Preparing for Reassembly

The left hand vertical side wall has been repaired and surfaced.  The left ends of the cross beams have been repaired and surfaced.  The left sill is repaired, surfaced and temporarily re-installed.

While waiting for the new woodwork for the right hand side and floorboards, the left sidewall is pretty much ready to reattach.

The primary fasteners of sidewall-to-sill are long rods with countersunk heads that pass edgewise through the sidewall into the sill in five places.  Because there were no washers used on the nuts under the sill, I had to destroy the nuts, and hence the rods, to get the rods out.  I ended up making new rods out of "all thread" or running thread, after having not such a good experience trying to hand-thread 1/4 inch rod!  I used a little permanent Loctite between a hex nut and one end of each rod (there are twelve rods total) to create a "head" for each of these long bolts.  The hex nuts fit right down flush in the holes on the upper edge of the side walls.  (I have to do just a little grinding to make them fit perfectly).  The heads will be covered over with a strip of metal.  I'll use square nuts and washers on the bottoms.

Update 1/11/17...

Before reassembly of the left side, pretty much all of the crossbeams had end split repairs done.  These photos of repaired/resurfaced boards look pretty rustic, but hours have gone into preparing these boards to receive paint this coming spring, then it will look NOTHING like it does now!

The reassembly was fun and interesting, and the new rods went perfectly into place with plenty of thread to spin the bolts onto.  In order to finish up, there are screws that go up through the sill from underneath and into the panel, but that is for later, when I can turn the box over.  But I can tell you, that is one sturdy panel!

All the ironwork has been cleaned and de-rusted, and all the rust pitting has been filled.  These pretty braces are only installed temporarily, and will have to come off for painting, but in the meantime, there's no better place to store them than on the wagon itself!

The ends of the bolts look ugly, and surely they must be turned the wrong way?!  But in fact, the threads of the bolts face outward, so there are no sharp edges to snag feed sacks and such in the wagon bed!  All these fasteners are random, just to hold things together temporarily.  When the final reassembly takes place, the threads will be cut flush with the nuts.

This is the inside, left front corner.  Rather than traditional iron-reinforced wood framing, the corner is reinforced with this casting.  At the top of the casting, you can see a projection with a hole through it.  This receives the bolt for the dashboard!

Again, the fasteners are random for now, as the front panel has to come off in order to install the new floorboards (that are on order).

This is the outside view of the above corner.  The corner is covered with a sheet metal plate which thankfully, was little damaged by rust.

The hand bored holes through the wood are a nightmare of twists and turns, as the hardware holes do not match up perfectly.  It will be a bit o' fun to try bending bolts so that the heads will lay flat against the sheet metal!

The new wood for the right hand sill and all new floorboards is on order (custom milling).  It WOULD be here soon, but the local world has come to a standstill due to rather extreme (for us) winter weather.

While waiting for the new wood, it's time to focus on cleanup and repair (split ends!) on the right side.