M5 Tilt nose update #9 modern timing cover lip seal

Again, this is a 1947 Champion motor. We got the idea for a modern timing cover lip seal from Gary Ash's web site.

After searching thru the National catalogue, we found a seal with an ID and OD close to what we needed.

Turns out this fit a 350 Chevy.

Dimensions:

The OD of the Stude crank is 1.25

The ID of the OEM Stude timing cover hole is a hair under 2.00

The OD of the Chevy pulley seal area is 1.763

The recess for the Stude seal is .250

The recess for the Chevy seal is .375

The PN for the Timken lip seal is 9845

There were 5 steps involved:

1. We had Phil Harris turn the Stude crank pulley seal area down to 1.763 from 1.870. Then Miles polished it.

The polishing here in the pic can be deceiving because it is reflecting the black paint

2. Get a Chevy 350 timing cover and cut the center portion out and grind off most of the OD of the cutout so that it will lay inside the Stude timing cover

3. The bolts for the Stude timing cover are a bit loose in the cover and proper centering would be impossible using just the bolts. With some careful measuring we derived locations for 4 alignment pins, or in this case 10-32 screws. The pix show these "pins" or screws painted red for clarity. 3 screwed into the block and one thru the backing plate. We drilled and tapped the holes for 10-32. That tap size needs a number 21 drill. The 3 holes we made in the block do not conflict with any water or oil passages. We used 10-32x3/4 button head machine screws

4. In order to get everything centered and concentric we machined up a fixturing hub from a large aluminum bushing. We started with a 2"OD 1"ID blank from McMaster Carr. (mcmaster.com).

We turned a hair off 1/2 of the OD to fit into the Stude cover, turned the other half of the OD down to 1.763, and bored out the center to 1.25.

This hub allowed us to drill the alignment pins in the correct location, and then center the 350 cover cutout with the seal in place on the inside of the Stude cover. Of course the crank was in the block for all this.

5. We TIGed the edges of the two covers from the outside. Once you tack in 4 places, you will need to grind away most of the Stude cover lip. Then you can TIG

The end result has about half the width of the seal protruding inside the cover, but there is quite a bit of extra room in there.There is no interference with the slinger.  Because the heat from TIGing will distort the seal you used as a locater,  you will need to buy 2.

The pix from here are self explanatory.

We spent more time engineering and designing this than actually doing it. With the concept, the details, and the centering fixture already on hand , this is actually very easy to do.

We are happy to loan out the centering fixture hub to anyone interested

M5 Tilt nose update #9 more color 

M5 Tilt nose update #8 more color 

The nose of an M5 has a seemingly endless amount of small sections. Body and paint on all these sections continues but is tedious and slow. The insides of the doors are now blue, and some nose sections are now blue.

We are using a single stage urethane, followed by PPG 2021 clear. We could buff out the single stage, but we like the sharp shine of the clear, and it protects better.

We have used other brands of clear when a customer requested it, but had to give that up. The cheaper brands do not lay down nicely, do not have very much solids, tend to  be watery, don't cover as well, and have a yellow tinge to them. You will use more of a watery paint than a high solids paint, so there is a false economy going on there. 

For your clear, or plain single stage if that is what you select, lay down 3 coats. Each coat is about 1 mil, and you will sand off 1 mil in the buffing process. If for some reason you have to go back to re-clear something, you can either use scotch brite pads to scuff the hardened paint, or if you have maddening nooks and crannies, scuffing will make you crazy. In that case we use PPG Blend-Ease in the mix, it is a special solvent and will bite into the paint beneath without scuffing. All the major paint makers have some type of blending agent. It doesn't take much Blend Ease at all, and it will make your paint thinner, so be careful for runs.

M5 Tilt nose update #7 tube shock mounts


PLEASE NOTE
As of 2-3-2020 we have changed our design in the front. I have deleted the original front design since it did not work.

We elected to go with tube shocks front and rear. This and the frame were actually completed earlier and all has been gathering dust while we complete the cab and fender body work, which explains the dust in the pictures!

Shocks: we selected Monroe #31176 for the rears, based on compressed and extended lengths, and travel. These have 3 1/2" of travel, and everything was positioned and measured for the shocks to be at mid-travel when the truck is unloaded at rest (ride height). This may not be sufficient travel, only time will tell. We are out of room under there. We may have to extend the bottom of the axle mount lower to get more travel, and switch to the KYBs. We removed the helper spring pack, and removed 1 or 2 leaves from the main spring pack, until we got the truck bed level, else the rear end of the bed stuck way up in the air stupidly. So, since it will never be used again as a loaded truck, there is very little up and down bed travel, so we may be OK with the Monroes.
Addendum:
Road tested...they work well.
If you have more bed vertical travel than we do, extend the bottom of your lower mounts and use the KYBs

We are using KYB Pn #343137 in the front. These have 5.5" of travel total. We use the existing hole in the front axle for the bottom mount.
We considered the R series tubes for the front and actually bought a set. But to us they were overly tall. We wanted to keep the height of the bracket as short as possible to reduce flex at the mounting 1/2-13 mounting bolts.


