DieselDeere

Got her unmasked and put the hood cushions on the cowl with some stainless hardware and pulled her outside to clean the shop and take down the temporary walls. I know the floor is still stained but everything else stayed clean haha. the plan this week is to get it up on jackstands and clean and paint the frame. The same friend who helped me paint is going to help color sand and buff towards the end of the week. I finally found some double faced lights for the fenders with a black housing that werent LED so once those show up I can put those and the headlights in.

decided to paint the jams and the cab last night, then do the hood this morning while the cab was masked off to make things more manageable. the paint laid out pretty decently considering the conditions we were painting in. There is one run in the hood that will have to be addressed, but I should be able to sand that out once the paint is harder. Im not too concerned. I'm also not a body man haha. Between the primer, sealer, 2 gallons of color and all the little supplies i figure i have about $750 in the paint job. I'm anxious to unmask it and even more anxious to clean the shop.

between monday and tuesday nights i have about 9 hours in wetsanding. All thats left is the roof and whatever touch up areas i see once i wash the sludge off. Still on track for color friday night.

Yes they are bulb. I was more in search of the housings and lenses. I am currently undecided as to do LED or not only because my trailer is LED and I would like them to match. It will really all depend on what i find for Double Faced lights for the fenders. I think i might compromise with regular lenses, and then put LED bulbs in the original sockets. That way the lights look original during the day, and less like some Fast and Furious tail lights. I'm still looking though.

Well.... its all one color again. I found a few little blemishes that i missed, which I can address in a few days once this primer cures. Also, my new cab lights were on my back porch waiting for me yesterday afternoon. If all goes well, it will be black next weekend.

I've always liked that body style. maybe one day ill find one. I didnt have much time last night, but I was able to get the plastic hung with some help from the wife. I also picked up some primer on the way home from work yesterday. I just need to address a few small areas and I should be shooting primer on saturday.

I don't know if I can commit to Macungie yet. I want to be able to put quite a few miles on her before i take it that far. And yea, the priming issue was partially self induced. I was sucking air from my 5 gallon can due to the pickup tube that i made. Fires up everytime without issue now. Good eyes. its a 87 Monte Carlo SS

Friday afternoon I called the polisher and he said the wheels would be ready Saturday morning. Picked those up early on Saturday then went on a goose chase for 10 valve stems. A friend of mine offered to bring his spoons and cheetah tank over and help me mount the tires Saturday afternoon, so while the offer was on the table I wanted to make sure I was ready with valve stems. I was also able to make the rubber pads for the hood to rest on on the cowl to hopefully prevent any more cracking in the future. I found some 1/2 rubber mat that i cut into 2x3 pieces and then counterbored for 1/4-20 phillips head. The last main hurdle before primer this coming weekend is to deal with some pesky nutserts in the aluminum on the roof and some in the doors, that just want to spin. Once i get those straightend out, I just need to dress up the door jams and do some masking. (sounds really quick when i type it)

I come to steam show every year. as for tractors i have a 40c, 60, and an 80. I brought my 80 to steam show back in the fall and parked with the John deere club. I also pulled in the street truck class on thursday night. (this is one reason why i wanted this General. not that i dont trust my Duramax, but i dont like making a couple passes down the pulling track, then hook up the gooseneck and drag 20,000 pounds home)

thats the place. It sure looks like nothing from the street until you get back there.

I'm not a big fan of de-railing build threads, but I had to post some pictures because it's just such a cool place to wander through. (as long as you are back to the office by 11:45 because they leave for lunch at noon according to the older woman at the desk haha)

Pretty big update. yesterday i had an opportunity to wander around 30 acres of a truck graveyard about an hour from me that (from what i understand) isnt usually open to the public for free range. So, like most of you would, I took a vacation day and capitalized on that opportunity, and boy am I glad i did. I was able to find every part I needed. I got 1 exterior door handle, two interior door handles, a drivers door latch (all functioning with good springs), a grab handle to put on the passenger side for the wife, and a complete ash tray assembly for on top of the dash with the elusive flop down door intact all for $80. The general, and the two Astros that I got the parts from, were some of the newest trucks in the yard. You really had to see it in person to comprehend how many trucks are tucked back in the woods, so i took a few pictures including some Macks since afterall I might as well post something Mack related at least once on this forum. When I got home I used the balance of my vacation day to install the new to me drivers door latch and adjust the striker so that door shuts properly, and I combined the 3 handles I got with the two that were on the truck to get 2 exterior handles that function properly and look pretty decent. And then tonight since I suffer from a disease called "while I'm here, I might as well" i removed the cab lights and horns to properly clean them and make the roof easier to paint. I dont think I have any good pictures of the back of the cab when i got the truck but it was pretty smashed up so over a long period of time ive been pulling out the crunched aluminum and making it straight again. JT will probably realize the difference the most.

