Classy Shak

[Dreamweaver]

Hello All,

Well today I built my mirror brackets. I modeled them after the 2006 to present brackets. All I need now are the mirrors.

I even built the blind spot mirror "L" brackets.





Nice and straight...





Just like on the 1:1 trucks, all that sticks out past the sleeper is the mirror and the outside hoop.





Making progress..





Got the sleeper ready for paint, and the cab is just about there.

-Mike

[Dreamweaver]

Howdy,

Well I got the paints picked out to day, and I got the painter at my families body shop to agree to help me paint the truck. (later got to finish it first)

Since I can not find a paint chip of the color, I will post a pic of my 2006 "Award Winning" Pete show truck. I am using the same exact colors as on this truck. Boy I really loved this truck.. Some farmer in South Dakota owns it now, minus the sleeper.



And the inside with my 1st place plaque.




It's a little hard to see to much of the purple, but it is a stock Peterbilt color so we have the paint code for it at the shop... easy to make the painter says.

This picture was taken in SLC at the SLC truck show August of 2006. The truck was just right at one year old.


This was my third show truck that I built. (keep in mind I never owned any of them, I was just stupid enough to spend my hard earned money on them) I got this truck brand new (25 miles on her, plastic still on the seats, bed, and carpet in the sleeper) I was driving for one of this companies owner operators. He decided to pull his truck off their fleet and go back to running under his authority, so when he did that JFI asked me to stay with them, offered me more money and then bought me this brand new truck. The truck I was driving for the owner operator was also a show truck, my second one to be exact.

This truck was bought straight white, no lights or anything else. They gave me the keys a phone number to the local Pete dealer, and a phone number to the man that did the vinyl graphics for the company, and then told me go have the paint, lights, and graphics done how I wanted them...

I designed the graphics my self on this truck and had the finders painted this purple and all the lights put on it.

In the second picture you see the peddles, I built those out of Red Oak. NO ONE but me ever drove this truck while I was assigned to it. The mechanics would have to do all the work on the truck either why I was there, or I would pull it in and then they would have to call me to come take it out or leave it inside till the next morning when I got there. The whole time I drove this truck to the best of my knowledge no one ever wore shoes inside the truck.

First thing in the morning when I would get up I vacuumed the floors and seats, wiped down the dash, washed the windows inside and out, and then weather permitting I would use my California Duster on the paint, and every time I stopped I would dust it again.

I was always anal about my trucks, and because of that I was always rewarded with new trucks. I have been driving for 23 year, and in that time I have had 19 brand new trucks all of which had never been driven other than at the factory and around the sales lot.

These have been just about even between Pete's and W900's maybe just a few more Pete's.

I know these trucks like the back of my hand, inside, out side, top to bottom, all I have to do is think of a part and I can see it in my mind.

-Mike

[Dreamweaver]

Howdy All!!!

Well today I think I lost it. I spent 6 hours building the radiator for the truck and the core of it won't even be easily seen.

I used all but 1.5" of one 12 x 6 sheet of .010" styrene to build this.

I first sent the sheet of styrene through my paper shredder to achieve several 9/32" wide strips. The strips came out with a slightly serrated edge which I left it gave quit a good effect.

I then took some of the strips and chopped them up into 1/16" pieces. Then the fun began. I cut the other strips into pieces 2 1/4" long then welded 5 of the little piece to that then laid another strip on that and kept going from there till I had a core 1 1/4" high. ( I did this in two parts that is why the crooked line of the spacers But I am not re-doing it.)

Then I built a fan shroud for it, and a top and bottom tank with the hose connection. (Bottom hose connection not shown in pictures)

Now You have to look just right to see the core in the shroud and I am now going to build another one slightly narrower for the charge air cooler. So therefore when that is done you won't even be able to see the core on the radiator, but hey at least I know it's there and accurate, and now you all do as well..









-Mike

[Dreamweaver]

Well today I received an envelope from Lynn. (tc1cat)

I asked him to make me basically a brass washer 1/2" in diameter with a 2-56 hole in it. I needed this part to finish the air-to-air on the motor. Well with out pause Lynn got them made and to me.

So today I got the air-to-air all but finished, I still need to build the core for the cooler it self, I got to wait till Friday when I can get to the hobby shop and get some .010 x .156" strips. (Two paper shredders but they both shred at 1/4") I got the case made last night.