REAR:
Brackets: we have found a very helpful catalogue for various custom parts we needed, such as shock mounts and power brake booster. Check out Mid Fifty F100 Parts. We are using their PN 2402 for the top rears. For the rear mounts, for the axle we welded on their PN 2888-2, unmodified, and boxed the frame with 1/4" plate for the 2402 brackets where the top mounts attach. I have seen the top of the shocks attached to that crossbar close by, but it just didn't strike us as strong enough.

FRONT:

Bracket fabbed from 4" channel 7.5 " long with top plate welded on. For top plate used  high grade steel I had laying around, 3/16". If not high grade I would have used 1/4"

Bottom of mount with 45° cutoff for appearance

Backside of mount with 1/4" strap welded on to space mount away from frame to clear inner fenders. Washers can be added if need be.

Top hole for shock is 2" outboard of the mount, and actually 2 1/4" outboard from frame to have the shock body top stick outboard to  clear the two grade 8  1/2-13 mounting bolts. On the passenger side we welded nuts to the inside of the frame for easier assembly. There was no room to get the MIG torch inside the steering box mount to do the same on the driver's side.

Our front mounts are at a rearward tilt of about 10°

This is because of my over-reliance on the lift. In error I did not drill the frame holes directly above the axle. They were directly over when the truck was up in the air, but not at ride height.

In any event the shock body clears the legs of the channel nicely

Be sure to fashion your mount so that the shock is compressed 1/2 way at ride height. Be sure to take into account the thickness of the donuts.

I now have 2.75" of travel both up and down, which is plenty.

If you use a lift or a jack, and let the truck back down to the floor, the suspension will NOT have settled to actual ride height. It must be driven around a bit if you want ride height measurements to be accurate. We learned this the hard way. 

Addendum: The shock setup we now have on the truck has been road tested and works very well

PIX of front

PIX of rear

 

M5 Tilt nose update #6 the beginnings of color

It has been a long time to get here.

Have to break the cab up into manageable sections, ie make it into several shoots

The original color was a drab grey. The '50s ushered in an era of pastels so we decided to update the paint color. The M5 itself is so obviously an Art Deco design (having been on the drawing boards in 1940). Art Deco was quickly snuffed out by the war, but we wanted to do justice to its Art Deco soul. The palatial sphere of Art Deco was bright colors.

We use Baril, an industrial paint, which is a DTM (direct to metal) product. Specifically, Bariline Hybrid II DTM. It is hard to locate, but worth it. For example, using a DTM paint, we did not have to prime the bottom of the cab, I simply shot it with 2 coats of black Baril. There are always areas that need a good filler-primer, and the Baril goes right over that, too. If we have areas where we sanded thru the primer to bare metal, no worries, the Baril takes care of that problem, and we do not have to re-prime.  The exterior of the truck will get 3 coats of PPG 2021 clear over the Baril baby blue, and be buffed, but we are not doing that to the interior or the firewall. The Baril does not need to be cleared; it can be buffed out as any automotive paint. But for the exterior, we are looking for that extra gleam you get from a good quality clear.

M5 Tilt nose update #5 Cab rear CE patch panel, stud gun use, some plastic, and some primer

The pix are self explanatory. Miles has super metal skills. He went to the McPherson College (KS) Resto program and had some great teachers. They have summer classes for those interested

Fabbing bracket to hang Evaporator in the M5 cab

We are getting closer to shooting the cab, after some slow downs in the schedule.
Accordingly, we needed to finish any fabbing/welding that involved the cab, so it was time to buy the airbox and figure out how to support the weight. We searched high and low for pix/or info as to how others had done this but came up dry. So we engineered our own system. We needed to be careful to have adequate strength, especially since the sheet metal of the cab is so very thin, much of it being only 22 ga. We did not want the airbox bouncing around on a mount as we went down the road and crack out any of the tin of the cab. We fabbed a bracket that went from A pillar to A pillar, and made a separate center support by welding a 5/16" bolt to a 2"x2" pad and then plug welding that to the center of the firewall. The bracket is 1/8" x 1.5" flat stock.

Only a small portion of the evap will hang below the dash. The glove box space will be reduced but this is Texas, so A/C trumps glove box any day of the week. This is an evap with heat/defrost capability made by Old Air, Ft Worth, TX.

I have often wished there were some other M5 owners around here that I could compare notes with. Sometimes it seems that I am in the middle of a very large deserted field with no one within sight for miles and miles!