My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

A place to post pics and descriptions of ongoing restoration projects

Moderators: rickf, raymond, Mr. Recovery

Post Reply
M151A2run
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 22
Joined: May 18th, 2014, 12:33 am

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by M151A2run » January 4th, 2017, 1:53 pm

I hope my rear floor will turn out great like yours Guy, but will settle for good. I will have to do it in a different manner though, sense it is still on its drive train. I will have a wonderful time with it I know! lol!!! Great job on yours! Thanks for the fast shipping on my rear floor!

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 4th, 2017, 9:19 pm

M151A2run wrote:I hope my rear floor will turn out great like yours Guy, but will settle for good. I will have to do it in a different manner though, sense it is still on its drive train. I will have a wonderful time with it I know! lol!!! Great job on yours! Thanks for the fast shipping on my rear floor!
I welded mine from the bottom as I did not want to have to deal with the clean up of the plug welds on the top surface. If you take your time it will look nice. Welding from the top is probably less messing around. As I'm like my father, I enjoy doing things the hard way. Fast shipping is the result of keeping parts on the shelf! Good luck.

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 9th, 2017, 8:06 am

Per my conversation on the CMD Body Panel thread, I started to remove the front floor that I installed in 2012. This section of toe board, floor and seat support were all made as one piece and the rib tooling is the same as the rear fender tops as we did not have the original tooling design at the time. This was not a fun job and I still have to remove the upper pieces but I'm close. This will be replaced by CMD parts the match the original design.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

User avatar
rickf
General
General
Posts: 19740
Joined: November 26th, 2007, 1:28 pm
Location: Pemberton, NJ.

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by rickf » January 9th, 2017, 10:18 am

Are you going to leave your custom tool box? I would, you are not going to be showing it as a perfect restoration. Or are you? :roll:
1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 9th, 2017, 1:03 pm

rickf wrote:Are you going to leave your custom tool box? I would, you are not going to be showing it as a perfect restoration. Or are you? :roll:
Tool box, battery box and gas tank floor are staying. Had I made the driver side floor when the passenger side was done I would not have changed it. At this point is does not make sense to do a "custom" drivers floor.
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

User avatar
m3a1
Lt. General
Lt. General
Posts: 4028
Joined: August 7th, 2014, 6:36 pm

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by m3a1 » January 9th, 2017, 6:55 pm

I'm looking at this, imagining all the tedium involved in dressing up all those mating surfaces for the new panel. What a P I T A that must have been. DANG!

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 17th, 2017, 9:43 pm

Parts are now removed and I'm close to test fitting the toe board. Also replacing the front fender that I made back in 2012 with an accurate reproduction fender. Will then use the NOS side panel that Rick sent me, fit it up thus establishing the toe and floor board locations. After that I will copy and build full side panels. Yup, I said that!

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 18th, 2017, 8:13 am

Parts removed. The fender in this picture was done several years ago and was a one-off. It's close to the original but not exact. Figured I'd replace it as well:

Image

Also removed the dash and will replace with an accurate reproduction. This one is made out of 16 ga and as we did not have the exact tooling for the top rib I think I would of had some issues. Dash was only tack welded in (4) places. Had I fully welded it I would have made it work.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Trimming out the front fender. Only did one cut and will fine tune later:

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Once the front fender is fit up I'll clamp the side panel on and work on the floors.

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

User avatar
m3a1
Lt. General
Lt. General
Posts: 4028
Joined: August 7th, 2014, 6:36 pm

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by m3a1 » January 18th, 2017, 11:59 am

Gosh, this is fun to watch. Going all the way back to what you started with makes it all the more impressive.

User avatar
Vzike
Sergeant Major of the "G"
Sergeant Major of the "G"
Posts: 729
Joined: December 27th, 2013, 4:05 pm
Location: Jupiter, Florida

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by Vzike » January 20th, 2017, 8:57 am

I'm going back to the previous page, where you documented the installation of the rear floor. Since I'm prepping to install one of the CMD rear floors (I should get next week) I took a very hard look at your way compared to how I did the previous one last year (on my 64 M151). Clearly, I'll make some changes.

