Ian's Tennessee Honey '64 Short Box Step-side - England

[ibrown50]

Well another rainy holiday weekend, my time has been spent between building a window seat for my daughter (she only been asking for 2 years) finishing plumbing in my brakes and finishing the lid for Rian's heater box.

The master cylinder and booster have been fitted for a while, The brake cylinder is a GM style jobbie (disc/drum) with a 7" booster and proportioning valve all from MBM. I had to make the bracket to mount them to the fire wall and used the mounting holes from the previous master cylinder.



I also had to make up a push rod, this was made from a piece of 3/8 threaded bar and a long stud connector ( for maximum adjustment) with locking nuts to keep it all safe.



I borrowed my mates flaring tool to make the pipes up. It's probably old that I am but it makes great flares!



I noticed Andy (Uber Cool) has the same pipe bender as me, they work great and for £10 (ish) good value too.



The tubes are 3/16 cupro-nickel, I prefer it to copper as it doesn't work harden. The front flexis are new and came with the disc brake kit the rear one is ordered and should be with me by Thursday. I also fitted a Wilwood residual pressure valve to the drum brake circuit. All the pipes are clipped up using nylon clips, so once the rear flexi arrives I can get it all bled and I'll be good to go.

[uber cool]

Nice install on the brake pipes and reminds me I need some clips too

[ibrown50]

I got my daughters window seat finished (except for paint and upholstery...but choosing colors is way above my pay grade ). So my daughters happy



And I got Rians blower/heater box lid finished (theres more on his build thread Grizz1963) so he's happy too. So all in all not bad for a rainy holiday weekend.

[Grizz1963]

Thank you very much again for this Ian, you have no idea how pleased I am with this piece of art.

It will certainly make me open the hood more often than I normally would.

I certainly understand the concept of "Above my pay grade"

Story of my life.

[Ta2Don]

Cheers!!!

Creative on a number of levels!

[uber cool]

wow that heater box cover is sooo cool, I can see a side line coming on

[ibrown50]

John Lennon once said "life is the thing that happens when you're busy making other plans" and life really has been getting in the way recently, I've barely made any progress in 6 weeks.

I finished the brake and steering install a while ago so when I found a bit of time recently I thought I would take the oportunity to put the truck back on its wheels . I fitted the 20" wheels I bought a while back but discovered a snag, the centre caps wouldn't fit, the centre hub of the new discs stick out too far.



I have always intended to paint the spokes grey so it was time to kill two birds with one stone. I didn't think a beer can hub cap would work with this style of wheel so after a bit of head scratching and surfing the net I found these on the Speedway eBay store,



they're not the best quality I've ever seen (made in Taiwan) but they were in a sale and at $40 for the full set (like £25) they are ok. I got some Bow Tie centre cap stickers for £5 also from eBay to finish them off.



The towers taper so trying to work out the exact dia at the point they would come through the centre caps was a bit of a challenge, after detailed measuring and calculations Ok I guessed that it was about 3 1/2", which was real handy because I had a 3 1/2" hole saw.



Next up paint the spokes, I chose a semi gloss mid grey (I only did 2 wheels in case I didn't like the colour). I have to say masking them was a pain, they literally took an hour each to mask.

[ibrown50]

I gave them a good sand and de-grease, followed by a coat of etch so the paint should stay on ok (there's nothing worse than flaky wheels),



Then 2 coats of 2K grey, I am very pleased with the way they turned out



All in the wheels (including tyres) stand me at shade over £250 ($375) with the spinners fitted I think they look pretty cool (Still need to tighten the centre caps though)

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Ian, that's a clever solution to your wheel problem.

[MacQuigley]

Nice job on the wheels Ian. I like them.

[mjh1965]

Glad you liked it we just can't all wear them to the same show at the same time .

[Ta2Don]

Diggin the Wheels, great idea for the centers...

Chuffed you got a shirt...

[ibrown50]

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great Christmas and may I wish everyone good health and happiness for 2016.

Those of you who follow this thread will recall the "new" hood I shipped all the way from California.

Most of the time since the last update has been spent working the many dings and dents out of my "new" hood.

This has taken rather longer than I had originally hoped it would but today I got a final coat of primer applied and (if I say so myself) it's looking pretty good.

[ibrown50]

I have also bust the back suspension off ready for its rebuild and 5" drop. I have had the trailing arms blasted,



and while I was at it had the hinges done too.

I made a "stretcher" for the springs so that the blaster could get in between the coils and I could get the paint between them too



The usual coat of etch primer and two coats of 2K black and they are almost good as new.



They look pretty cool fitted too.



The hood is so big it takes up most of my work space in my garage, so next job will be to paint the hood and then I'll get it fitted, this will give me some working space to get cracking with the rear supension.

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Originally Posted by ibrown50

I made a "stretcher" for the springs so that the blaster could get in between the coils and I could get the paint between them too

Another genius idea!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Lamebridge

Another genius idea!

I love these simple solutions to real problems.

Nice one and thanks for sharing Ian.

[mjh1965]

Looking good Ian . looks like you are making the most of the time off , between Christmas and new year as well .

[[JP]]

wow!!!
right.. this wasn't what I was expecting when I came in on this thread...
this is pure porn!! just went through the whole thread, love the details and very cool putting the battery underneath!
definitely subscribing to this!

[mjh1965]

Thanks for Sharing Ian . What an awesome trip made even better by a chance meeting . I like you grew up with the songs of thin lizzy playing on a tape cassette in my first car . Glad you had a great time .

[Ta2Don]

Very Cool story!!! Bucket list addition

Thanx Rian for the links... Whiskey in the Jar is one of my all time favorite songs...

[[JP]]

damn, that looks awesome!!!!

[mjh1965]

Looking good Ian . I know what it's like to have no room . I think we are all heading for the same finish line . Who is going to get there first, I wouldn't like to bet on it . I think you may be ahead of me and Rian . So I better get my finger out .

[ibrown50]

A quick update, I managed to get the hood fitted this weekend, so my truck doesn't look like Mater anymore, it needs a tweak to get the gaps and fit a little better but the colour match is very good.





I'm now going to get cracking on the rear suspension, I'm fitting 4" lowered springs and 1" lowering blocks with matching shocks, I've also got poly bushes, an adjustable panhard bar and a shock mount relocation kit, all from POL. if it fits as good as the other stuff I've had from them it should be fine.
However before I fit these new components I want to strengthen the trailing arms. So I've been doing a bit of "research" on this forum

Welding the trailing arms up seems a popular solution, the amount of weld seems to be proportionate to the horsepower of the truck. This was posted by Fldawg, I know many of you looking at this picture will have the same reaction I had ( no not the trailing arms they're great)...............what's Rian doing in Florida!!



Also fitting strengthening plates as the factory did (I think these are C20?) seems to be a good option too.



So my intention (unless anyone tells me different) is to weld the 2 halves of the trailing arm together with (approximately) a 1" weld every 6" plus fully weld the ends and then fit strengthening plates top and bottom as per GM. I am going to drill and plug weld the plates, rather than fillet weld the edges to get a spot weld /rivet effect, I'm hoping it will look more "factory". Here's my starting point, I'll post updates as I go.

[mjh1965]

It's starting to take shape at the front . Like you , everything I have had from POL has fitted nicely . It won't be long before you are driving it Ian

[DPowers]

Love the color. Very nice work.