BillyBob Work-in-Progress Log

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

29. Windshield Saga - The Bad

August 14^th 2003  Starting to get ready for this Thanksgiving weekend planned task - replacing BillyBob's leaking, foggy bottom windshield. As usual, I'm gathering many more tools and parts than I'll probably need to cover every continguency and to ward off Murphy.

Started by ordering the Windshield Gasket from Steele Rubber Products online. Steele has the best reputation for an accurate fit and I'll be working against time so I'm going for all the breaks I can get. BillyBob has the Deluxe stainless steel windshield trim so that's the gasket I ordered. It arrived this week.

I want to restore that stainless steel trim while the windshield is out so I got a 1/3 HP buffer from Caswell, Inc. They have a package deal with a starter kit for about a c-note with 6 wheels, 3 compounds and a cleaning rake which I thought was a pretty good deal. Gotta still pickup a stainless steel finishing compound, then I'll have everything I need 'cept the necessary skills.

August 21^st 2003  New 54-55 Windshield arrived from Chevy Duty via Yellow Freight today. I'd ordered this a few weeks ago and got an e-mail notice that it was backordered. Don't need it until Thanksgiving but, just to be on the safe side, I ordered one from Jim Carter. The worst that could happen is that I'd end up with a spare windshield in inventory. Chevy Duty only offers a tinted windshield (top 3 inches blue). Jim Carter also lists a clear windshield which is what I prefer. Middle of last week Carrie, a Chevy Duty rep, calls to find out about shipping and for me to be sure I check for damage before accepting the windshield when it arrived. Later the same day, a Jim Carter rep calls to tell me the clear windshield has been discontinued. The timing worked to my advantage this time. I canceled that order. I'd been anxious about the windshield arriving at the Krash Lab when I wasn't here to inspect it so I irritated my co-workers by repeatedly telling them not to accept this shipment if I wasn't here. But now it was here. Went out to the truck with my trusty Stanley box cutter to check the package . . . Windshield is good. It was a little hard to find in about 25 cubic feet of styrofoam peanuts but I'm not complaining.

November 27^th 2003  T-Day is here. I'm getting a slow start. I'm always a bit hesitant about jumpin' into the deep end of the pool. Parked BillyBob on the backside of the shadetree where he will sit until this job is done. Removed the steering wheel, third party turn-signal director and original turn-signal director which isn't working quite right (Don't ask. I'll report on that when I know what's wrong). Removed the shift linkage lever assembly and took a short detour from the main task to clean up the lower steering column and shift box in the engine compartment. Marked the shift box location on the steering column and removed it. Cleaned and masked off the lower steering column. Applied a 3M Scuff Pad and Eastwood's PRE Paint Prep. Finished off with a couple of coats of Rustoleum Grass Green gloss enamel. The shift box was masked and the same paint treatment given to the shift box shaft that extends into the cab. Shift box and steering column fittings were placed in the tumbler for a cleaning session.

Back to the windshield. Removed the cowl trim at the top of the dashboard. Both ends are rust damaged but the drivers side is the worst. The end bracket and philips screw are gone. Have to get the shop vac out and clean the loose rust out of this area before continuing on. Took out the mirror and headliner next. The retro blue carpet between the headliner and roof was turning brown and falling apart. I tore it out. Underneath was peeling tarpaper which might have been original from the factory. Scraped the worst of that off too. What a mess. Start that shop vac up again.

Can't put it off any longer. Time to cut the old windshield out. I want to do it gently as possible so I have it for a backup if the new windshield doesn't fit. The Installation Instructions (PDF format) that came with the windshield gasket from Steele Rubber Products (and is also provided on their website) sez to "cut the inner lip of weatherstrip above the pinchweld". The old weatherstrip cut easily with my box cutter and the old windshield popped out . . . The rust damage to the pinchweld, dashboard and windshield frame was so extensive, I had to sit down and ponder awhile. One thing's fer shure, this is gonna take a lot longer than four days!

The passenger side isn't much better. I can't think of another place on the truck where the curves are more complex. They are all small and go in many different directions. In the pinchweld area, I have to be dead nuts on if the new weatherstrip is going to fit correctly. Quite a bit for an apprentice "metal bumper" to chew on. While wondering about how to start, I removed the stainless steel windshield trim and clips from the old weatherstrip and labeled them "top", "bottom", "left" and "right". Also removed the glove box door. Masked off the top of the steering column and gave it a new coat of Grass Green Rustoleum.

