Sh*t! Cable guy makes my cable too flippin' short!

 It has been several days, and I am still pinching myself! I just got the cable back from the cable shop in Sydney and the damned thing is about 34cm too short! No, I kid you not!  I gave him photos, wrote instructions and included the original cable marked where it had to be cut, and what did he do? He makes it 34cm too short! It wasn't a Friday, because this cable turned up Thursday, so I can't sat it was because he was thinking of partying because he has reached the end of the week.

I even took photos and showed them to my wife and asked her if the photos with the instructions made sense and she said it was very clear, so WTF happened? 

I sent him a message and said I think I have the wrong cable as it is way too short, but he said it was the right cable and made to my specifications, which is BS because why would I tell him to make a cable 34cm too short? It is SO bad, I would be better off working with the one that was far too long.

Anyway, he said bring it back and he will check it. So, off we toddle to the post office once more. 

Here was the photo I sent him

This is what he made me. See that little bit of cable near the tape measure base? That is where he cut it to instead of cutting it at the black tape marker as in above photo. 

Aftermarket handbrake way too long

 Well, I guess it makes sense that the handbrake cable I ordered was way too long. Of course these handbrake cables are made for LHD trucks and they don't actually make a RHD one. I have been told that even for left hook trucks they are too long, but in my case, we're talking about ten inches too long. And what a pain, because I was pretty keen to hook the thing up and go for a burn down the street (even though it was all of about five degrees outside or less - we're in Goulburn, that is. Goulburn NSW in mid winter).

For a fleeting moment I thought about making up a pulley system to take up the slack until common sense just told me it was best to take it to a cable shop and get them to resize it to the correct size.

Retro Spares got back to me and said they would be able to knock something up to suit, which means I have to bundle it down and post to Victoria etc.  I don't really see that I have too many options up my sleeve, so that will be the next project. 

Of course there are a million other little projects I could be doing, and another one is getting the brake lights to work. After blushing with success over the blinkers, I forgot all about the brake lights. And, naturally, they don't work. I have done a quick test of the brake switch by checking that a live wire is present, though no response with lights once brake pushed, so, probably one faulty switch, but could be a broken wire, bad earth, blown fuse (although this truck has a circuit breaker type system) or bad relay, and so it goes... At least it is not a modern vehicle. So, a new switch on order.

I lashed out and bought a 12 circuit wiring kit and plan on rewiring the entire truck at some stage.

Speaking of lashing out. I bought a set of lap sash seatbelts and a couple of floor anchors. Once again, I will be chasing up a fabrication shop to make me up a couple of heavy duty steel plates just like I did with my last failed project only a year ago. Pretty frustrating having to follow up all this stuff again in such a short time, but I need seatbelts if nothing else. They're arriving today. I am hoping they are gonna fit as I didn't measure them at all. The plan is to raise the bench seat about ten inches anyway and put some sort of a frame around the base and mount the seat higher, so I could be miles out. I took a punt and chose a set of XY Falcon seatbelts from a sedan rather than a ute, as the sedan ones are a bit longer. 

There's a steel shop in Goulburn that looks like it has just about everything I could need, so will be paying more than one visit there in the weeks ahead.

Just have to soldier through this miserable weather...

Sunvisor fitup with minor adjustments

 The old tart came without sunvisors when I bought it, excepting for a broken stalk on the drivers' side. So, I forked out quite a bit to buy new sunvisors and a pair of chrome rods to suit. I think they came from Dennis Carpenter. The chrome rods are very nice quality, but the sunvisors themselves are relatively cheap vinyl coated cardboard, probably just how the factory made them back in the day. 

I had some issues with inserting the rod into the hole and had to resort to filing some of the metal away to allow it to work into the slot for both visors.

The other thing was knocking out the passenger side section to fit. I just used a drill to drill out the four spotwelds holding the blocking plate and gently tapped it in with a hammer and chisel just enough to be able to reach in and pull it out before it fell all the way through. I used a pair of long nosed pliers. 

