48 Chevy 3100 Reassembly Questions

[buildinga55]

I picked up my 48 Chevy Pickup last week and started working on it. I will be disassembling the truck. The previous owner disassembled and put back together in pretty decent fashion. The doors, fenders etc line up pretty well. However, he just threw the hood on at the last minute so we could transport. The hood does line up nicely in the front and matches the fenders, but probably has a 3/4" gap at the cowl area. I would like to get things lined up before I disassemble to paint and work on the chassis. When reassembling the pickup, should I start with the hood and get the gap at the cowl nice then go with inner fenders, fenders etc. Or what is the best plan? Thanks

[Houston54]

Hood alignment on the AD trucks can be a challenge. One thing to remember though is it needs to index off the cab not the front sheet metal. If the whole assembly was taken apart you may need to place shims between the cab and the rear mounting shackles to get the forward pitch of the cab correct. Without this the gap on the front and the sides of the hood will never close.

There is a written procedure on how to align/adjust the AD hood. It can be found in several places. Do some searches and it should turn up. This procedure though does not address the rear cab mount shimming. Yours may not need it but if all else fails you may want to play with that.

Put some pics up.

[buildinga55]

Here are a few pictures. The tilting the cab makes some since except then the vertical hood line would be pie shaped. Seems like the entire body might need to be slid forward about 3/8" and leave the fenders and front as is? I have not tried to make any adjustments yet. Just want things lined up before I take anything else apart. Here are a few pictures:

[Houston54]

What your pictures show is that the spacers are needed between the rear cab floor and the supports. Think about it. The front of the hood is perfect but the back is out. The front cab supports are fixed with zero adjustment. The only adjustment available it the rear cab supports.

I would suggest getting some large washers and cut them so there is a slot to the center hole. Loosen the support bolts, put a floor jack under the cab with a piece of 2x4 and gently tilt it forward. Have someone watch the front lip of the hood. When it is in front of the fenders approximately the same distance as the rear gap stop and put the washer spacers in place.

You will have to perform the hood alignment steps again though to get things to line back up.

[buildinga55]

Thanks for the advise, I will see if that works. If I can just get close at this point, I know then I can spend alot of time on it when I paint and put the truck together. I will probably leave most of the bolts of the front end loose to help with alignment and shimming.

Thanks again

[OrrieG]

Simple question, is that why the front mounts are solid metal?? I replaced mine with hard rubber thinking it would isolate the cab better but now think I may need to got back to the metal shim.

[Houston54]

I have a rubber pad between the front cab support and the frame mount on my 54. That is what the assembly manual reflects I believe. The front mounts are "fixed" in that there is no forward or back adjustment in them.

It may be helpful to loosen the fender to cowl bolts so the fenders do not bind when you puch up on the rear of the cab.

[mr48chev]

I would check the bushing in the rear cab mount first.

If it is a true 48 it will have one mount in the center of the floor at the back of the cab. If a later cab was used as a replacement (a lot of us have had to go that way because of damaged cabs) there will be a mount on each side similar to a shackle on a spring.

I broke down and ordered one of the "factory assembly manuals", that is available but haven't received it to study it to see if it has useful information.

You should be able to stand back twenty or thirty feet and eyeball the truck from the side and tell if the cab looks to be lower at the back than it should be and go from there.

As the others suggested loosen the bolts holding the fenders (Fender and inner fender also and the fender to firewall rods before you start moving the cab around.

[buildinga55]

Thanks for the info. I looked and this truck does have the one center mount in the rear of the cab. I will see how much play there is in the fenders, then the running boards would probably be too long! I will figure something out when I have time to mess with it. It does seem like this truck would need to be assembled from the cab forward, get that working, then the bed back.