GMC General at abandoned house

[thomastractorsvc]

I say old school flapper

There are a lot of cool pictures of Generals with flappers

[tjc transport]

Well...... I cant stand the look of straight pipes up the side of a cab, especially on older trucks where i associate a heatshielded muffler with their look. So I picked these up new for cheap (120$) for the pair and i will most likely cut the bottom baffle out and sleeve the whole length with a section of straight pipe. That way i get the look I want, and the sound i want.

oh, ok. that works!

i used to get comments all the time on how my 88 R model sounded so good with a muffler on it.

i did the same thing, pipe inside the muffler so the muffler was just for looks.

[DailyDiesel]

2nd for Flappers

[JTFormula]

I dig turn outs but I vote miters. Flappers are neat but ting ting ting ting ting gets old fast

[68-f-model]

Vote for the flappers, they only ting ting if your foot isn't on the go pedal.

[ws721]

You have an old school truck. It NEEDS old school flappers. If your not going to put 80,000 on miles a year then who cares about the small amount of noise. You have done a very nice job with that truck. Bottom line, it is YOUR truck so do what you want. J M O

[85snowdog]

I kinda like flappers to. But I'm sure, just like everything else you've done, it will look great. Whatever you do.

I can't help with your left stack mount. But I have access to 2 Generals , if you need pics or any info let me know.

Thanks for keeping this thread alive. It's been very good from the very first post, and I love seeing the progress.

Keep up the good work!!

Keith

[DieselDeere]

made some good progress this weekend. Saturday morning i went and picked up a set of 10 alcoas for a decent price and dropped them off with the polisher. He said 2 weeks so im anxious to see how they turn out. I've been sanding the hood and cab quite a bit but the way i had it parked in the barn I could not reach the top of the hood when it was tipped up because it was so close to the door. I figured i would just pull it out and turn it around but that proved to be easier said than done. Since i removed the lubrifiner I figured all I had to do was hook the two lines together however I realized one is a -6 and the other fitting is a hybrid-6 where the threads are a different diameter but the ID is the same. I would assume this is to foolproof it so you cant hook the feed to return and vice-versa. Since this fitting is so rare I knew i couldnt come up with one I ended up changing the fitting in the block to a regular -6 so i could just hook the -6 hose right to the block to complete the loop. Once that was done I went to move it and the right rear brake was locked up which forced me to spend some time and break all the slack adjusters loose so i could free up the stuck shoe. I found one thing interesting when i was sanding. It looks as though when the truck was yellow, it was still a Best Paving truck as evident by the identical marking on top of the yellow paint but below the blue.

[JTFormula]

That's really strange about the best paving. Maybe they did that until they painted it their fleet colors. Also the headlights that were on the old blue hood (and turn signal bulbs) were new so put them in the smurf hood when you are done painting.

[DieselDeere]

That's really strange about the best paving. Maybe they did that until they painted it their fleet colors. Also the headlights that were on the old blue hood (and turn signal bulbs) were new so put them in the smurf hood when you are done painting.

Funny you mention that, the past two nights I spend making two nice headlight assemblies (because i'm sick of sanding) and I noticed that. I ended up using the buckets and trim rings from the smurf and the lights from the blue hood.

The smurf pieces sandblasted and painted up pretty well and I was able to get all the adjusters loosened up and lubricated without breaking any of the female thread plastic standoffs.

[DieselDeere]

I didnt get a whole lot done in the past week because I had to work on other things. I was able to get the passenger side fuel tank (the one without dents) cleaned, sanded, and polished. still needs a second polish but it looks a lot better already. I'm anxious to get the wheels back from the polisher to see how they look. I just want the tanks to match the wheels haha. I also found a smoking deal on 8 virgin drive tires on ebay, and they showed up yesterday. They were Generals. How can you not not put Generals on a General? I still need to find some steer tires but thats not a huge deal. Does anybody on here somewhat local to me have any interest in a set of 8 drives and 2 steers on steel budd wheels? There are 6 almost perfect wheels that would clean up and powdercoat nice, and the other 4 have some pitting from water sitting in them. The tires all have good tread (re-caps), but the casings are all in various stages of cracking.

[39 Baby Mack]

Nice looking arbor press in that one picture did you buy that at an auction?

Ron

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[JTFormula]

My intention was General tires for it as well!

[DieselDeere]

Priming and paint is getting closer and closer. The past few days I've been working on filling dings and fixing cracks in the hood and door. The major crack in the hood along the air intake was about 10" long but it stiffened right up with some panel bond. I've also started to layout my "paint booth" I strung some nylon rope from the front wall to the lift post and from the lift post to the side wall, using ratch straps and tensioners. I'll hang plastic from this to try and keep some overspray out of the rest of the shop. i also plan on covering the pallet racking and backside of the garage door when i actually start spraying which will probably be two weeks from now. I got word today the my wheels should be done by saturday so i'm excited to see them.