I got the mail today at 3pm and had this completed by 4:30.













Lets see if anyone can explain this. Look in the last picture of the front of the engine looking in the end of the hood. Now look at the distance between the frame rail and the hood on both sides. The right side of the hood is closer to the frame rail, which means the hood is not sitting right.

Now I have taken a straight edge and went from back of cab to the end of the hood on both sides and measured the gap at the point where the hood meets the cab. I get exactly the same measurement on both sides.

I have measured the hood standing on end at the same locations on both sides of the hood and get exactly the same measurements.

I have measured the new cowling where the hood meets it on both sides and get exactly the same measurement.

I have taken a straight edge and placed it next to both frame rails and they are straight.

I have measured under the cab from the same spot on both sides to the frame, Yup both the same also.

No matter where I measure I come up with the same measurements on both sides of the truck, but the hood still don't fit square.

If I move the hood over to where I got the same measurement at the front of the hood to frame then I have just slightly over a 32nd of an inch gap on the left side of the hood at the cowling.

Anyone got any ideas?




I also got the sleeper mounted finally. I made some L brackets out of brass and attached them on the outside of the frame using the top crossmember bolt and then attached them to the floor supports on the floor of the sleeper. Just like they did the old rigid mounted sleepers.

I then got the stacks remounted with the mounts in the proper locations and used some aluminum cone washers as the spacers.

It's hard to see in this picture but the stacks are flush on the outside with the side of the sleeper, and this time they are actually straight both up and down and front to back. Of course it is a good thing you can't see the part of the stack where the holes go. **** it only took me drilling 4 sets of holes to get it right.. Well 5 sets if you count the first ones I drilled. I must have been brain dead but the way I drilled the first holes, well lets put it like this. I could use them holes to mount the pipes to the front of the sleeper.



-Mike

[Dreamweaver]

Ok just figured out the hood problem. I actually looked at my pictures and saw it. The front of the hood is crooked. When I set it on a flat surface I get the same measurements on both sides form the ground up but when I take the straight edge and place it next to the hood I have a gap of almost a 16th at the top on the left side and at the bottom on the right side.

So how do I go about fixing that?

-Mike

[Dreamweaver]

Hi All!!

Been a long weekend. I got off Friday night at 11pm got home at 11:30 then had to put on the awesome little items I got in the mail that morning from Lynn. I got to bed at 5:30am and then got up at 8am and helped my brother move all day. I got home from that at 10pm and commenced to working on the truck till 7:30am at which time I went to bed, just to get woke up at 10am to go help the brother more.

It is now 11:15pm and I am sitting here trying to catch up on the forum and then get some updates done.


So here we go. Thursday I got a package from New Zealand that contained my front suspension. This is the one thing I was needing to get the fenders made and the hood attached.

Then Friday morning I got a package from Lynn containing the mirrors I asked him to build for me.

First the mirrors.. THANK YOU LYNN what can I say, I sent him a drawing of what I wanted along with a 1:1 picture and he sent me perfection. I could not be happier.









In the above picture if you look at the blind spot mirror, I asked Lynn to make them convex so that I could polish them and then they would look like the real thing. Well I got an email back from Lynn saying that he was going to make them a little different than I originally wanted because on the 1:1 mirrors you can clearly see that the mirror is held in the case by a rubber gasket. So he was going to make them just like the 1:1's.

Well I got the mirrors, they consisted of the case and the mirror insert. So that when I put them together they look like the mirror is inside the case.. Because they are....

Sorry I don't have any pictures of one completed yet but here is a picture that Lynn sent me when he was building them.

~Mike~

[Dreamweaver]

Next I moved on to finally mounting the sleeper. I was struggling with this one because I needed the sleeper to be perfectly centered and could not figure out how to assure that by drilling down through the floor and hitting the legs on the rails.

I solved this problem by making some L-brackets out of some brass angle and then attaching them to the top bolt on the cross members and then centering the sleeper to the frame and drilling up through the floor.

Now keep in mind that I am mocking this up on a stock frame, then after everything fits I will transfer the holes to the new full length rails. So as you can imagine this requires me to assemble and dis-assemble the truck several times. I put it together work on an area and then take it apart and drill the rails on the drill press. After fighting with the rear motor mounts three or four times I finally wised up and soldered the bolts to the mount, now it takes a matter of a minute or so to pull and replace the motor.

