51 R18 Rebuild

[dpaulson]

I used paint stripper chemical and a wire wheel on a grinder  to remove  at least 5 layers of paint.

It must be  100 lbs lighter now.  I just started to do some body filling.

I got to see some of the  hand drawn pin stripping on the original maroon paint.  It would be nice if I can put it back on after.

[the old trucker]

   There should be lots of pics of the striping for you to use when your ready. The looks improve quickly now that you have the old stuff off & putting new back on. Are you going to put the maroon paint back on ?? She reminds me of Mike's 57 rebuild when he was at that stage. Keep up the great work & I'm sure she will see the snow in  the next few months.

                                                                                  The Old Trucker

[dpaulson]

Did Mike get his done?  What about you, where are you at on yours now? 

[the old trucker]

 
   Mike is still picking away at his when he has a day off. He has her all primed up. She went back in his garage last week for some more touch ups before painting. He has polished aluminum checker plate all in around the engine area & is getting ready to install his engine & trans.
  Right now he's on 2 weeks holidays. When he gets back I'll get a few pics of his latest work. I haven't done a tap to mine since last month. Too hot, plus I have to watch it with the old ticker. Not much of it left. I have the patterns for the panels, thanks to Oldsledz !  I have to make a few adjustments to the motor location, put the diff back together plus a bit of front end work before tackling the wood. Maybe the winter of 2011 !!       
 

[the old trucker]

  Dpaulson in the pic where you have started with body filler, I noticed that your bogey springs have chains attached to them. Myself & Paul Allen recently bought 2 1954 bombers & they have bars instead of chain. On 57rebuild he has chains, same as on mine.
  I was wondering if they used chain first, then tried bars, & went back to chain. Maybe someone can set me straight on this. Just curious ....
                                                                                       OT.

[kpm]

chains first..and the best way to go....bars were tried,even on the front of the old woodens,they are too rigid..chains are the way to go.
                                               kpm

[the old trucker]

   Thanks for the reply KPM. I would think that when Paul gets to that stage in his (Paul's 54 restore) He'll go with the chain.
                                                                       OT.

[kpm]

well he certainly has not jury rigged anything else,so i'm sure he will.
                                                                                                           kpm

[snowgroomer]

Did you find that one brand of stripper is better than another. (I just started to stip my 56? I don't know the exact year since the tag is gone) The stripper I have says aircraft stripper and smells amonia based. There seems to be 5 distinctive colors. Parts come off real easy however some of it is really attached.Any suggestions

[dpaulson]

I just used Circa 1850 Furniture Stripper just because it was available locally.  I had to apply it 3 to 4  times over the same area to remove the paint.  It seems to only remove about 1 layer at a time, maybe because each layer was fairly thick.  I used about 2 1/2 gallons altogether and about a days labour. Cost was about 30.00/gal.  It should make my paint job look a lot better, as I prefer to put the paint drips in myself , and not use the previous painters' drips.   

[the old trucker]

Those cylinders are from princess auto 1 1/2 Dia X 12" stroke. I don't know what PSI the power steering pump puts out, but I beleive that cylinders are big enought as the leaverage from the ski pivot to the ball joint is large.  I needed to use 2 cylinders to keep the volume of oil the same for turning left or right.  The big side of one cyl is plumbed to the small side of the other cyl then to one side of the hand pump.  Also, my bombardier is a wide guage steel so I have enough room up front.

  So how do the "hand pump" work ? Do you turn the steering wheel plus move a lever for the skis to turn, or is it all done in a single motion with the wheel ?? By the way I like the way you have the brake caliper set up. I think I will go that way with mine.

                                                                             OT.

[dpaulson]

It is all done in a single motion.  It allows a bit of oil through when the steering wheel is turned.  I guess that's why they call it a 'hand pump' because it will pump oil to the appropriate side of the cylinder even when the power steering pump is not turning (ie when the engine is not started) although you must put some effort into steering.

As far as the brake caliper goes, I was using the instructions that Cletus gave using the same parts in http://www.northerntracks.com/forum/index.php?topic=352.0, but in assembly showed that I cannot mount the rotor in the same direction as he did as I have the original rear end (Ford 9") and his has been replaced with a 3/4 ton rear end.  There is a gusset  at the bottom of the pumpkin preventing the installation that way.  The rotor was turned around to have the offset facing the rear of the vehicle.  I used the same brake caliper as he did.  The only thing that I can say is that you can get the calipers for either the right side or the left side.  The difference is where the bleed screw is.  I got the wrong side and to bleed the system, my caliper must be removed and turned upside down to get the screw to the top.

I haven't posted much in this thread, but I have been working on it every weekend since the last pictures posted.  I have put on about 10 gal of body fill.  I am sure that I sanded off most of it.  Somebody that knows what their doing could of done in 1/4 of the time that I spend, but it did turn out pretty good.  There is a lot of dints and imperfections that accumulate over 60 years.  I had the guy at the body shop bring his colour camera over to get the colour code of the original paint, before it completely disappeared from the body fill.  It's came as Western Star medium maroon.  I didn't realise that this paint is so pricy, but I hope it is as good as he says it is.  I should get it paint next weekend.

[dpaulson]

Just an update on progress.  I really like the colour.

[the old trucker]

    Looks good my friend. If I had a metal bomber I would paint it the same color. I like it alot.

                                                                                                OT.

[the old trucker]

  When you get the undercarriage & rims painted she'll look better again !! I noticed in the last pic it looks like that "hand pump" as you call it, is fitted into the steering column itself. Any chance of getting a pic or two of how you have it done ??
   I'm trying to think of how you open & close that valve to turn the skis.

                                                                                                    A puzzled OT.