'56 willys truck

It looks good. I know that **** is a pain in the ass. I take it you got all the little plastic lock things to keep the rods in?
 
Looking good! Really smart to make the “door simulator” assembly to work out the design on the bench.
 
WaterH--Only plastic thingys are on the Interior door handle. The exterior handle and bear claw latch just have holes in them. The exterior door latch I drilled bigger to be able to get the 6/32" all thread to slip through(I can't go any bigger cuz the part the rod connects to is only like an 1/8" to 3/16" in diameter) so that gets double nutted or maybe even 3 nuts per end(1 under and 2 on top) along with the paddle assembly. The bear claw has bigger holes
( like 1/4" or 5/16" ) so I will bend the rod in "U" shape or weld a flat plate to the 6/32" rod and drill it and bolt it. Leaning toward the bent rod in a "U" shape for now.
 
Here’s the hack attack for the day. Window and all the door parts removed and I go back and forth before making the final decision. Just goes to show you guys how my one brain cell functions!! Stand clear!!
 

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Thanks, a lot of going back and forth, but that's always part of the process unless you've done this before.

Started on the outside yesterday afternoon.
 




 
Driver's side is real close to paint time, which may be this afternoon.

Issue 1: there's a rubber gasket on the track that holds the glass to the crank arms that rubs on the outside latch--some white lithium grease erased that issue. I can cut it, but I have to take the glass out to do that and that's not happening now and if I cut it I'm not sure it will seal correctly when the window is rolled all the way up. I'll live with it for a bit to see how long it takes to become a hard, hard crank to get it to slip past, although it may wear itself into being a non-issue.

Not sure it's an issue yet: I do have to slam the door to get it to latch all the way. It does have 2 latch points, one where the door will ratltle, but I believe it won't unlatch to let the door swing open and the other is no rattle(slam the door), which of course is what you want. I don't have to like swing it super hard, to get it to the "no ratlle latch point" but you need to use some force. I'll get a video of it for everyone to see. This may be an adjustment thing, but until I have dialed in the weatherstripping around the door I'll live with that also for now. What I need to do is take it for a test drive to see if it stays in the "no rattle zone" or if it unlatches itself to the rattle zone.

A separate fight was the new glass. It was a bitch of a time to get it to go all the way down when installed and this new glass is a bit smaller than the last piece I put in that you had to grab on to and pull up on it to get it to start cranking. I'll have to take another video to show a bit more of this explanation. Anyway. there's a stud on the bottom of the window track that's at the wing window side of the door and I had to oblong the hole in the door that the stud goes thru so that you can put the nut on it to keep the track in place. White lithium greased up the track and all the sliding parts and this helped immensely. So now it's just to use it and see what shakes.

Next up is the passenger side which is the side that pushed me into doing this in the first place.
 
Those door handles look really nice on those doors. That’s going to be one of those touches that catches your eye after you get over the outrageous stuff.
 
Thanks. I do plan to replace the screws I put in the outside handle with rivets, but Home Depot was out of the 1/8" long rivets, plus if I need to do any fine tuning the screws serve a good purpose. Plus sliding in the tapered keepers that lock in the outside handle is a pain and I'm not sure I could get one of them out once I got it in and if the hole for the outside handle isn't spot on then the tapered keepers won't work.
 
1st coat of red and old look vs new look.
 

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Passenger side is in and both doors are semi painted and by semi-painted I mean it has RED on the exterior and yellow on the interior. What happens next in the painting world is on hold for now.

One thing to check is don't close the door until you check to make sure the door post clears any metal!! I gently closed it and must've bumped my auto lock and I couldn't get the door open. Talked one of my brother's to come over and help me as I needed someone on the outside(my brother) and me on the inside to figure out what was going on. First the post somehow got past the metal opening in the door and was captured by about an 1/8". How it did this with a really gentle shut is beyond me, but it did and then the auto door lock was jammed up and wouldn't release. Luckily I could reach down and retract the lock and we had to pry the door over while pulling from the outside. Did some cutting to increase the opening for the door post and it's now working and I adjusted the driver's side and it works great. Now I need to test drive it to see if the doors stay shut. I'll get some pics of what happened and post them up for a bit more clarity.
 
Yea, it’s good to have access to any lock mechanism when the door/tailgate is shut. Doesn’t have to be easy, but you don’t want to be cutting metal.
 
Water H- that's for sure and I need to figure out my door panels to do just that. I have the black ones that came with the truck, and I'll have to do some head scratching to fiigure out if I can use them or not.

Drove it and all the doors didn't swing open to eject inhabitants!! I need to see if I can adjust the passenger exterior door handle as it's a bit hard to get the bear claw latch to release, but it does open and stays closed, so that's a win.
 
Well unless the passenger pisses you off!!

Got the doors all adjusted and right now I'm really happy I did the Wrangle jeep handles and bear claw latches.

I started to put the door panels back on and devising a way to remove them with the doors closed just in case an issue arises with the auto locks and bear claw latches. Also hacked off 1/2" of the go pedal as it stuck in "the floor it mode" when I drove it!! Luckily a quick tap released it.
 
csutton7 said:
Well unless the passenger pisses you off!!

Got the doors all adjusted and right now I'm really happy I did the Wrangle jeep handles and bear claw latches.

