Manky's Pop.

[Olds]

But is it load bearing tape

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, all hotrods are built with sticky tape -honest.
Nothing new to show, but Loony worked through my list of welding jobs this afternoon. The clevis pins for the door lock assemblies arrived in the post, so the passenger one's set up on the door repair panel, ready to be welded into the door. Took a bit of experimenting to get it working smoothly, but we think we've sussed it now. Loony's away from the 'shop for the next couple of days, but I should be able to carry on rebuilding the door openings while he's gone.

[panthershaun]

might pop down to see you next week mate, I'll ring first,,

[steven brock]

Manky's Pop.

This truck look is growing on me

[Olds]

Me too But with Mankys truck you just get Marcus leaning on the bonnet.

[Manky Monkey]

You wouldn't want to see me in that bathing suit, believe me. She's gonna have trouble driving that in those heels.

[steven brock]

She must be going swimming or summat move on luv I'm trying to take a pic of the truck..

[Manky Monkey]

 
I'm on holiday this week so will be spending every day working on the truck. I'd like to get it MOT'd before the end of the week, but suspect that may be a bit ambitious.
First snow of the year overnight meant it was bloomin' freezing in the shop today. The estate who own the building sent a carpenter to fit a new door this morning, which meant Loony & Loony's Mum were there from 7.30. He really doesn't do mornings! Fortunately for me, that meant he started work on the Pop early, just to keep warm. So by the time I got there he'd welded in the lock mechanism as well as repositioning the interior handle, using a section cut from a spare door, (my knee rested right on the handle in it's original postion). Pulling the interior handle backwards opens the door, while pushing it forwards locks it. For now we're just getting everything fitted & working. We can pretty it up later, although there'll be an interior door panel which will hide a lot of it.

[Manky Monkey]

Exterior handle, with repaired mounting screw threads in another section cut from the spare door, aligned with the lock & welded in place.
We now have a modern "bear claw" latch that operates smoothly from inside & outside the car. The exterior handle moves about 45 degrees before the latch clicks open.

[Manky Monkey]

With that sorted, the next job is to fit the pin on the door frame for the latch to lock onto.

[Manky Monkey]

these are basically allen bolts with an unthreaded shank, supplied with the locks. To give us some adjustment, I made a pair of "cages" containing a 5mm steel plate with the nut for the allen bolt welded to them. These will be welded to a flat piece of sheet that will in turn be welded into the body. That'll give us captive mounts for the pins, with about 10mm of adjustment in each direction to make sure the pin lines up properly with the latch.
Took ages to cut out various pieces of original bracing inside the bodywork to allow clearance for the captive nuts.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[Manky Monkey]

I've also been cutting pieces to fill the gap above the doors. We chopped the roof by 3", but weren't happy with our chopped doors. So I bought another pair from Ebay, alreaady chopped by 4". The narrower windows look more in proportion with the windscreen, but it means we have an inch gap above the doors to fill.
There are various sealing rubbers available from kit car suppliers, so I left a gap of around 10mm between the door & the body & will find a rubber strip to suit later.

[Manky Monkey]

The bodywork's welded directly to the "rollcage", which in turn bolts to the chassis. It's not really a rollcage, just a framework to support the bodyshell -but we got a bit carried away when we built it! So the return edge of the door opening will weld to the frame above the door.

[Manky Monkey]

We fully intend to drive the Pop in all weathers, (though not in today's snow with those skinny crossply tyres if we've got any sense). So we'll need some sort of guttering above the doors to stop the rain finding it's way in. The original gutters were completely rusted away & built up with filler when I bought the car, so have long since been cut away. I think I'll use more of the 8mm round bar we put around the front wheel arches to form a lip on the body above the doors. That'll also tidy up the edge a little. Loony's suggested we create a new swage line, marked here in chalk, to flow into the one around the back of the cab, similar to the ones on model B Fords.