WARNING: I do a bit more rambling in this update, so be patient.

11-02-03 - Well, sometimes it seems like I just can't get a break! You read my last update that last weekend I had some minor misfortunes in the shop. My cab cart broke two casters so it couldn't be moved...plus it was misting outside, meaning I couldn't sandblast. Well, I WAS able to do a little bit, but not as much as I'd hoped. I didn't figure it was that big a deal, since I'd have all this weekend to work on it.

I got to the shop about 10AM Saturday morning, knowing I'd have to go like gangbusters to get the cart fixed and still allow myself to get some sandblasting done. To fix the cart, I decided that instead of bolt-on casters, I needed to use something much heavier....like solid wheels with a steel axle. What I did was this: I mounted four smaller hard casters on each corner of the cart and two larger wheels in the center with a slightly lower axle mounting point, which means most of the weight of the cart will be supported by the two larger center wheels. As long as the cab is centered properly on the car, I'll be able to spin and maneuver it. I had the local welding shop cut me 3 steel rods to match the wheels and had them drill two holes in each end for cotter pins on each side of the wheel. I picked these up Saturday morning just before heading to the shop.

To mount the axles, I was just planning on drilling a hole through the oak timbers, sliding the axle through, and sliding the wheels on each end. However, it seemed my trusty old Black&Decker 3/8" drill was already on it's last leg...and forcing an 11/16 auger bit through 4 inches of solid oak totally killed it after drilling two of the six holes needed! There was smoke rolling out from it bad enough I had to open the shop doors to air the place out. So, in the meantime, I ran up to where I work and borrowed a 3/8" drill to finish the job. Got everything drilled and mounted, rolled the cart around on the floor to test it out and patted myself on the back for a job well done.

I then slowly laid the cab back onto the car and tried to push it...but it was really binding somewhere. In fact, when I was pushing on it, I was pushing the cab right off the cart! Hmmmm....WTF?? Since I hadn't installed any handles yet, I bent down and grabbed onto the cart and tried pulling it back towards me, and suddenly the cab came back at me and pinched my hands pretty hard! AHHHH...I see! The taller wheels were JUST slightly taller than the top surface of the cart, and the cab was actually resting slightly on the center wheels.

So...I added another layer of 2x4s to raise the deck a couple inches...and everything is now working great. WOOHOO! Let's roll this puppy outside and get to work sandblasting!!

I just included this shot to show you the damage done to my cart. I took this about an hour prior to it starting to rain, and killing the second caster trying to bring the cab back inside.

Here's a shot of the new and improved cart...just prior to adding the second row of 2x4s but after smashing my hands. (Read the narrative at left for details.)

While rebuilding the cart I propped the cab up with a steel chair. In this shot you can see where the front cab mounts were removed, and the spot welds ground down smooth. I discovered the new cab mounts would NOT clear the old mounts as previously thought, so they had to be completely removed. This took about an hour with the cutoff tool and a grinder.

I walk over to the bay door and throw it open...only to find it just started raining again outside. (At this point I'm almost thinking I should have called it a day!) Well, I had the day to kill, and I really wanted to get SOMETHING done on this project, so I decided to whip out the wire wheel attachment on the angle grinder and do some cleaning up of the cab...to make the sandblasting go faster. I decided to start off with the windshield area. I cleaned as much of the adhesive out of the window channels as I could with a putty knife, and then whipped out the wire wheel. There was a lot of filler in the drip rails, and so I got started there...but as soon as the wire wheel hit the sheetmetal just above the drip rails, it ate right into it!!! DAMMIT!!!!

Here's what I now have to deal with! My mostly rust-free cab isn't nearly as rust-free as originally thought, due to some field mice nests in the truck headliner. If it weren't for the darned mice, this would have been an extremely well-preserved cab!

I was feeling so good about finding a semi-rust-free Midwest cab, one that wasn't eaten away by the salt on the winter highways. The bottom of the cab looks so good...but this truck had been sitting in a field for a long time, and had become a field mouse condo. The area above the headliner was the penthouse, there had been a lot of nests up there. Those nests trapped moisture, which rusted the roof panel from the inside out.

....it was at this point I gave up and went home for the evening. I'd just had enough for one day.

I got up bright and early Sunday morning, re-energized...and bound and determined to get some work done today. I rolled the cab out into the driveway under gray and dreary skies. It was only about 38 degreesF outside (and never got above 40 deg.), and there was a forecast of light rain. However, I decided to just work as long as I could. I laid down a sheet of plastic and then rolled the cab out onto it. (The plastic sheet REALLY makes the sand salvage operations go a LOT faster, since it's much easier to use a pushbroom to sweep up the mess on the slick plastic.) I worked non-stop all day long on the bottom of the cab, and worked until it was literally too dark to see outside. The bottom side is about 99% cleaned off....just have a few nooks and crannies to touch up.

In the middle picture at right you can see my sand filtering system. In trying to come up with a way of filtering the sand after it's been through the blaster and off the ground, I devised this neat gadget which really works great! I got a sealed 55-gal. steel drum and cut off the top 1/3 of it. I then flipped it over and set it back down on top of the lower section. I cut the lid out of the upper section, leaving about a 2"-3" lip around the edges. I cut a round piece of heavy mesh to match the barrel diameter and laid it down into the upper section, and then laid window screen down on top of the mesh. The mesh wire is there simply to support the lighter window screen...but it also serves another purpose. I can sandblast smaller items by simply setting it down into this upper section onto the mesh, and the walls up the upper section catch a major percentage of the sand, simply dropping it down into the lower section, where it can be scooped out. During normal operations I simply sweep up the sand and drop it into the upper section where it filters through the window screen and drops into the lower section. When I'm ready to refill the sandblaster, I simply lift off the upper section and scoop the filtered sand out.

In the lower right picture you can see what I was able to accomplish in an all-day sandblasting marathon. This actually goes a lot slower than one might think...but it's worth it.

Due to other family-related obligations, I can only work on this again this coming Saturday until about 5PM, so I'm really hoping to get the interior floorpan areas sandblasted. Check back to see the progress!

After sandblasting for a few hours, I took a break and shot this. The plastic sheeting in the driveway makes cleanup go much faster than trying to simply sweep this fine sand up off the concrete.

This shot was taken about an hour prior to it getting too dark to work outside. You can see my home-made sand filtering barrel in the foreground.

...and this is what I was able to accomplish with the sandblaster by working virtually non-stop the entire day. I finally got a break in my bad luck streak.