Check out the nice little action shot right here! It was a bit touch and go for a while as I seriously thought I was gonna lose that piece of metal, imagining that it would forever be lodged down the inside pillar of the window, but I was victorious in the end. 

And here is the finished result! Looks great and the colour compliments the interior very well. Pleased I didn't buy the black set. 

1952 F1 Handbrake woes part 3

 

This picture shows the damaged worn out area where the tong thing (I am too lazy to Google what you call it, but it's that part that joins with the upper cable) connects to via a pin. Over the years the steel has broken away and I think this could also be contributing to the handbrake not wanting to engage with the teeth, as there was a lot of movement in that handbrake lever. The other side was just as bad. I hit it with the welder and then ran a drill through it before filing it down. It came up quite well. I am just waiting on a new front cable to put it all together. Should arrive any day now. If it doesn't work, I am suspecting that I will need to take that pawl out and give it a bit more of a file down, but so far it feels tight. 

1952 F1 Handbrake Woes part two

 Just getting over a nasty virus and decided rather than sit there like a stunned mullet beside the heater, I'd venture out in the garage and pull the handbrake to bits, as you do. I discovered this about the pawl

Looks like a burred over pawl. Probably has a lot to do with my problem. It has definitely seen better days.

Poor pawl (pitiful me). Heheh, yes I am a bit of a Zevon fan.

You can buy new pawls from a couple of locations in the USA, but I don't like paying over $100 for postage for something that will fit in a matchbox.  So, I dragged out the Unimig welder and dusted it off.

There was a time when I thought my days of messing with old trucks had come to an end, and I even put things like the welder up for sale. Good thing I didn't because it came in handy for welding some metal back on that tired old pawl. I put it together with the spring which seems okay and dummy tested it. So far so good. Tomorrow, if I get some time, I will weld up that area where the ratchet teeth thing pivots with the handle (seen above) as I think this could also be causing issues with the handbrake not engaging with the teeth. 

Handbrake woes

 Trying to get the handbrake/ emergency brake to grip, but the little latch that supposed to lock against the teeth just slips right off the moment I pull on the lever. It looks like the cables are ok. Could the thing just be worn out?

Well, it could be a lot of things I suppose. the pawl could be worn, the spring that engages with the pawl could be weak, the teeth could be worn, or it could be the bushing inside the handbrake lever that has clapped out.

Here is the bushing in question. You can see here that it has seen better days, but the poor old thing is over 70 years old, so it's forgiven. If I can knock that bushing out and have someone mill up a new bushing that might be all that is needed. 

The other thing I discovered is the actual condition of the front brake cable. Somewhat stuffed, methinks. Anyway, I have a friend who is going to take a look at the handbrake to see if he can make something up to suit. I'll keep you posted. 

First assignment: getting it lowered

 

It has been two weeks since the truck arrived and would you believe this is the closest I have come to checking out the front end? I have been trying to source a dropped axle for the truck, and the nearest thing I can get is a 3" drop from the USA which will set me back close to $1000.  

In the hope of finding someone local, I threw it out there on a Facebook group and a guy got back and said there is a guy in Melbourne who makes them (Garry Page). 

I have never met Garry, but by all accounts he is a very nice guy who has been doing this stuff for a very long time. I gave him a call up today and he advised he was snowed under with jobs and call him late July. I was also advised he could do the job if I supplied stub axles and steering arms and that it would cost around $1200 for a straight up bolt in affair with a two inch drop.  That sounds like a possibility, but the cost of it is making me think about other options, such as a Jag front. I have done a few of these over the years on a 54 and a 56 F100, but I believe the jag front is actually an ever better fit on these earlier model trucks, and I know how good these front ends are, and as a bonus, disk brake front, power steering and excellent road manners. So, why would I opt to mess around with archaic stuff?

The other thing is, as you can see in this crappy photo of the undercarriage, it has front springs as well, and I am guessing we might be able to get it down an inch closer to the ground just by removing some of those springs. And, you know what? That might just be enough. 

I wouldn't be changing a thing except for the truck just clearing the top of the garage door, and I still haven't taken it out for a drive as it is too damned cold in Goulburn and I am also waiting for a blinker set to arrive.