[carlotpilot]

that shop is the ultimate mancave

[DieselDeere]

I got some pesky details worked out this weekend which put me one step closer to paint. I got the lower stack mounts tacked together saturday. 1/4" plate and 3/8" wall 4 inch box tubing is probably overkill but i'll never have to worry, plus i already had the materials. I wanted to get the exhaust 100% finalized before paint since i had to put holes in the driver side of the cab. Today i got the upper stack brackets made. I couldnt find a factory driver side bracket, which didnt really bother me because the stacks are back a little further than the original one on the passenger side. I did this so i could put a matching grab handle on the passenger side and the stack wouldnt be in the way. on that note, if anybody on here knows of a general with a grab handle for sale (driver or passenger) i need one to match the one i already have. I made the top brackets as simple as possible out of some angle iron laying around. I need to add a lower portion to both sides of the truck side brackets to reach the lower hole, but what i made got me through the mock-up process. I still obviously have to do some trimming to make the angle iron look less like angle iron and more like a purposeful bracket. I also took two scraps of pipe and tacked them together to see what a 36" topper would look like. lastly, friday night i had to meet the wife for a happy hour her work was having in the city, so i called the tire shop and they had 2 General steer tires on the shelf, so i grabbed them while i was there. I called the wheel polisher because i should have had them by now and he said its taking him a lot longer than he thought because he and I didnt realize that out of the 10 wheels i brought him, 9 were originally steers so the dished part of the wheel for the outside drives had never been finished. oh well, time will tell how they come out.

[mrsmackpaul]

looking like its all plumbed in the exhaust department

Paul

[thomastractorsvc]

Looking good.

What did you use to clean up the tanks?

[39 Baby Mack]

Is there any kind of isolation between the top exhaust brackets and the cab? I didn't see any.

Ron

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[General Ike]

While we're talking about Generals...... This ex heavy rescue/squad is destined for work doing breast cancer awareness. Its going to end up pink I have a feeling.

Credit to original photographer.... Grabbed it off of EMTBravo.net

[DieselDeere]

While we're talking about Generals...... This ex heavy rescue/squad is destined for work doing breast cancer awareness. Its going to end up pink I have a feeling.

Credit to original photographer.... Grabbed it off of EMTBravo.net

Thats pretty cool. There will never be too many General pictures on this thread.

Is there any kind of isolation between the top exhaust brackets and the cab? I didn't see any.

Ron

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

From the factory it appears there was a foam pad that got squished down to roughly 1/8 inch so i plan to copy that when it goes together for good. I still have yet to make the lower piece to tie in the 3rd lower bolt. Also, there is 3/8 rubber between the two pieces of angle iron as well.

Looking good.

What did you use to clean up the tanks?

As much as i hate to admit it, just a lot of hand sanding with 180, then 320, then some aggressive harbor freight compound with some harbor freight buffing wheels. about 20$ in supplies haha.

Edited February 25, 2016 by DieselDeere

[DieselDeere]

Pretty big update. yesterday i had an opportunity to wander around 30 acres of a truck graveyard about an hour from me that (from what i understand) isnt usually open to the public for free range. So, like most of you would, I took a vacation day and capitalized on that opportunity, and boy am I glad i did. I was able to find every part I needed. I got 1 exterior door handle, two interior door handles, a drivers door latch (all functioning with good springs), a grab handle to put on the passenger side for the wife, and a complete ash tray assembly for on top of the dash with the elusive flop down door intact all for $80. The general, and the two Astros that I got the parts from, were some of the newest trucks in the yard. You really had to see it in person to comprehend how many trucks are tucked back in the woods, so i took a few pictures including some Macks since afterall I might as well post something Mack related at least once on this forum. When I got home I used the balance of my vacation day to install the new to me drivers door latch and adjust the striker so that door shuts properly, and I combined the 3 handles I got with the two that were on the truck to get 2 exterior handles that function properly and look pretty decent. And then tonight since I suffer from a disease called "while I'm here, I might as well" i removed the cab lights and horns to properly clean them and make the roof easier to paint. I dont think I have any good pictures of the back of the cab when i got the truck but it was pretty smashed up so over a long period of time ive been pulling out the crunched aluminum and making it straight again. JT will probably realize the difference the most.

[DieselDeere]

I'm not a big fan of de-railing build threads, but I had to post some pictures because it's just such a cool place to wander through. (as long as you are back to the office by 11:45 because they leave for lunch at noon according to the older woman at the desk haha)

[mrsmackpaul]

looks like a interesting yard for a wander and a look

did you get any extra latches I always mean to but never do glad you found all your parts

Paul

[GreenGiant2]

where you at Demos?