Inliners International Forums General Discussion Truck Talk Service Hatch in Firewall

The above snippets were taken from the thread on my pickup, but I'm wondering who are the lucky folks that actually have some type of service hatch in their firewall to get to the rear of the gauge cluster and/or other dash components?

I figured that stock must have one in his '49, but maybe that is not so...

What gives? I've seen some panels for sale on ebay that appear to be from passenger cars in that era, but have searched through pics of truck firewalls and don't see anything, so I'm stumped like beater is. I'm more curious as I've been thinking about cutting a hole in my firewall to do the same thing...seems like it would make one's life a lot easier in dealing with the electrical.

Indeed Kerropi . . . I have checked a few sources as well and I see that the trucks don't have the service hatch. I had assumed that both the cars and trucks of this era had them because the dash sits so close to the firewall:

On my car everything on the stock wiring harness is under a screw. When I replaced the harness, I did it before installing the inner fenders. This leaves lots of working room to stand between the front wheel and the firewall. There is no way I could have gotten a screw driver on all those terminals by reaching up from inside . . . no way.

Do you have the shop manual for your truck? Perhaps the dash or the cluster does come out for service. But that assumes slack in the wires. Curious.

That sucks for truck owners, one of the guys at Jim Carter mentioned he though the AD design trucks had that on them, but I knew the AK Series didn't. I guess only the cars have it, which is what I had kind of concluded...

Do you have a truck also? I was always under the impression your stock '49 was a truck, but maybe it is a car. I'm trying to figure out if one of those covers would fit, if the opening was cut to match it? Since the lip just sits over the opening, one could create a template out of the inset on the cover.



They don't really mention it in the shop manual. I'm told there are 2 bolts that hold it, one on each side of the gauge cluster, and that it removes from the rear. To be honest I'm not entirely sure yet, could be 4 bolts, one on each corner. I can kind of see up there, but so far haven't been able to tell how the cluster is hooked up. I don't know if I will need to get it out or not, but may need to when I replace the speedometer.

beater,

Here's one on Ebay, they sell cheap enough. Looks like it just sits in the opening and the lip screws onto the firewall.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/49-52-GM-Chevy-...ws/184018818079

In one way I'm so glad there is not easy access to the wiring under the dash in my AD pickup and the ones I have owed before. When I think of the hours I have spent and the words I have said with skinned knuckles and dirt in my eyes contorting while standing on my head dropping small nuts and wrenches in my face I would just feel silly if there had been an easy way.

On the AD Some access can be gained by removing the grill for the radio speaker and the glove box. Taking the steering wheel off can help. Removing the seat and laying padding over the under seat storage box can help.
To make things worse the dash is welded in. The clusters are held in by nuts on studs. The dash lights push in on sockets to holes in the back of the clusters wedged above the steering column and a brace. They dangle down if not plugged in just right and spark and blink and they randomly find a temporary ground. The amp and fuel gauges have wires to them held in place by small nuts or screws. The temp gauge is mechanical with a long somewhat delicate tube to the engine block that has to be treated with care and not crimped. The oil pressure gauge is also mechanical with a tube, hopefully full of oil, that connects with a brass fitting to the back of the gauge. If that is not sealed properly you get a warm feeling running down your leg.. The light switch is a junction for several wires held in place by screws. The ignition switch, with no accessary position, is held in from the rear. By the time you do an electric wiper conversion, after market turn signals,a radio, tach, and heater wired you're pretty much over wanting to be under the dash. May I ask what was advanced about this design?

But honestly, admit it, you'd have been happy to have had some type of access, right?

I agree and the fork in the road I'm faced with.

I believe the '41-'46 dash does come out and unbolts rather than welded in place, however, you have to remove the steering to get the dash out, so it's a lot of work.


Indeed you may! I'll answer from my perspective of being an owner of the predecessor of the AD. The truck was enlarged which makes it much easier to work on the engine and do engine swaps in general, plenty of room for a V8. V8 will fit in the AK Series but much tighter and limited space.

The hoods that open up from the sides are cool looking, but in reality they rattle a lot, require some fidgeting to get operating correctly, don't open/close smoothly, etc...they even get in the way when they're open as they block much of the access from the top. Many people remove them while doing extensive work to the engines, so that they don't get in the way.

The same holds true for the tilt out windshield. It's a way cool feature but there was a reason they got rid of it. They constantly failed on the pinion gear that swings the windshield out, or the cranks broke, it was a common failure.

Interior was made slightly nicer, a slightly better seat, a more functional dash, better window cranks and door hardware, et al.

Bed is larger, can carry more cargo, has more space inside the bed.

Electrical lagged behind a bit, but was already in motion to switch to 12v. Vehicles were now pretty much moved to negative ground, where previous they were positive ground for GMC and negative ground for Chevy. This kind of involved through the evolution to 12 volt, and those were some major issues to standardize on in the auto industry.

The AD trucks were the quietest and most solid to date when they had come out. Some of the improvements were in progress, like the 12v, automatic chokes, easier starting with 168 tooth flywheel, etc...

Certainly the AD trucks didn't fix all problems, but they were a HUGE improvement to the Chevy/GMC trucks in general, some of the best to date at that point. I bought my AK Series because of some of those features it had, the side opening hoods, the tilt out windshield, smaller cab and size of truck in general...I felt those features would be appreciated more in the future because they got rid of them. But those features are not without issues. My $0.02...

It was just a joke, I love my old '53 but it's due for another freshening. Have to get something else going first.

I couldn't agree more, I love my 'ol '46, and I think I might love her more if she had an open firewall...

It doesn't seem like it will structurally destroy anything. mine has a large flat area to the right of the voltage regulator.

Look how much space is on the firewall? Seriously, that's like the size of Texas! And look at the hole they put the speedo cable and wire through? It's like fishing it through the truck's belly button...



PS - I guess I'm not very humorous today...I totally missed yours...

stock,

Curious about those air filters. They look like paper honeycomb style. I had a guy send me some hate mail on the K&N, claiming that it lets more dirt through the filter and destroys the engines. He also claimed that people using small honeycomb style filters as on the engine pictured above are not adequate.

Most of the data I've seen is pretty positive towards the K&N and I've used one on a '88 Range Rover and it worked well as far as I could tell...

I saw on a photo you posted in the Picture forum your '49 appears to have the original oil bath filter on it. This isn't the same car, is it?

That engine sure looks sexy!

Those are reproductions from Charlie Price's Vintage Speed. He owns the "Edmunds Custom" trademark. He has both the short and tall versions of this piece - as well as the 2-5/8" and 2-5/16" air horn variations. I bought mine several years ago. Hopefully the quality of the reproduction remains: Charlie Price Catalog
choose the 'air cleaner' category. These are few page clicks into the list. I think the filter elements are K&N.

I drove my '49 in stock trim for several years before I tore it down for rebuild/hop-up.

Before:

After:

Well, it's a beauty now! That's a nice looking engine!

I don't know what I will do to mine, but my inclination is to leave it kinda stock. It's needs a fair amount of work, but the engine seems strong when I have it running. It did fire up today and I drove it around the turnaround at my yard. Clutch is not strong, brakes need some attention still, I don't think I'm up to driving it 40 miles. I will see about trailering it over to the scale tomorrow. Recently I got new tires on my trailer, and I had gotten the winch working with the trailer just yet.