I started to put the door panels back on and devising a way to remove them with the doors closed just in case an issue arises with the auto locks and bear claw latches. Also hacked off 1/2" of the go pedal as it stuck in "the floor it mode" when I drove it!! Luckily a quick tap released it.
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Ha-ha, when I was in my 20’s, I had an old Scout. The door latches never held very good, so I put slide bolts in. I had a friend that worked with me and I gave him a lift to work. When he seen the bolts, he said “I’m not bolting that, if you get in an accident, I might not be able to get out”. I’m like “whatever”. So I’m driving down the road and make right turn, the door pops open and dam near fell out. His feet were in the truck and he was hanging off the door. He always bolted the door after that.
 
Water H--LOL--and I just removed the one I had on the passenger door yesterday!! I got both door panels on, but the passenger side arm rest won't work, as I've got the passenger seat positioned differently than the driver's seat and the door won't close because it hits the seat. The driver's side has no issues. So back to the drawing board on the arm rests and the abililty to close the door from the inside without having to roll the window down. Maybe time to incorporate the chain style inside door handle.

Weird thing the bolts that hold the arm rests are something of an oddity. The thread size isn't 10-24 or 10-32(it's bigger than those) nor 1/4-20(it's smaller than this) and it's not a metric size and I needed the bolts to be longer to space them off the door so that the linkage from the inside handle could move freely. So I bought some 10-24 and 1/4-20 all thread and on the driver's side I tapped the first t-flange nut for 1/4-20, and it was all good. Then I moved to the second flange nut and it broke free, so then I had to weld it in and I welded the first one also. Then I threaded in the all thread and put a nut on the back side and added some big washers for spacing and backing up the door panel and slammed it together. On the passenger side I used the 10-24 all thread as the tapping to the bigger size turned into making it much harder than it should've been. Nut on the back side and the front side since the 10-24 all-thread is just a hair small, it doesn't slide in the t-flange nut, but it doesn't get snug either. Added the big backing washers and bolted on the arm-rest only to find it won't work!! I added a 1/2" u-channel at the bottom so that I wouldn't have screws there in case I have to take the door panels off in the field cuz the door won't open. It was bloody hot, hot, hot yesterday and this week it's to get hotter. May not get much else done.
 
Driver’s side— I need to change the u-channel at the bottom to a black piece but I only had a clear aluminum short piece at home and of course make an escutcheon for the inside door handle and figure out a piece of metal to add to the latch side of the door before I call it satisfactorly done and I'm not sure this door panel will be the one I end up with but for now it will do.
 

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So above when I installed the arm rest on the passenger side door and went to shut the door it wouldn't shut, so off came the arm rest and thought process was engaged into the ol' brain cell. For one the passenger seat is tipped forward due to having the battery under it and wiring. Behind the seat are like 12 relays, an amp and some small fuse blocks and battery termination blocks and breakers, so it needed to be tipped up in the back to clear all that stuff. First I thought of cutting a shim out of 2" square tube, but then I realized if I remade the mounting point at the front of the seat that may do the trick and so I commenced on doing such. I raised the front of the seat about 1 1/2" and that worked, so now I move on to building escutcheons for the inner door handle or change bead locks, but it's cooking here, so we shall see.
 
Started building the escutcheons and got one ready for some sanding and then paint. I bought a 48" piece of 1/16" square tube and cut "L" angles out of it and then cut the pies into one of them, commenced to bend it in shape and then welded it up and slapped some bondo on the corners. Now I need to sand it and paint it and move on to the driver's side.

I also painted the rock rings of the bead locks in prep for tackling 8 tires all with bead locks. I guess I should be happy that only the 4 on the truck have the bead locks installed. I'm opting out of the 20 bolt Trail Ready Aluminum bead locks on the truck and going to 32 bolt steel bead locks. Why you ask? Cuz my brain says 32 bolts are better than 20 bolts and the weight savings from aluminum to steel doesn't trump the 32 bolts vs 20 bolts and the 32 bolt bead locks have the anti-cone ring and the TR ones don't. My back and nuts aren't looking forward to this I can tell ya.
 
Damn heat was a killa yesterday and the same to be for the next couple of days, so I only got the escutcheons done and painted. Might have to sand a bit on the driver's side one and hit it with some more paint.

I'm not sure I'm attacking the bead lock war today or tomorrow or ??, Wednesday it cools down and then for a few days, but rain is in the forecast and hopefully that will be at night, so we shall see how that affects me. Plus the kid's Prius has the red triangle of death that needs to be figured out and I need to check and maybe do brakes on my ram truck, so the bead locks are probably sitting #3 in the order of attack right now.
 
Prius fixed--low on oil, lucky it was that and nothing else. Now I'm no rocket scientist, but you'd think that only the oil light would come on in this case, but no ol' Toyota decided to have about 4 other lights light up the dashboard just to send you into a frizzy of checking things that are related to the hybrid batteries, 12V battery and such before checking the dipstick. Well good news is it's off the list of things to do and now to the next one on the ever-changing list.
 
Man, I would reconsider going to steel over aluminum. You are robbing yourself of a lot of perceived horsepower due to added rotating mass. But, your call.
 
I've been going back and forth on it for quite some time and change my mind about every week and there's absolutely a big weight difference between the two. One of the reasons I posted it on here was to get some input to maybe sway me one way or the other, so thanks for chiming in on this. Another plus in not swapping them is I would only have to put the 32 bolt bead locks on the spare tires to sell them vs ****ing with 8 tires. and then I thought I could always drill and add more bolts to the aluminum bead locks and then add anti-coning at some point. Always something.
 
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