Bedford TK

[mylesdw]

Starting the new cab

The first job was to get the cab down from where it has been lying in the woods at the back of our place, give it a wash and put it in the workshop.

Since I'm intending to grit blast and respray the cab I build a simple booth from wood and plastic to keep the sand and over spray roughly in one place.

A bit of work with a scissor jack and a rubber mallet and the dented roof popped out very well. It is on the back of the roof and is completely hidden when the body is on so I'm not too worried about it being perfect but it is certainly good enough.

 

[mylesdw]

That looks a bigger to me, more like a 10-12 tonner or the like? 8 stud wheels, 7.5t only had 6 stud. It's a good project.

This one's a 12.5 tonner. It has power steering which is nice but needs the pump reconditioning; the ram has been done already. The brakes are nice but the clutch is very heavy.

 

[marlinspike]

That looks a nice project. I am a bit hesitant to post my project too as some of the builds on here put my little adventures in welding to shame.

I know what you mean about blogs. I have come across some fantastic car restoration blogs but usually you have to register to post a comment so I don't bother. You will get a lot more feedback on here. I wish I had the space you have to pursue a project. Keep us updated.

 

[mylesdw]

What do people think about fitting a Detroit 6V71 instead of the Bedford 466? Got offered a broken Bedford TM with said engine and 9 speed box. Nice sounding engine and much more powerful but I wonder how big a project that would be.

 

[chriskelland]

I used to drive a TK found it much nicer that the Fordson 4D Trader I drove for a few years. Had a drive in a 6D but found the gear lever in the back of the cab a bit weird. Only thing I found bad about the TK was the very heavy gear change, but at least it was a syncro box. The heavy clutch seemed light after the 4D Trader. Don't even start me on the first tilt cab Ford, a D500 I think, a really good truck compared with what I had driven before except for the multi pull handbrake which you cant release!

Chris.

 

[jpmillermatic]

Im looking forward to seeing more on this project....Im a big fan of "lorries" over on this side of the pond....

There is a "chap" who makes these truck in 1/25 scale from paper..and its amazing...(check out hankstruckpictures.com under scale models)...anyway...

I too was very hesitant to post progress of my first real project that involved welding, sheet metal work, paint, ect...but I got a lot of good advice from forums like this one...and my welding skills have been improving with every session.....again, with help from this forum in particular....

looking forward to seeing more....

JP

 

[mylesdw]

Let the blasting begin

With the cab in its tent I tipped it back and started blasting the underneath and engine bay. The bare cab is light enough that one person can tip it over. I guess four people could carry it.

Here is the driver's side floor after a quick pass. I later gave it another go and have since improved my technique so that I can get better results in one session.

Looking into the engine bay; the new cab seems nice and solid so far...

 

[mylesdw]

Priming the underfloor

The bare metal needs priming as soon as possible because it will rust quickly. This is an International product called Interbond 373. It is a two pack epoxy primer designed to spray on bare blasted steel. It will tolerate some slight rust and pitting. I sprayed it on with a standard gravity gun and was very pleased with the result. I have no experience with spraying but it was easy to use and generated minimal mess. It comes in handy 1 litre packs and it covers very well. Here I sprayed the front of the underside and the engine bay which took less than half a litre. I wasted quite a bit because I mixed up the entire pack. It's not super expensive at just over $40 per litre.

Looking into the engine bay from the front

The drivers side floor

 

[langy]

Are you not dealing with the rust holes ???

 

[mylesdw]

That front panel is the worst bit. It is rusty, filled and has a dent in the corner. I intend to swap it with the one from the original cab which is better.

 

[normspanners]

GET THE DETROIT TWO STROKER IN!!!!
A PROPER INJIN, with a straight through exhaust, what a noise, you would have to maybe get rid of the horses out of the back, or thinking about it, maybe you would, the first time you do a proper Launch!!
But thinking again it would not be fair ...............on the old tk, to have all that weight in the back anyway!. Coz it'll stop ya smokin the tyres.

 

[mylesdw]

Blasting the floor

The cab floor appeared to be the most rusty with heavy pitting but after blasting it came out surprisingly solid

On the driver's side were a few tiny pin-holes that the blasting uncovered but these are so small that I am tempted to simply paint over them. Cutting and patching the floor seems like overkill and it would be difficult to decide where to stop. I could braze up the holes but that would distort the metal work and I'm not sure I see any value.

The floor seems to be thicker steel than the rest so that although heavily pitted it is still very solid.

 

[mylesdw]

Since the floor was still quite pitted after blasting I gave it two coats of this stuff:

It is a moisture curing urethane. It reacts with the moisture in the atmosphere to form a very hard coating. It is a cheaper alternative to another product known as POR15 that is very popular amongst classic car restorers. You really need to read the instructions because this stuff sets like iron and if you put the lid back on the tin with paint on the lip it is sealed for good. You need disposable brushes; I picked up some from the same place that sold the paint for a few cents each. They recommend you use the whole can at once but since this was impractical I made a temporary plastic lid with a hole to keep the top of the tin clean. When finished I resealed the can with two layers of food-wrap between the lid and the can. I guess I'll find out if that has worked next time I need it!

