PilotHouse2500

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Work for the day.

have you seen the milk prices? My brother runs the small family dairy farm my grandfather started...he's seen his value drop 35% due to this. Working on razor thin margins before...he's now losing money for each gallon produced. Milk is being dumped across the country and dairies are being told to cull cows....yet auctions for animals are being closed due to the virus...what do you do? Farming is all he's done his whole life and at 60 he has no 401k to fall back on.... The globalist and socialists are loving this panic and fear based suspension of our civil rights.

IMO, we've gotten to the point where the cure is now worse than the disease. Here in MN, the last few years kids have started to get days off for it being "too cold for the kids"...maybe dress the properly...this reaction will now be the norm for anything in the future.

well, with the virus causing potential financial issues to all in the country, my plans for this spring and summer are now on hold: 1. rebuild the engine 2. buy the rad and rad box made 3. get the frame bagged 4. get the frame stripped and repainted 5. seats 6. steering wheel I'm now back to basics that I can afford without dropping thousands: 1. finish the cab welding 2. front clip repair 3. design and build the front clip frame and hinge for tip up clip 4 doors? Just hoping to to hold onto my job after all of this (like 95% of the rest of the country).

Late to the party here. But what do you want to know after thinking about it for a while? I actually work at the Cummins Power Gen plant in Fridley MN supporting the 10-250kW diesel and spark gen sets from an engineering standpoint. I'd be glad to offer as much knowledge as I can.

I think he means the jeans I have laying over the NV4500 to keep it from getting marked up from weld spatter.

I don't mind a little hijacking...means people actually are reading about my insanity! I moderate a classic Dodge website so I see plenty of it. Meanwhile my most recent install below w/ butcher block tops and the funky corner cabinet I built, floating shelves to be installed after the tile goes in. I don't like the concrete tops as stated they are a PITA and time consuming and almost 100% will crack someplace over it's life. Our kitchen (cherry one above) we did the quartz tops...wife likes it so I like it!

thanks for the compliments on both types of projects! Sadly (?) I mostly end up doing kitchens...involves install and all that crap vs/ just dropping off a chine hutch. Few examples below.

the pants already have holes in them, that's why I'm using them! as for the metal aspect, I'm learning, my neighbor is teaching me, and I've been around sheet metal for 30 years as an engineer, so it's just learning to look at it different than the wood projects I can do in my sleep. As a friend asked me "are you a grinder or a welder?" My reply was a grinder learning to be a welder. Most of welding is time, and LOTS of beads being put down. I'm still learning my welder after having it for 7 years. I've been a wood worker for 40+ years, I do many projects each year, lots of kitchen remodels andmudroom lockers, but my heart is in furniture.

Welded in! Can pull the cab and spend hours finishing the welding and grinding!

Trans tunnel built, ready to install

keepin' the sparks off the pretty paint!

FLOOR!

Floor supports in Floor fit and ready for beading and then welding in.

It had a little play in it...need to fix the steering box!

prepping for the rest of the floor....and making "vroom vroom" sounds

yep already loose and slidy to figure the firewall placement.

ok, I'll try that this weekend when I have time. Right now the shifter is free sliding on the pivot linkage (I don't want to take anything apart I don't have to, those grommets SUCKED!). It's clean now because it's new...give 50k miles and ask me again!