Thats pretty cool. There will never be too many General pictures on this thread. From the factory it appears there was a foam pad that got squished down to roughly 1/8 inch so i plan to copy that when it goes together for good. I still have yet to make the lower piece to tie in the 3rd lower bolt. Also, there is 3/8 rubber between the two pieces of angle iron as well. As much as i hate to admit it, just a lot of hand sanding with 180, then 320, then some aggressive harbor freight compound with some harbor freight buffing wheels. about 20$ in supplies haha.

I got some pesky details worked out this weekend which put me one step closer to paint. I got the lower stack mounts tacked together saturday. 1/4" plate and 3/8" wall 4 inch box tubing is probably overkill but i'll never have to worry, plus i already had the materials. I wanted to get the exhaust 100% finalized before paint since i had to put holes in the driver side of the cab. Today i got the upper stack brackets made. I couldnt find a factory driver side bracket, which didnt really bother me because the stacks are back a little further than the original one on the passenger side. I did this so i could put a matching grab handle on the passenger side and the stack wouldnt be in the way. on that note, if anybody on here knows of a general with a grab handle for sale (driver or passenger) i need one to match the one i already have. I made the top brackets as simple as possible out of some angle iron laying around. I need to add a lower portion to both sides of the truck side brackets to reach the lower hole, but what i made got me through the mock-up process. I still obviously have to do some trimming to make the angle iron look less like angle iron and more like a purposeful bracket. I also took two scraps of pipe and tacked them together to see what a 36" topper would look like. lastly, friday night i had to meet the wife for a happy hour her work was having in the city, so i called the tire shop and they had 2 General steer tires on the shelf, so i grabbed them while i was there. I called the wheel polisher because i should have had them by now and he said its taking him a lot longer than he thought because he and I didnt realize that out of the 10 wheels i brought him, 9 were originally steers so the dished part of the wheel for the outside drives had never been finished. oh well, time will tell how they come out.

Priming and paint is getting closer and closer. The past few days I've been working on filling dings and fixing cracks in the hood and door. The major crack in the hood along the air intake was about 10" long but it stiffened right up with some panel bond. I've also started to layout my "paint booth" I strung some nylon rope from the front wall to the lift post and from the lift post to the side wall, using ratch straps and tensioners. I'll hang plastic from this to try and keep some overspray out of the rest of the shop. i also plan on covering the pallet racking and backside of the garage door when i actually start spraying which will probably be two weeks from now. I got word today the my wheels should be done by saturday so i'm excited to see them.

I didnt get a whole lot done in the past week because I had to work on other things. I was able to get the passenger side fuel tank (the one without dents) cleaned, sanded, and polished. still needs a second polish but it looks a lot better already. I'm anxious to get the wheels back from the polisher to see how they look. I just want the tanks to match the wheels haha. I also found a smoking deal on 8 virgin drive tires on ebay, and they showed up yesterday. They were Generals. How can you not not put Generals on a General? I still need to find some steer tires but thats not a huge deal. Does anybody on here somewhat local to me have any interest in a set of 8 drives and 2 steers on steel budd wheels? There are 6 almost perfect wheels that would clean up and powdercoat nice, and the other 4 have some pitting from water sitting in them. The tires all have good tread (re-caps), but the casings are all in various stages of cracking.

Funny you mention that, the past two nights I spend making two nice headlight assemblies (because i'm sick of sanding) and I noticed that. I ended up using the buckets and trim rings from the smurf and the lights from the blue hood. The smurf pieces sandblasted and painted up pretty well and I was able to get all the adjusters loosened up and lubricated without breaking any of the female thread plastic standoffs.

made some good progress this weekend. Saturday morning i went and picked up a set of 10 alcoas for a decent price and dropped them off with the polisher. He said 2 weeks so im anxious to see how they turn out. I've been sanding the hood and cab quite a bit but the way i had it parked in the barn I could not reach the top of the hood when it was tipped up because it was so close to the door. I figured i would just pull it out and turn it around but that proved to be easier said than done. Since i removed the lubrifiner I figured all I had to do was hook the two lines together however I realized one is a -6 and the other fitting is a hybrid-6 where the threads are a different diameter but the ID is the same. I would assume this is to foolproof it so you cant hook the feed to return and vice-versa. Since this fitting is so rare I knew i couldnt come up with one I ended up changing the fitting in the block to a regular -6 so i could just hook the -6 hose right to the block to complete the loop. Once that was done I went to move it and the right rear brake was locked up which forced me to spend some time and break all the slack adjusters loose so i could free up the stuck shoe. I found one thing interesting when i was sanding. It looks as though when the truck was yellow, it was still a Best Paving truck as evident by the identical marking on top of the yellow paint but below the blue.

Well...... I cant stand the look of straight pipes up the side of a cab, especially on older trucks where i associate a heatshielded muffler with their look. So I picked these up new for cheap (120$) for the pair and i will most likely cut the bottom baffle out and sleeve the whole length with a section of straight pipe. That way i get the look I want, and the sound i want.