This stuff is quite expensive at around $65 per litre so I only painted the heavily pitted areas and the seams. After two coats it looked like this:

The coating cures very hard and very shiny. It is degraded by sunlight so for areas that may be effected it can be over coated with just about any paint. This needs to be done within 4-6 hours. If you leave it longer they recommend you rough the urethane up with some 600 grit paper.

I put on two coats during the morning and then later in the afternoon sprayed it with the two pack epoxy primer that I described in a previous post (Interbond 373).

 

[mylesdw]

Blasting Kit

While my hair is full of sand and the inside of my workshop resembles a beach I thought I might show the equipment I've been using.

This is the pressure pot. It is the standard cheapo Chinese kits that all the discount tool shops seem to be selling. It is not a great tool but it is cheap and it is adequate. This is the smaller of two they had on offer and I think the right choice; it is very heavy when full and one twice the size would be difficult to manage since you have to drag it around the work area. This size give about 30 minutes blasting. The sand is poured in through the red lid on the top. Note that this is the largest opening to the vessel so you really need to be careful not to get any big lumps or foreign objects in there; it would be difficult to get them out again.

The grit destroys everything in its path including the air valves and the ceramic blasting tips. I am blasting with a C-grade garnet which is quite coarse removing paint and rust easily.

The tips wear very quickly, you would be lucky to get an hour's blasting from each. These are 3mm tips but as they wear the bore increases and pressure is lost. These are about $8 each I will have spent $100 or so in tips for the cab. The garnet is $22 for 25kg. It is largely recycled by sweeping it up and sieving it so it lasts quite a while. Blasting the cab has will probably use up 50kg.

This is my compressor. It is about as big as you can go on single phase and needs a 15A supply. It can only just keep up with blasting with a 3mm tip. As soon as the tip starts to wear you have to stop occasionally to let the compressor catch up.

There is a sort of fabric balaclava helmet that came with the blaster and I use a dust mask and this face shield inside it. It does not work that well; the glass steams up and the sand destroys the plastic visor so that you end up working though a sort of fog.

Other kit is shown here - a dustpan for scooping the sand off the floor, an ordinary household sieve for cleaning it and a funnel with a large opening for putting it back into the pressure vessel. Front right is the dust mask which is pretty much essential through the whole process.

 

[mylesdw]

GET THE DETROIT TWO STROKER IN!!!!

It is tempting and they do make a great noise but it may be a project beyond my capabilities! There is some doubt about whether the rear axle would take the extra torque and then it becomes a much bigger project.

I was keen on e Perkins 540 V8 that was on eBay but I think that it is too wide for the chassis rails. Shame, they sound great too.

 

[mylesdw]

Tin Bashing

After blasting the roof panel clean I was pleased to find that there was no significant rust but it was much more dented than I had thought. The large dents along the back I had already popped out and I am not too worried about them anyway because the body that will go back on has a Luton so the cab roof is pretty much hidden from that angle. However, the front edge of the roof will show and had numerous dents so after a few hours at the University of YouTube I went to our local second hand shop and bought some tools.

...and set to making a lot of noise. I also used a rubber mallet with a rounded head for knocking the bigger dents roughly into shape. The best combination for this job seemed to be the red hammer which as quite a crown to its faces and the mushroom shaped dolly. The technique is to run a sanding board with 40 grit emery over the surface to reveal the high spots and low spots, then work on them with hammer and dolly, then repeat.

The panel and its dents did not photograph well but here is the end result.

I'm sure a real panel beater would scoff at my efforts but the result is a great improvement from where I started so I'm pleased enough. I think that a thin skim of filler will give an acceptable result.

 

[mylesdw]

Painting the roof

Before I went for a week's holiday in sunny Hawke's Bay I blasted and painted the roof. I was pleased to find virtually no rust in the joint where it is welded to the gutter.

The gutter joint on the original cab has completely blown apart with rust and would be almost impossible to repair which was the main reason for getting the new cab. After blasting I gave the gutter a couple of thick coats of the urethane anti-rust primer before spraying with epoxy. I can report that resealing the black primer can with a layer of food wrap worked well; there was no sign of the paint setting and the lid came off easily.

I discovered that for a large area like this, my standard 1.4mm gravity gun really struggled to get enough paint on evenly. The epoxy primer is quite thick and whereas it was fine spraying a narrow pattern as soon as I opened the fan up hardly any paint came out so the end result although acceptable is a bit rough and uneven. The data sheet for the primer recommends airless spray, brush or roller above conventional spraying and this is why I guess. Next time I have some mixed up I will try thinning a little more and add another coat to see how it goes. I intend to spray the whole thing with a high build primer when I come to painting anyway; this layer is really just to seal the surface.

 

[mylesdw]

Cab Complete (for now)

The blasting a priming of the cab is complete and I have moved it into another shed while I make a start on doing the same to all the other panels.

I have blasted and painted all of the cab except:

1. The front panel which is quite rusty and damaged. I intend to replace it with the one from the old cab which is much better.
2. Some of the interior such as the rear firewall and parcel shelf which were painted and showed no signs of corrosion. There simply didn't seem to be any point in stripping and re-painting these; they are going to have carpet glued to them anyway.

 

[jpmillermatic]

very nice

JP

 

[norlander]

Good job there sir, 25 years in the British Army here and I can vouch that Bedford lorries are one tough bit of kit-god bless em (and Landrovers).