Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

The pick-up bed's currently sat in my number 2 lock-up garage, 50 yards from the other one, with all the other parts waiting to be refitted. I'll get the thing roadworthy again first, then look at it as a separate project.

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

I could get used to this lock-down thing. I'm on holiday at the moment & go back to work next week, so have spent the mornings enjoying a lie-in, listening to the radio, watching stuff on YouTube etc, then after lunch I take a walk over to the garage, put some music on & tinker till early evening. It's like being retired
Today I've sprayed, flatted back & lacquered the number plate thingy. This has taken several months because I was waiting for a mate to fold a piece of steel sheet for me, (it's the off-cut left from making the original plate bracket).
Then I had to cut the end pieces & ask Loony to weld them up for me as I no longer have a welder, or a power supply.
This just alters the angle of the number plate because the original bracket was welded to the weight tube at the wrong angle, (not by Loony).
It sits over the old mount & is held by 3 bolts along the top face & the 2 lights, which screw through the new plate into the old one. A bit of faffing about, but hopefully it'll be fairly unobtrusive.

[Manky Monkey]

In between working on that I've been rubbing down, masking up & respraying various sections of chassis. I still need to repair a couple of chips on the axle, (around the bottom shock mounts), but the rest is done.
I've also fitted mounting clips for the brake & fuel lines.

[stinkey]

Making it FLOATING would look rather cool though 😎👍

[Manky Monkey]

? There are 4 tabs along each side of the chassis that the bed bolted to. I've made a steel platform for the main fuel tank to sit on, that bolts to the front 2 on each side.
I think I could make brackets that bolt underneath those tabs, so I don't have to disturb the fuel tank, then weld or bolt them to the bed sides, so they'd be fairly hidden, (I'm leaving the bed floor out to show the chassis work).
I've been wondering how I can cut the tailgate panel & re-attach it cos it has curved corners, but suddenly realised today I could cut further inboard, either side of the number plate & join it there, where the panel only has a single curviture. That's a long way off yet, but I'm slowly formulating a plan.

[Manky Monkey]

Back to the plot.
I'd forgotten the propshaft flange on the nose of the diff' needed repainting. It got knocked about while Archie & I were messing about with the hub a few weeks ago.
So I've sanded out the chips in the paint, masked everything up & resprayed it. Still got to sort out the dings in the lower shock mounts yet.
Then I cut some rubber pads to sit on the chassis.

[Manky Monkey]

They're just to rubber mount the platform for the main fuel tank. I know it's not proper isolating if there's a bolt passing through them, but if it stops the tank seams leaking because of vibration it's worth doing.
The platform's cut from 5mm thick steel plate, partly because 8 gallons of fuel will be quite heavy & I didn't want the plate sagging, & partly to deliberately add some weight to the back end to compensate for the missing pick-up bed.
I made this & had it powder coated at least a year ago, so it's nice to finally start unwrapping parts & fitting them.
There are 2 brackets that hang below the platform to hold the ends of the handbrake outer sleeves.

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

I've also had the new handbrake cable hanging on the garage wall for ages. The end caps are supposed to locate in the brake backplates. Of course, they don't. So now I'm going to have to try & file them to fit in situ.

[Manky Monkey]

Repainted cross member & handbrake cable routed under the platform.

[Manky Monkey]

I had to rummage through all my spares to find enough stainless Allen bolts, washers & dome nuts to fit the platform to the chassis. With the local tool shop closed indefinitely because of the virus I'll eventually come to a halt when I run out of fixings. I've actually ordered some more dome nuts from Ebay, but who knows when they'll arrive.

[Manky Monkey]

I quite like the look of the back of the truck being completely flat, but I'll need the fuel capacity of the main tank so need to fit it. It looks better when it's sat inside the bed though.
The main tank holds roughly 8 gallons & the reserve, at the back of the chassis, is about 6. Last time I drove the Pop it was doing about 25 to the gallon, so it should have a range of around 300 miles.

[Manky Monkey]

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