About all I've decided so far is that I'll tackle the passenger side first including a dent and a 1" hole that has had a piece of rubber stuffed in it since before I became BillyBob's proud owner. There's more room underneath the dash to work too. When I get to the driver side, I'll have to get gauges, wires and switches out of the way. I'm also thinking along the lines of building up a single replacement patch consisting of several smaller patch pieces. I can start over if I screw up too badly without damaging the truck any more. I think there's gonna be a lotta sittin' and headscratchin' on this job so I'm bringing some cigars with me tomorrow. Sun's getting low in the West. Spread a plastic painters drop cloth over BillyBob's cab and taped it down. Put BillyBob's California Car Cover on top of that 'an I'm hoping this is enuf to keep rainwater out of the cab while the windshield job is in progress.

November 28^th 2003  Starting slow today. Still vegetating over my approach to the dashboard ends metal repair. Smoked a cigar and pondered it some more. Finished the shift box cleaning/painting I started yesterday and bolted it back into place.

OK! let's strike out into new territory. I made a cardboard template (file folder) of the pinchweld curve that has to be replaced for the windshield right side. I turned it over and checked it against the left side and it fit well so I think I'm on the right track.

Wanted to try to form the outside portion of the pinchweld replacement first. With this in mind, I measured a piece of sheet steel 18" by 1.5" with a combination square and scribed it with a prick punch. In addition, I scribed lengthwise marks at 0.5" and 1" to divide it into thirds. Cut it out with aviation snips. I got this sheet metal from McMaster-Carr some time ago and it is somewhere between 19 and 20 gauge, I think. Hammered it roughly straight from the curl it got from the aviation snips. Setup the 18" "Mighty Mini-Bender" bending brake I got from Eastwood awhile ago and used it to bend a ninety degree leg at one of the third point scribe marks. I wanted a "Z" shape and the other ninety degree leg had to be bent the other way. I couldn't use the brake for the second bend so, the piece was C-clamped to the edge of the brake and the othe leg was hammered into shape. The hardest thing for me to get used to as a beginner at metalwork is how deformed and lumpy the work is in the early stages.

November 29^th 2003  Chilly today (for South Florida) so I worked inside the Krash Lab while I waited for it to warm up some under the shade tree. Pulled out Eastwood's sheetmetal Stretcher and Shrinker tools that I got some time back. Recently, I also ordered a mounting plate for these two tools. Spent an hour or so shaping the straight "Z" shape piece I made yesterday into the curve required to fit the windshield on the passenger side. Not having an eye for this work yet, I spent a lot of time at it but I finally came up with a fairly close shape to the template. I think these two tools are great! I haven't had this much fun with a simple tool since I discovered pop rivets as a teenager.

November 30^th 2003  It's warmer today but I just puttered around mostly. I trimmed and refined the curved "Z" shape some. I fitted it on BillyBob with C-clamps and it's darn close but this ain't horseshoes. The center section of the "Z" is just a sixteenth inch or so too wide and I've convinced myself to fabricate another one.

December 6^th 2003  Cold front rolling thru and it's cool and windy again today but not as uncomfortabe as last saturday. Dragged the tools out and started cutting out another piece of steel sheet for a new "Z" shape. Measured and marked the middle band to be 7/16" in lieu of 1/2" this time. Used the "Mini Nibbler" (#28012) I got from Eastwood some time back to cut the piece out this time instead of the aviation snips. It made a cleaner edge without deformations (ruffles). Setup the bending brake and repeated last week's exercise to get the basic "Z" shape. Worked with the shrinker, stretcher, aviation snips, hammers and dollies until I got a pretty good curved "Z" shape piece. It's noon and the temperature is starting to go down again ('sposed to hit the forties tonight - this ain't what I moved to South Florida for!).

December 7^th 2003  Cold again this morning but a nor'easter is tearing up my friends in the new england states so I'm gonna quit whinning 'bout it. I've given up the complicated built-up patch panel idea in favor of a "one piece at a time" approach. Setup the air compressor and cut out the damaged area that the new curved "Z" shape is to replace with 3" cutoff wheel and air powered saber saw. Now I need to do a bit more shaping of the new piece before spot welding it into place.

December 13^th 2003  'Sposed to rain tomorrow but it's good weather under the shadetree today. Dragged out the tools including the MIG welder. Cleaned up the areas to be welded with a wire wheel on the air-powered angle grinder and vise-gripped the curved "Z" shape in place. Began with spot welds 'bout an inch apart to keep heat warpage down, then began to fill in between the spot welds with other spots. Burnt a couple of holes an' it's gawdawful ugly but, all-in-all, I think I'm making progress. The alignment of the new metal is good. When I started this morning, I had less than thirty minutes of welding experience. Now I have about thirty minutes more.

Used the four inch electric grinder to smooth the welds. Turned down the setting on the welder a notch and began to build up the holes with weld material. Weld and grind, weld and grind.

December 20^th 2003  Forty-three degrees this morning in sunny Boca Raton. global warming, my hindquarters! This is the third day of a "forecasted" four day cold snap. The Krash Lab is not heated and moving the tools in from the shed requires different logistics in cold weather to keep the heat from escaping the building. Otherwise, Wingnut the parrot is in danger of freezing his giblets off.

