disassembled to convince me that this was the right thing to do since the factory holes did not look like they were in the same places as the welded studs.

Offending studs on passenger side:

  Cut off with the saws-all and ground down flush:

Fender installed with three bolts to check the fit:

 Another angle:

 Passenger side studs and cancerous devastation:

 Studs cut off and ground down flush:

 You can see the new holes drilled in the cab offset from the stud locations.  Scary...

 Drivers' side fender installed with three bolts to check the fit:

 Its starting to look like a truck again!