I guess I shouldn't take my NAPA store for Granted.They have a rack of pull out drawers with springs,cotter pins,o-rings and castle nuts.They have a large selection of grade 8 bolts and self locking nuts too.I spend allot of time with those guys

well i went down to work today, i was going to stop by napa today to pick up my castle nuts but guess what..... napa is close on sundays! so i just went down to the shop and farted around for a little bit. i got some snap shots with the front end all assemebled. Picture 3 and 4 are the spacers that i had to get cut for the lower controle arm. one was cut just a little to big so i wasnt able to get a washer in along with the spacer.

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Thats looking real good Streamline. Love to see pics of what others are doing.
Kim

Streamline Nice job Very clean welds too.Dave and Gator My new parking brake cable arrived.The reproduction cable look good but it is a bit different than the stock cable.There is no bracket to bolt down at the top.I dont think it needs one as the base is secured so the housing is stationary and you would not need to sucure the other end too.If this works I can remove the bracket in the cab and it will be an even cleaner conversion than useing the original factory design cable some times I just get lucky

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Looking good Mike. I'm going to tackle the front end on the 53 next year. Nice watching you do it.

DD... did you say the cable was from Brothers and was for a 67. I still have to put in my order to Brothers. They are having a big sale this month. Going to install the solid door window glass. They have it marked down from 389 to 199. Can't rebuild the windows stock for that.

I painted my dash today. The body work looked great but I got a little carried away with the paint around the gauge cluster hole and ended up with a run. I'm going to sand it down tomorrow and add a coat of clear to it. Urethane seems to take a few minutes to lay down. Hard to tell if you are wetting it out enough. I probably should have thinned it a little more. The good news is that the color matches really well.

Dave

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I haven't read ever response on this thread, but have you guys checked out

www.stovebolt.com
Alot of good, useful info on there.

Wilbur

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Wilbur I just took a look at stovebolt.Looks like allot of good stuff.Dave the dash looks even better painted.The cable I have came from Classic parts.Part # 71-751 66-70 PARKING BRAKE CABLE-FRONT $34.95.I don't think you will be able to go out the shift lever hole with the cable.I went out the stock hole and am using part #42-105 MAIN HARNESS FIREWALL GROMMET $1.99 a smaller grommet would force the cable to come out at the wrong angle.

I'm thinking the angle of the brake lever to the shift lever hole is too far out of whack to work. I may have to look at another alternative. Putting a hole in the right place would have to go through the stainless and I don't want to do that. Back to the drawing board.

Dave you wont have to go through the stainless.Were the floor changes angles about 3 inches to the left of were the shift linkage goes through would look good and work fine with this set up.You would just need to line it up with were it hooks to the brake handle.If you look at the last picture on page 33 post 483 you can see all you would have to do is make a hole just a little farther down.Try the shift lever hole first the cable is flexible and the way it hooks to the handle works to your advantage.It may work the way you want it.Just make the bracket a little longer and move the pulley to the front a little.

I'm going to go ahead and get the cable and just figure a way to make it work. I'm sure between us all we can figure it out.

I know you all are probably tired of seeing my dash but I finally have it completely finished. I ended up sanding out the runs with 1200 and applying a nice coat of clear. Dash is a hard thing to paint. Tough to get in the right angle with the gun. Now its buffed and polished and ready to put back together. I love the new paints. In the old days, when I was young, we had lacquer and enamel and acrylic enamel. That was it. Imron had just come out. Makes me feel old. These new paint systems are great to work with and easy to fix mistakes. Anyway... here are a couple more pics of the dash. Gonna run brake lines next week, mock up the gas tank. Next comes the wiring harness and then..... I get to put the motor back in.
Dave

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I want to start by thanking DD for starting this thread. Tons of great info here.
Dave I never get tired of seeing pics of nice work. Helps to keep me motivated on my truck.

Finally got the cab brace back in and my firewall welded in place. Found some more rust I'm going to have to fix...Oh well.
Need to get the sheet for the floor cut and welded in also.
Kim

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Dave keep posting the pic....like Kim said it keeps us motivated. Beside we can sit and look at nice dash pics all day!

Kim nice firewall there. Are you going to leave it blank or mount stuff on it?
By the way I will be down in San Diego area this weekend. My daughter will be in a volleyball tournament so I'll be there.

Kim...... you'll really enjoy those pictures when you get it done. Two things I want to mention to you at your stage of restore. One.... I love my sandblaster. They are inexpensive and talk about cleaning up a part. I used mine on the steering arms, spindles etc. and it made them look like new. Threw some epoxy primer on them and painted away. The inside of my glove box and hardware had felt glued on top of rust so you can imagine what it looked like. Sandblasted it, coated it in urethane high build primer and sanded it and it turned out great. Beat $80.00 for new metal. The other thing is anything I stripped or sanded down to metal or got to a point that I was going to do body work and primer, the first thing I did was put a coat of epoxy primer on it. The epoxy bonds better than the paint to the metal, and it creates a barrier between paint that hasn't been taken off and your new paint. The new paint sticks to the epoxy better than it will metal or old paint. You can even put the bondo right on the epoxy. Everything sticks better to the epoxy. I even thinned the epoxy down further and used it as a sealer before the paint coat. Let if flash dry to the touch and put the paint right on over it. Did a really nice job and helps show up those places you still need to work on. The urethane high build primer is the dog man... that stuff is great. Put three heavy coats on... dry overnight.... then block everything out. Any irregularities .... put on another couple of coats and block it out. If you take your time you can put a finish on that looks like glass.... you may already have worked with all this stuff... but I had a ball relearning with the products available now.
Dave

Dave dash looks great.Sounds like I need a sandblaster and a paint gun Kim nice metal work. Well guys I finally got that parking brake done.The new cable does not come with the hold down clamp.Looks like you guys will have another part to track down.I had a problem with the top of the cable twisting when I pulled hard on the parking brake.I designed and made a new bracket for the top of the cable to bolt to.I started with an L shaped bracket and bent it to line up with the cable.I made a second bracket to keep the cable from twisting then welded the 2 pieces together to make a single bracket.

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This is the finished connecting rod for the other end of the cable.One last picture of the fire wall with the grommet and cable installed.

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