Back to where I left off last week. Weld and grind, weld and grind. I keep burning holes due to my lack of skill and unseen rust pockets. Then I have to weld and grind those. One hole that opened up in the cowl last week was almost a quarter inch across. I used a Roper Whitney No. 5 Junior Hand Punch I got from (you guessed it - Eastwood) about a year ago to punch out a little sheetmetal disk to roughly fit the hole. Used a piece of heat resistant tape (from my powder coating tools) to hold it in place long enuf to get a spot weld on it. Weld and grind some more. Looked good enough by late afternoon. Still a few pinholes that I could see by looking up under the dash and I will attend to those tomorrow.

January 3^rd 2004  OK, I got lazy and didn't pull the car cover off BillyBob to work during the long Christmas weekend and New Year's day. Those were good weather days too, and I'm sure Murphy will punish me down the road for not makin' hay while the sun shines. Made a new year's resolution to git back with it 'an here I am.

Decided to take care of the old (antenna?) hole in the cowl today. The metal around the old 1" hole is a bit nasty but I'm gonna try to just weld a new sheet metal disk in the hole and retain as much of the old metal as possible. Started by removing old paint, rust and debris from around the hole with a wire wheel on an air-powered angle grinder and a 3M stripping wheel in the electric drill. The area around the hole is dented in in two places. I used hammer and dolly (off dolly method) to bring back the original cowl contour. Gettin' a little bit better at metal bumpin'.

Put a small piece of file folder cardboard behind the hole and traced the opening with a marker. Glued the cardboard template to a scrap of sheet metal with artists spray adhesive and cut out the disk with aviation snips. Removed the cardboard pattern and trimmed the disk until it fit the hole snugly. Fixed it in place with a welder's magnet and proceded to spot weld the disk in place. The existing metal here is better and the disk was welded and ground down in short order. Went back to finishing up filling the pinholes between the new windshield curved piece and body . . . and back to poor welds and burn holes. I just don't have enuf skill yet for this marginal metal condition. It's like trying to weld steel wool or a boiler under pressure. I'm gonna get it to ninety percent perfect (by my reckoning, of course) and move on.

OK. Ninety percent. Maybe I'll come back to this later when I'm in a "conquer the world" mood. Next piece to form is the interior side of the pinch weld and the defroster vent channel portion of the dashboard. Another multi-curved piece that I might have to make a couple of times before I get a useable one. Think I'll go home to the Krash Pad to ponder my approach. Get a fresh start tomorrow. I'll fall asleep on my sofa. That way I can't get up on the "wrong side of the bed".

January 4^th 2004  Good weather continues. Started out with some maintence on BillyBob and Renegade. Ran BillyBob's engine for an hour to charge the battery and circulate the fluids. BillyBob ran hotter than usual near the end of the session but didn't lose any coolant . . . I'll have to watch that condition fer awhile to see if anything alarming develops.

Back to the next patch panel. Started by scribing off and cutting out another 18" x 1-1/2" strip of sheet metal with the hand nibbler. Used the mini brake bender to make a 1" x 1/2" x 18" "L" shape out of it. I'm not overly happy with the mini bender. It doesn't seem robust enuf for automotive gauge sheet metal. The handles and the bending plane itself bends almost as much as the sheet metal. The job has to be finished with a hammer. Next, the shrinker tool was used to put the windshield radius curve on the new piece. Now I gotta start judiciously trimming the new piece down to fit. At some point I'll have to cut away some more dashboard material but I'm not there yet.

January 7^th 2004  Last night, another '55 1st Series Stovebolter, Dave Shirlin, who hails from Hendersonville, North Carolina, was in Fort Lauderdale on business and he came by the shadetree garage to see BillyBob in the rough and talk old trucks for a few hours. My boss, Derek, came out back to join us an' we all enjoyed the opportunity to tell our tales to someone new. Dave has restored his truck, christened Clarabel by his children, to the point I hope to be with BillyBob five years from now and she can be seen at the stovebolt.com gallery. Dave's image is a bit fuzzy around the edges 'cause the camera caught him in mid time-warp transition between the present and 1955 which happens to people when they get close to BillyBob.

January 10^th 2004  No rain showing on the doppler radar but it's overcast and misty out so I'll post this log entry while I wait for conditions to improve a bit. The windshield has turned out to be a major undertaking and, I'm estimating, two more log entries to complete. They will be the next log entries in the series 'cause I can't run BillyBob without a windshield an' I got the "jones" to drive him again on a daily basis. The other tasks in progress will have to be put on the back burner until BillyBob is back on the road again.

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Issued Saturday January 10, 2004

Updated Wednesday February 21, 2018

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