I got the stacks almost finalized tonight. Really wish i could find a driver side cab stack mount, but i'm sure ill come across one. now the next decision is what to do for toppers on top of the mufflers. I'm thinking just flat top 5" to keep it somewhat original. I'm not a huge fan of turnouts, so my other option would be a pair of mitres, which im not opposed to. Nothing is finalized yet (which is evident by my ratchet strap fixturing haha) so any input is welcomed.

I finished up all the air lines and pressure tested them without any leaks thankfully. Gave the area of the frame where the battery box goes a quick coat of paint on the inside and temporarily sat the box in so i could measure and make battery cables. i ran all new 2/0 cable from the starter back to the box and remade all the joining cables. I only bought black cable because it was already expensive enough. I just color coded the ends of the cables near the eyelets with shrink wrap. Came out pretty clean i think. I decided I would start it to let it run for a while and pull it outside to sweep the floor and clean the shop a little so i put a 5 gallon can on the tank supports and started it. It mustve trapped a bubble in the lines because it started to studder so i shut it off before I ran it completely dry. so i never got it outside. I also started sanding some of the cab so i could start working on the dented areas.

i will definitely try to document my process in detail because I've learned as i researched how to do it, that either nobody has real success, or if they do, they don't post results. I don't have high expectations, but I am curious to see how much of a fight they put up. I'll work on anything. i just like tinkering. I dont have much experience with anything outside of General Motors though lol. Actually this is my first large truck. i told the wife I needed a larger truck to haul the tractors before we had a kid. I've always worked with light duty trucks like my 1 ton or my 3/4 ton. It is refreshing to work on this big stuff because its much more forgiving and less tightly packed than the small stuff like the Duramax's. Also on that note, If you guys see something that i'm doing that looks "fishy" please chime in and say something. You guys have a lot more experience with this stuff than i do, and I would like it all done right. I've been brainstorming since i got the battery box on how to re-arrange the air lines so they wont be in the way of it. Tonight i played around with what seems like my best idea so far. During the great re-route of the utilities under the cab i moved the rear air lines to the driver side of the frame and made a steel plate for all the bulkhead fittings. i welded that plate to a piece of angle that bolts to that rear cab crossmember. I set the top of the angle flush with the top of the frame rails. i figure i can drill and tap two holes in the top of the angle and then make a solid aluminum deck plate "filler panel" to bolt down to fill the space between the cab and battery box to cover the air line plate i made, and to provide a thick surface to put the two trailer airline bulkhead fittings through. Dont worry, that piece of angle will be dressed a little more in its final state. The last picture is how the air lines were originally routed.

I got all the plumbing done underneath to the new locations of the air brake components done tonight. Also got the front supply tank mounted permanently to the inside of the passenger side fuel tank brackets. I had to make some bolt plates because the bolt heads would be inaccessible when the fuel tank was in place. If i ever had to take the trans out, i would have to remove that air tank and I wouldnt want to have to remove the fuel tank as well. Tomorrow night a friend of mine who is a bodyman is going to swing over to assess the cracks in the hood and the large dents in the back of the cab. im hoping to borrow some tools this weekend to get the dents out of the cab and the fuel tanks.

Made some visible progress this weekend. Got the dual exhaust finalized. I'm a stickler for symmetry so it took me a few interations to get it right. Also got the old pitted hinges off the radiator and replaced and painted with clean ones and new hardware, and got the smurf hood on. i'm still working on finishing up the air lines underneath and cleaning up some brackets for the air tanks. I went and looked at some Alcoas today but they werent as nice as i was hoping.

The box came with large clamp mounts with teeth. Similar to how you would clamp down a camper shell on a pickup bed, only considerable larger. Everything I've done so far has been using existing holes in the frame and I plan to keep it that way. I got the box from a website called uscargocontrol.com. shipping was super fast and cheap. to my door in 2 days for 33$. http://www.uscargocontrol.com/Flatbed-Trailer-Products/Headache-Racks-Trailer-Tool-Boxes-Semi-Truck-Fenders/Aluminum-Battery-Box-w-Hinged-Lid-12-x-23-x-26-3-4 I have gotten a lot done but unfortunately nothing that is worth taking too many pictures of. I made some brackets to relocate the main supply tank and air dryer under the cab and move the front air storage tank from behind the old battery box to the inside of the passenger side fuel tank. I did this because I plan on putting a new air-shifted PTO with the pump all as one unit. No more driveshaft and separate pump. Since the hydraulic tank will be the driver side fuel tank, the Large hydraulic lines will run from the pump up that driver side of the frame and out to the fifth wheel. I plan on mounting a hydraulic filter in the return line on the backside of the large grey bracket that holds the supply tank. That way its easy to get to and service. I also got the Y pipe made and some preliminary exhaust routed under the cab just to make sure everything clears. 4" would fit much better but the truck already had 5" so thats what i used obviously. It took a while but i got all the interior trim off the back wall of the cab (without damaging anything which was a small miracle b/c it is so brittle) to expose the wiring junction block. I have to rerun the trailer plug wires and while im here im also going to run a 7 wire lead to a standard pollak connector for my gooseneck.