Work has progressed well during the last week. Cab steelwork is all primed. Engine fan has been reassembled, painted and fitted to the engine; it is clear this is the correct size fan. I cut, drilled , primed and fitted a replacement vertical edging strip for the destination box access hatch in the cab to replace the rusty and bent original. The “Low Racks” labels for the seat backs arrived and look perfect.
Tag Archives: cab
25/02/2023
At long last I have been able to restart work. Left since the end of November, the steering column, dashboard, side window frame and exterior dash panel were showing signs of surface rust; working over three days for approximately an hour at a time this has been cleaned off and primer applied using No. 1 rust beater for added rustproofing. Prior to this, whilst laid up, I was able to design artwork for the plastic “Low racks” labels for the seat backs and these are currently being made by Patten Screen Print.
Today I reassembled the engine cooling fan and sprayed it silver and painted the fron dash panel with a second coat of primer. i also prepared the engine-side cab interior panel for painting next week.
23/10/2022
Reflecting how the pace of work has slowed, it’s over a month since the last entry. However work has proceeded in the cab and around the front end generally. All the paint that needs to be removed from the cab is gone; the metal sections of the floor have all been painted and are ready to be refitted, the top faces in primer only, ready fro the brown that is used throughout the cab. Two major jobs have been done, removal of the radiator which took me and Ian about five minutes and then removal of the incorrect, too large (ex-Matador) engine cooling fan. This defied all attempts to remove it in the normal way with a puller, including application of a great amount of heat. Cutting away the majority of the fan followed, to gain access to the central boss which I carefully ground along the top of the key way. Thinning the boss with the grinder enabled it to be split away from the shaft and the remains pulled off. This revealed that the fan is a primitive form of viscous fan with friction material between the aluminium fan blades and the steel drive boss.
Back in the cab, the windscreen frames have returned from the chromers and look fantastic. A large amount of filth has been cleaned from the front offside chassis frame, pedals, gearchange box and steering box in preparation for priming and silvering. Once this has been done the floor can be reinstated and replacement fabricated for the rotten step plate.
At the back, the offside rear wheel housing cover has been painted and reinstalled, although it seemed satisfactory and all the holes lined up with the (new) mounting bracket, there are some gaps visible internally which will need to be attended to with rubber strip. A new wooden cover was made for the steel mounting bracket which showed how badly the steel cover fitted and the gaps between the two were sealed with dum dum ready for painting. The original wooden cover was refitted on the nearside at this time too. Both were painted before fitting but will need final finial finishing with paint.
Whilst the radiator is off, the opportunity has been taken to clean the front of the engine and treat with Vactan some of the surface rust on the steel pipework. This gives a tidy, durable finish without the need for further painting.