My 1953 Air Force M37 Build Blog

[RMS]

Order of operation is very important with these trucks. its also frustrating when you have to undue nicely painted bolts
what a pain. I thought the insulation had slits so it would fit around the wires and the cowl bracket. could you post a pic of the insulation before its in the truck.
good thing ya got connectors at the lights, so that wire can be moved one hole over, without needing more paint

I changed the new taillights over to douglas connectors and got that all buttoned up:

[vtdeucedriver]

Firewall insulation??? Can you post a picture of this??? I want to make sure its the same is what I have part of but need the rest. Where did you get it if its the same??

I have the clips and the drivers side.

[T. Highway]

John At Midwest Military has the firewall insulation listed on his site.

Bert

[refit1701]

I'll have to take a photo but it covers both driver's and passenger's side as well as the starter plunger panel. I believe there are 12 retainers required and I had to do a lot of searching to find enough as most of mine were missing.

As Bert says, Midwest has it. Put in on before you install anything else under the dash, even the steering. We had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get mine on.

[RMS]

I wonder if there is a difference between the Canadian and American, I seem to remember mine coming out as two pieces with nothing on the starter button cover. it was made of what looked like fiberglass insulation glued to cardboard. I was thinking of making one out of thick rubber but I am unsure of how much of the firewall gets covered.

[refit1701]

I'll bet that mine was supposed to have a jute backing, but came with cardboard to go behind the 1/8" black board. It's like a very dense black cardboard or maybe Masonite. If you look over on G503, in the 1.5 ton section, they are producing a similar pad for the 1.5 ton Chevy's. But, being WWII guys and not M-series, they are making them exactly like the originals. M-series guys just do what looks ok...WWII guys use NASA engineers to build their parts!

[refit1701]

Spent most of the weekend on the truck. It's amazing how much time it takes just to paint enough bolts and washers to put things together. I did mostly that on Saturday, getting ready for my buddy to come up on Sunday to put the windshield frame and hood on.



The windshield frame looked OK when I got it a few years ago, but when my friend began work on it there was quite a bit wrong; it was bent, rusted, internal brackets for anchoring the inserts was broken loose, etc. But he prevailed and got it back into shape. We put the weather stripping on the bottom. Not very exciting pictures but I don't think I've ever seen anyone post photos of it.







The long weatherstripping along the bottom was installed first, then trimmed, and the end pieces screwed in place. The notch goes toward the rear where it clears the door.

We finally got the frame bolted up. We have some daylight between the gasket and the cowl top but I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. The top surface of the cowl has some distortion where it dips down in a couple of places.



We got the hood on too, after spending over and hour getting the radiator trim piece/cover to stay out of the way and not rub on it. I'll post more pics later but work is calling me now. The one thing that worries me is that the color and sheen of the cab vs the hood and fenders does not match. The parts I recently painted are slightly glossier and the blue is a little different. The cab was painted over a year ago. Aside from masking and painting the whole thing over again, I guess maybe everyone will be cool about it and not point it out.

Yeah, right.

[DAP]

Since the weather-stripping is black get some GE Silicone II black caulk and trim the application point small so you can push it in the gaps. Tape off the blue paint edge so when you are done you get a nice straight edge. (Painters hint - take your tape and stick to your blue jeans and it will pull some minor cotton threads from your jeans. Then tape your truck seams. When you remove the tape it is less likely to pull your fresh paint off since you will have lost a wee bit of the tape tackiness). Inject as much silicone as you can in the gaps until it squishes out and then smooth, or fair it in, to the rubber gasket. Let the caulk set up and pull your tape. I got a nice seal with no leaks this way. Water leaking between cowl and windshield outer frame is what rots the underside. FYI - I did not use the round head screws but rather used countersunk screws with wide countersunk washers. It spreads the clamping force out more on the rubber and allows you to pull the rubber seal down tighter to minimize the gaps.

[refit1701]

Ok, I'm trying to picture what you are describing. Build up a layer of silicone on the gasket to fill in the gap between it and the cowl top? The tape is acting as a barrier to prevent the silicone from sticking to the paint?

[w30bob]

Refit,

Great pics.........she looks great! But....ummm......did you happen to notice that the color and sheen of the cab vs the hood and fenders doesn't match exactly? You need to fix that.

Sorry, I couldn't resist! Seriously, she looks great. I enjoy watching SOMEONE make progress on their truck....since it sure ain't me.

regards,
bob

[m-37Bruce]

That windshield looks familiar, I hope it ends up right? Your truck looks great, the shine vs. the matte is hopefully a non issue.

[refit1701]

That windshield looks familiar, I hope it ends up right? Your truck looks great, the shine vs. the matte is hopefully a non issue.

Did I get the frame from you? I was going though my old pm's trying to figure it out. I have yet to see a frame that didn't need work of some kind. It's almost as if when something hits the truck, the force is transmitted though the fenders to the windshield frame. But it's in great shape and is doing a fine job. If only the cowl top was straight, but we didn't check that after the body work was done.

If I have to, I'll mask it off and spray some of it. I just hope the bed will match one of the two!!

[m-37Bruce]

If memory serves me, I sent it via Greyhound or Trailways, I learned that from Kurt Hirte. The $ was different from the estimate to shipping time by fifteen bucks, but still inexpensive compared to UPS/USPS!

[DAP]

Once the windshield is adjusted correctly you might find some of those gaps between the rubber gasket and the steel (frame or body cowl) you were talking about. Pump the silicone into the gap to fill it. Smooth the silicone to blend it into the gasket so it looks like it is part of the gasket. Once the silicone sets peel the tape off to make the edge look like it is part of the gasket. Is that clearer than what I wrote above?

[refit1701]

I thought that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure.