After having finished up most of the floor in the cab of the body I was planning on finishing up the trap door and then finally making it to the trunk area where I can get the floors done. I had to figure out what to do for the trap door though. I still had one area left to put some metal in, the area where the floor raises up to the area where the back seat used to be. I didn't want to fill this area in yet as the opening could play a role in facilitating the installation of the trap door. I didn't want to cut into the regular floor to install a trap door as this would take away some of the floor space. I decided to use the vertical space that was still open between the floors for the trap door. I decided to weld in a piece of metal to cover half of the opening then installing another piece of metal over the other half of the opening, using hinges to turn the piece of metal into a door. I also cut the metal with a lip with which to drive a screw through to hold the "door" shut and secured when not in use. With the cab totally done I moved on to the trunk area. I had to weld in some pipes to give me the support necessary to hold the large piece of sheet metal that I cut from a car hood. With the pipes in place I fit the large panel in place and secured it via welding and self tapping screws. With the main piece of sheet metal in place I was able to continue filling in the side areas with smaller pieces of sheet metal all the way over to both quarter panels and all the way to the end of the trunk, ensuring that the trunk floor was completely filled in. With the floor in place I then started making plans for how to make the back wall setup. I figured that I would install a couple of doors side by side to serve as access hatches for the rear area/nesting box. Since the quarter ends are curved in a way that doesn't allow for any kind of normal panel to be installed I had to cut and install a couple of extension panels from the corners, making a sort of "door frame". These of course were just a couple of pieces of sheet metal cut to fit and fully welded in place. After welding in the quarter panel extensions I then went forward and installed a pipe across the top along the point where the bottom of the trunk lid would be when its closed. The purpose of this was to provide an extra door frame support for when I install the panels. I'll need somewhere for the doors to rest and be able to latch up to when in the closed position so the bar serves this purpose. Another reason for the bar was because of my plan to weld the trunk lid shut. With the trunk down the bar would be hidden from view and serve as that point for the access doors to latch to. The trunk lid is too rusty and shitty to provide any solid point to latch so that's where the bar comes in. Anyway, the trunk was welded shut. Because of the rust in spots along the trunk lid edges and the quarter panel edges where the trunk lid meets, I couldn't fully weld around the trunk but I did get more than enough of the lid secured. The rust hole openings will have to be filled in with tar just like the many other spots that need to be filled in. With everything down it was time for the access doors. This went easier than expected. I cut two nice pieces of metal from a filing cabinet drawer where the edges of the metal were folded up like a hem on a pant leg. These "hems" helped stiffen the panels so they would stay rigid when in place on the back of the body. I welded in some hinges to the two panels then secured them with more self tapping screws, making sure everything lined up. Upon closing the doors, I found everything lined up nicely as intended. With everything in place, the next thing is to install some latches on the access doors so they can be fully secured. I'm still up in the air about where I'd put the latches as I still want to adhere to some level of neatness. With the access doors latched the only other thing left is installing the water pressure regulator so I can hopefully slow down the water pressure in order to keep the drinker cups from exploding. Lastly there is making a metal panel for the driver's side door to fully close and cover it up then making a pipe frame to weld to the passenger door so I can attach some chicken wire to it to serve as an opening for venting the cab to the outside while still keeping the occupants secured.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|