Spring has sprung here in Minnesota, so in a few weeks I'll be able to haul my '94 to the shed to get working on it.  I posted WAY back when I first found this forum on my build plans.  I'll start here again to bring everyone back up to speed.   

 

First off, is this the right part of the forum to post a "build" thread?  If not please direct me to the correct location.  thanks

 

I restored a '51 Pilothouse B3D truck that was my great grandfathers truck.  I seem to have a disease now, lots of old truck parts in my house, garage and at friend's sheds.  I decided a few years back I was going to take a modern powertrain and graft on a Pilothouse cab/front clip as a daily driver.  This truck will be a stretched 3 door cab flat bed stake side hauler style truck.  I've got all the old Pilothouse cabs and doors to cut apart and re-weld up to the stretched cab.  As well as all the doors I could need to make the 3rd door and fill the space behind the passenger side door.

 

The '94 has a fresh rebuilt tranny and about 150K on the engine.  I've been thinking that since it will all be available to work on, going thru the engine and rear end would be a good idea right now.  Before I start to tear things off, any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Plans include air ride, saddle fuel tanks, rear duals and a tip up front end like a semi for engine work.  

 

thanks, I look forward to keeping this thread moving over the course of the spring/summer while things start under way.

Edited March 12, 201411 yr by PilotHouse2500

I am in construction as well and seen enough recessions to know that if this goes on for too long we will lose a lot of companies. There are a lot of good ones that really share the wealth with their employees, so often times their cash pile isn't enough to hold for too long. We are doing needed home repairs to help some good folks and after that we go to an addition on a vacation home with no one there. My business is easier to keep our distance from each other and working outside is far better than hanging around inside. Hopefully your work will keep going so we can watch the progress on your truck. I think this recession is of a more temporary nature.

Work for the day. 

 

Good to see your making some progress.

Well, for better or worse, TODD has a full floor.   Some spots just downright gave me fits so I ended up chasing welds.  Knowing I'm going to grind a radius on the outside of the frame notch, I bridged the hundreds of spot welds to give myself some meat to dig into.  I really was trying to watch distortion on the cab back.  I used the old cab floor corners (body panel glued to the outer skin) and made fill in panels.  Some selected grinding left, but I'll wait on that a bit so I give the rust monsters less to work with.

Edited April 21, 20204 yr by PilotHouse2500

Brackets made to hook chains onto to be able to lift the cab off with the engine hoist.

 

My neighbor offered me the use of his rotisserie....gonna make finishing the welds SO much easier!  Fun week ahead!

Good to see the progress.

took my "free" day and did some grinding on the welds thus far.  I will have to redo one whole line of welds on the trans tunnel as I ground thru them since I didn't prep the seem properly. 

well the weekend is over (at least I think it's Monday), floor and firewall work is done, now on to filling in the missing bits of dash and the random holes that are there, clean up my fill panel by the drip rail, and finish the cowl/firewall plug welds and the cab will be done until I tackle the doors and get a steering wheel and seat set up figured.  I little bit of filler and sanding on the lap joint interfaces and butt weld areas when it's paint time and things will be nice and pretty.

 

 

Meanwhile, AFTER being done on Saturday, AFTER I cleaned up, I took off my PPE and THEN got this little bugger in my eye and ended up in urgent care to get it removed.

On 6/22/2020 at 7:36 AM, PilotHouse2500 said:

well the weekend is over (at least I think it's Monday), floor and firewall work is done, now on to filling in the missing bits of dash and the random holes that are there, clean up my fill panel by the drip rail, and finish the cowl/firewall plug welds and the cab will be done until I tackle the doors and get a steering wheel and seat set up figured.  I little bit of filler and sanding on the lap joint interfaces and butt weld areas when it's paint time and things will be nice and pretty.

 

 

Meanwhile, AFTER being done on Saturday, AFTER I cleaned up, I took off my PPE and THEN got this little bugger in my eye and ended up in urgent care to get it removed.

I give up what is that?

16 hours ago, dripley said:

I give up what is that?

 

I assume you meant the last picture?  That was whet was embedded in my eye lid, small piece of metal from grinding (on a Q-tip w/ tape holding it one).  Hurt like hell.

Edited June 24, 20204 yr by PilotHouse2500

1 hour ago, PilotHouse2500 said:

 

I assume you meant the last picture?  That was whet was embedded in my eye lid, small piece of metal from grinding (on a Q-tip w/ tape holding it one).  Hurt like hell.

Thats the one. Funny, it looks just like you describe but yesterday it looked like an alien creature with a black eye ball.

Today's progress.   Needless to say the cab PO mucked up the dash bad cutting in 2 holes, a huge notch for a SW, and the speaker area cut apart.  Nothing a little filler and building primer won't fix.

Firewall, dash and fuel hole delete completed.

 

 

 

 

 one or these days your going to get to the doors, I can’t wait,  with the work your doing so far I’m sure it’s going to be excellent 

so a question:  I've been trying to figure out the TC, just so I know where to lock down the handle, I've poked at trying to get it to shift.  I can spin the front output no problem, and this weekend before I dropped the cab back on I put the driveshaft in and spun that.  That spun the front output as well, so it looks like it's in either 4L or 4H, but I can't get it to shift to a different setting.  I really don't want to force it, and the place that went over the TC (and put the higher spline count gear in) said it was in great shape.  I tried to shift while rotating the driveshaft and tried both directions and tried with it all static.  No joy.  What am I missing?

hmmm lack of replies...from what I gather the truck needs the input to be turning to get it to shift.  Messing with the outputs won't do anything.  Maybe I'm just speaking to the wind.

Any input I could put in would be like speaking to the wind. Mine will shift while sitting still and in neutral. It will shift with engine off also.

On 8/17/2020 at 1:10 PM, dripley said:

Any input I could put in would be like speaking to the wind. Mine will shift while sitting still and in neutral. It will shift with engine off also.

hmmm, that concerns me....they guy who checked it over insisted that I'd need to have input from the trans into the TC to shift (might it be specific to models?).  Guess I REALLY Need to get this go-karting prior to body being installed to find out!

Edited August 19, 20204 yr by PilotHouse2500

Well summer has gone with a blink of an eye, but I got a pile of woodworking done to pay for some of the bits on this project.  So, next step will be to bag the truck.  

 

With an eye towards this, has anyone bagged a frame?  So, I need to new location for a new shock mount.  I'm liking location #1 as it is easiest and doesn't mess with the sway bar mounts.  Thoughts?