I did not use your jacking technique to keep the panels tight. I used self taping sheet metal screws, and weld from the top. This kept the panel tight, but not uniformly tight the full length of the welded area. Once I got the mutt on the road, the noise I got from the un-welded areas over the rear frame supports was pretty bad. I ended up putting it on a lift and rewelding some of the areas. That eliminated the noise, but I ended up with extra welds.

I'm going to drill out the frame, as you did, and plug weld from the bottom. I'll also use my portapower to get the edges tight.

I just wish I could weld the side strips as good as you. I'm getting better, but still have a long way to go!

Thank you for posting that. It is extremely helpful.
Vin Zike

User avatar
rickf
General
General
Posts: 19740
Joined: November 26th, 2007, 1:28 pm
Location: Pemberton, NJ.

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by rickf » January 21st, 2017, 8:16 pm

Vin, those side strips were TIG welded. Handy little machine, that is why I am finally going to bite the bullet and get one. That and I am always running into aluminum projects.
1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 21st, 2017, 8:49 pm

rickf wrote:Vin, those side strips were TIG welded. Handy little machine, that is why I am finally going to bite the bullet and get one. That and I am always running into aluminum projects.
Rick, if you are talking about the rear floor that was all MIG welded.

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

User avatar
Vzike
Sergeant Major of the "G"
Sergeant Major of the "G"
Posts: 729
Joined: December 27th, 2013, 4:05 pm
Location: Jupiter, Florida

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by Vzike » January 22nd, 2017, 10:41 am

I can tell you that my inside corner welds do not have that consistent beauty as Guys. LOL There will be some grinding.

Rick, I learned to weld with TIG many years ago, and I have one available. I just don't have room in the bay for another piece of equipment. I totally agree that much of my work would be a lot better with TIG.
Vin Zike

User avatar
rickf
General
General
Posts: 19740
Joined: November 26th, 2007, 1:28 pm
Location: Pemberton, NJ.

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by rickf » January 22nd, 2017, 11:14 am

lpcoating wrote:
rickf wrote:Vin, those side strips were TIG welded. Handy little machine, that is why I am finally going to bite the bullet and get one. That and I am always running into aluminum projects.
Rick, if you are talking about the rear floor that was all MIG welded.

Guy
That side band to floor weld looked like Tig, I am impressed.
1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone

lpcoating
Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Posts: 2026
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 11:38 pm
Location: Mansfield, PA
Contact:

Re: My M 151 A1 Restoration Project

Unread post by lpcoating » January 22nd, 2017, 11:27 am

Started working on the fitting the passenger side toe board and front floor. As my truck is an X cut it also took a slight hit on the passenger side rear and driver side front. I was curious to see the relationship of the side of the rear fenders to the front fenders as the should be in a straight line for the side panel. So, I used the same method when we use to hang the body on our dirt track car - string and duct tape! As you can see the passenger side rear is angled in towards the front of the fender and the front fender to angled out some towards the back. Nothing I'm going to worry about but like I said, I was curious. Keep in mind I usually work in 3 place decimals so I had to check!

Image
Image
Image
Image

Some minor trim work to get the side to fit up:

Image
Image
Image
Image

Had to trim a little off of the front fender top:

Image

and slit the rear for where the side panel wraps around:

Image

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

After I had the side fitting up the way it should I was able to get accurate measurements for trimming the toe board:

Image
Image
Image

I like to use a thin 5" cut wheel (.040" I think) on my hand grinder. Works very nice.

Image

Toe board close, starting on floor:

Image

Keep in mind that parts like this I make a little wider. Much easier to remove material compared to trying to add.

Image
Image

At this point I'm going to mock up the seat support. As the seat hinge and latch points determine the location of the seat support which determines the front to back location of the front floor as the edge of the drain cut out aligns up with the bottom edge of the seat support. Once that is know, the exact location (or angle) of the toe board is set. Get all that?? :D

Guy
M151 Body Panels - http://www.m151bodypanels.com/

'68 A1 - Under full resto

Post Reply