Alaska red crewcab build thread

When I pulled my vinyl mat the insulation beneath was still wet though it hadn’t rained in a week or so. I had my windshield leaking in the top corner of the drivers side and it would land in the same spot you mention.

I'll check that corner of the dash and windshield, Scotty. It's time for a new windshield, anyway. This is a typical Alaskan windshield: it has some cracks. The cracks on this one are in front of my face and catch the sun, so it'll need to be changed out eventually.

Lots of rocks and tree branches hitting it? Mine’s cracked with a nice bit of moss growing.

No, mainly cold. Glass cracks in the cold. House window glass very rarely cracks, but auto glass often does. Mainly it's windshields because of the stone chips, but I've know auto door windows to shatter in the cold, too.

Rust pictures, passenger side first:

Then driver side, with hole:


My son will pick up some POR15 in Fairbanks, and I'll have it Wednesday.

I figure I'll douse everything that looks suspicious with the POR, then epoxy on a little chunk of metal to cover that hole, then more POR and some peel and stick bituthane for sound deadening and water-proofing.

Looks almost the same as mine. Funny the door seal rusts right at the gap. I plan on filling that with some sealant when the new ones are in. Lets hope we both get good results the the POR.

Yesterday I got the driveshafts, transfer case and transmission out. My wife spent most of a day cleaning the crud out of crevices inside the cab. The engine should be out by the end of next weekend, unless something comes up.

I'm spotting things I'll need to order:
New passenger side door gasket. *Ordered from LMC* The other three are OK.
New ujoints for both driveshafts, and new pillow block for the rear.
New gaskets for both differentials. Rock Auto wants $50 to ship them to me! Ordered FEL-RDS55394 and FEL-RDS60951 from Summit.
Shocks. Bilstein 24016179 and 24016186 ordered from Rock Auto.
I'll add to this list as I notice stuff.

nelstomlinson said:

I'll try that this evening after church. It does have to come out. The red cloth covering is gone, and the thin layer of foam above the cloth is crumbly and needs to be gently wire brushed off by hand. I'll cover it with red vinyl if I can find some, or some kind of red cloth if I can't find vinyl.

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Being Alaska... Red and black flannel?

When I installed new door gaskets, I oriented the gap to the lower A-pillar. The outside of the hollow tube already has drain holes punched through the rubber tube there so you don't need to worry about water getting trapped. By doing this, it's also much less likely for the gasket to get torn through regular use.

David, you mean that the joint is at the front of the door, a foot or so above the floor, right? That's the way the ones I pulled off were installed.

nelstomlinson said:

David, you mean that the joint is at the front of the door, a foot or so above the floor, right? That's the way the ones I pulled off were installed.

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Yup, that's how I installed the new gasket sets. Every truck I've seen of this vintage has the joint right in the middle of the door sill.

The new seals I put in may not be the first new seals this one gets. The previous owner had kept up with the little stuff pretty well.

I'm going to have to stop taking parts off. Every time I take something off, I look at what I unbolted it from and want to take that off, too. This could easily turn into a frame-off extravaganza, and I don't have time for that. This needs to be back together well before the end of summer, because I have to have a reliable truck for this winter, and this isn't my only essential project.

I made a little progress this weekend. We got the front floor of the cab POR'ed, and got the inside cleaned out nicely. We are ready to start reassembling the inside of the cab.

We got the engine out. It turns out that the engine with everything on the front is a tiny bit too long to come out easily, but it came out!
Starting to lift:

And the empty engine bay with the old engine sitting in front of it:

I have too many parts sitting in the shop!

nelstomlinson said:

It turns out that the engine with everything on the front is a tiny bit too long to come out easily, but it came out!

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That's why I leave the brackets, but remove the accessories and the crank and water pump pulleys. It comes out easier then.

Wow, I've been side-tracked for over three months by summer. Summer is pretty well gone now, and I'm sidetracked by getting ready for winter, which is just around the corner.

The problem with my wife's Subaru turned out to be a loose cam belt pulley on the end of the crank, which allowed the keyway to get wallered out, and the pulley-cam alignment was randomly drifting by about 30 degrees. The machine shop says there is no fixing that, and no machine shop will touch bottom end work on a Subaru. So, I bought a rebuilt short block from the dealer and I'm having a local mechanic put it in. I'm learning that I have to delegate everything I can, and this is something I can delegate.

The garden has been expanded, fenced, and refenced after the moose broke through, and there is still some work to do on the fence. The final configuration will be 8 foot tall 2-1/2" heavywall boiler tube posts with high-tensile wire mesh on them, then an electric wire at waist level on separate posts about 3 feet outside. Then I fired up the loader and cleared some new garden area outside the fence as well, and ran the rototiller over it, and pulled up roots. I'll have about half an acre ready to plant next summer.

I turned that old pickup frame into a trailer. I stripped everything but the bed and fuel tanks off the frame, put a Sterling axle under it, and chopped the frame off short and bent the ends in to meet a new tongue. I have bolted on a hydraulic surge brake hitch, and I'll eventually put new brakes, seals and wheel bearings on that Sterling and have a trailer with fancy brakes.

The trailer matches the red truck: it's old and it's red!

I had a friend come over Friday, and he did the welding. He's a far better welder than I. I told him he saved me two or three grinding wheels. I looked over his shoulder and handed him rods, and I learned a bit.

We put a piece of channel between the frame rails, then supported the tongue while we welded it onto the front of the channel. Then we notched and scored the frame rails in front of the channel and bent them in, and welded them to the tongue.

Meanwhile, enough diesel had leaked out of the tanks that the welding set the ground on fire. It was a windy day, and we couldn't smell the fumes, but we felt the heat and started madly scraping dry gravel over the flames. No harm done, except to the wiring harness. After that, I scrounged up enough hose to reach and soaked everything down. Those creosote soaked timbers were smoking, and ready to catch.

We are using this as a trash shed, to keep our trash in and the dogs and ravens out of it. Now we'll be able to hitch it up and drag it to the dumpster.

I left plenty of room on the front for a 100 gallon fuel tank, or a tool box, or both. Some day I'd like to take a trip up the Dalton to Prudhoe Bay, and last time I was up there fuel was double what it cost in Fairbanks. Coldfoot is the only gas station between here and there, so having 100 gallons of fuel and a set of spare tires would be a good idea.

Before I can do anything cool like that I need to finish this red truck project. I guess I better get back onto that one.