Here is the bottom of the sleeper.




Next I was assembling the truck again after drilling some holes for the rear shackles on the front end, when I made the mistake of attaching both the cab floor and the sleeper floor first. Well because I did this, and with the way the pipes are built, I could not get the **** cab back on until I removed the sleeper floor again.

So I figured I am not going to do this again, and I really wanted to get rid of the unsightly screws under the doors that hold the cab to the cab floor, so I redid the underside of the cab floor and made some L-brackets for it as well. I then drilled and tapped some holes on the front firewall and on the back of the cab in order to mount the cab to the floor.. Great idea, it works beautifully, just one thing... I still have to remove the sleeper floor to get the back screws out... Oh well at least you can't see them.







Now on to the front suspension.

After picking Master Builder Brian's brain (wow look at that same letters just different order--no wonder he is so smart) I saw how he moved his front axle forward and thought that would work for me but I could not do it exactly like him because if you remember I have the clearance issue with the oil pan.

Well what Brian did was to rotate the front of the front spring hanger up and then twist the front spring eye. The first moved it up to lower the truck and then the second moved the axle forward as well as up a little.

Now I had to figure out how to move my axle forward and keep it at stock height at the same time. I unfortunately had to accomplish this in an "un-prototypical" way.

What i did was to mount the hanger in the stock position and then I bent the eye of the spring way back and up at the same time. I was able to get the axle right where I wanted it.

Ah but this caused me a couple hours of head scratching and looking over several pictures by a bunch of you to figure out why in the heck I could not get my axle in the right place. Brian told me that he moved his back shackle forward about a half inch and that after doing his mod on the spring he was sitting at one and a half inches from the front of the frame rails to the center of the axle. I noticed that in the pictures he sent me that the rear shackle was almost straight up and down and that it was as he said about a 1/2" forward of where it was. I set my axle the same way and put the hood on and it was still to far back.

Then I noticed in the pictures Rick (Bucshott) sent me of his hood hinges on the Moving on truck, that the end of the hood was flush with the end of the frame. Well I bent the springs some more till I got them about where I needed them and moved on to making my hood hinges like Rick's.

I built the first set of hinges and installed them and WOW I got it bang on the first time. I felt real good about my self till I opened the hood and noticed that the bottom of the grill hit the bumper mount when the hood was at a 90° angle. Well I figured if they hit that that the hood would barely open with the bumper on it.

So I went surfing and found a picture of a Pete hood hinge and made a second set of hinges just like them. I got the same result. Now I'm getting ****ed I sat there for another hour trying to figure out what the crap was going on. Then like as if someone hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat, I looked at the cab and started cussing up a storm, I found my problem. See the hood sat 1/4" to far forward, because I added a 1/4" to the front of the cab.... DAHHHHH

After some thought I decided that I can easily solve the problem by having a custom front bumper made and then moving the part of the hinge that is mounted to the front spring hanger forward till it is just behind the bumper, just like on the 1:1's.


Hood Hinges:











Front Springs:




As for the oil pan clearance, from the measurements I got from one of you guy's, I figured that the clearance would be about a 16th of an inch, and that is what I turned out to be.







Now for the fenders.

I went to HD as per Brian's direction and got some 4" ABS end caps which measured out to be the same size as the piece of the black pipe street 45 that Brian said to get, but the ABS is a lot thinner than the black pipe and closer to scale. I used the end cap because it already has the end on it that I used to mount the fender so I did not have to glue one on.

I made the fender spacers by holding the hood with the front flush to a straight edge and then measuring the distance at the front and back of the fender, then made them as a box out of styrene. As Brian did with his, my fenders will be held on by three bolts so that they can come off for easier painting and can be fine tuned for placement in final assembly.

All I have to do now is figure out how to cut them down to size for width, and do it straight..







Now keep in mind that the sides of the fenders will come down to the tires like the olden day fenders.

~Mike~

[kaptain Jack]

I just took few snap shots of the rudder and servo links,but as usual it failed to upload.If you want you can Email me and I'll send you the pictures.IAMJACKIAM@HOTMAIL.CA. Jack

[Goodwin3224]

Thats going to be an awesome truck. Nice work