Stooge's Longer term car projects, Part 2

[xtremek]

Looks pretty good, except I don't understand how the new piece mates up to the outer skin.

 

[Stooge]

Looks pretty good, except I don't understand how the new piece mates up to the outer skin.

The forward facing sections on either side of the recessed area are still really floppy and will be easy'ish to match the small amount of curve it will he touching of the outer and will **** up against it. The pirority area is the bumper bracket holes, thats really the only areas i need it to touch the outer skin, aside from the bottom flange which im not sure if ill try and crimp it or kind of spot weld the flanges together, i havent gotten there yet this new piece will also weld up to the inner side of the wheel tub and the side of the body.
im also thinking of cutting out the skin's bumper holes a little smaller and cutting into the corners a bit to make tabs that will fold over onto the inner. I think a folded edge will.look a little more finished than just a cut out rectangle.

 

[lardy1]

Thanks for all the updates and insight into your projects. A little vicarious pleasure for me.

 

[Kev442]

Spent some time tearing into things this weekend, nothing too involved, but it all needs doing eventually, right? It was nice to heat the garage and putz around.

Got the clutch pedal, emergency brake and kick panel off to get at the crud caught in the fresh air vent. They always yield disgusting gifts courtesy of mice and trees, this one had a couple extra surprises due to the missing cowl screen.

 

[Stooge]

Thanks for all the updates and insight into your projects. A little vicarious pleasure for me.

Thanks for following along!

Spent some time tearing into things this weekend, nothing too involved, but it all needs doing eventually, right? It was nice to heat the garage and putz around.

Got the clutch pedal, emergency brake and kick panel off to get at the crud caught in the fresh air vent. They always yield disgusting gifts courtesy of mice and trees, this one had a couple extra surprises due to the missing cowl screen.

"fortunately" this car was completely stripped so the only disgusting surprises I've found have been the old repairs and I think there was a little mouse skeleton in a crevice in the floor

Not a lot to write home about this weekend, put the new distributor in the white truck but I want to replace the plugs and re-gasket the carburetor before I start it, and decided to start over on a small piece of the Edsel fender where the body line comes to a point. I bought a new tool a few months back that I haven't had the chance to use yet and this seems like a good opportunity. Cornfield Customs corking tool, some sort of nylon- plastic insert that you can shape into the edge or radius that you need and a striking holder

DSC_6959_1024x1024@2x by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Also started pestering the Edsel owner to figure out what he wants to do for brakes as far as stock replacement stuff or going front discs, and find some shocks so we can get the front ends back together sooner than later. Probably Scarebird for the front disc conversion if we go that route, and I believe tri-five chevy uses the same length and mounting style shocks so we should be spoiled for choice on what to use there.

20181209_121508 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181220_153527 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Then yesterday I spent some time prettying up the new edge piece before it gets buried into the trunk floor. Also, bucked up and bought the 3M green roloc grinding discs for the die grinder and am absolutely kicking myself for using house brand ones for so long and not just spending the money on these. Much quicker, more efficient and last longer. this whole piece is about 52" long for some perspective on the size of the recess that was welded in and most of it was handled with 1 1/2 discs.

Not perfect, but should do the job of not looking too out of place. from this..
Screenshot_20191229-171149_Gallery by Dan Haas, on Flickr

to this

20200105_120936 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200105_120941 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Still needs some trimming and fitment, but im really hoping to start getting some of this permanently tacked in this week

 

[xtremek]

Nice. I've already bought your hooch so you can start on mine next fall?

 

[Kev442]

Damn:

https://appleton.craigslist.org/cto/d/bear-creek-1940-lasalle-5027-dual/7057926713.html

My Dad tells a story about having his Dad's '39 out goofing around during his HS years. Somehow got into it with what he calls a "hot rod", I would guess a '20's Ford with a 30 something flathead in it. Said he was winning until the la salle laid down and the ford caught up and was edging ahead. Everyone in the car was whooping and hollering about how they were losing. "Oh ****, I forgot to upshift into third!" The ford guy caught up a couple miles later and insisted he pop the hood to prove it was bone stock.

 

[Stooge]

I don't know if its the side mounts, but that nose looks huge! '39 Lasalle I would assume would be pretty similar, and I know atleast the '37 Lasalles and Century shared the same body. Over the summer, I got to poke around this beautiful '37 at the Endicott Estates show, but it had also been at the Fitchburg swapmeet earlier in the year.
20190714_100257 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20190714_100441 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20190714_100403 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Not too much to report back about, fiddled around with the white truck for a bit, got a new distributor and plugs, but the starter bendix doesn't seem to be engaging. makes a clunk and spins so I'll need to get under there, but first I need to bring home some more jack stands from the shop as the Edsel is tying up a few of them.

20200112_104331 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Also tore apart the driver side of the Edsel front suspension. I was honestly expecting there to be edsel 'quirkiness', but I guess that is mostly relegated to the body and interior. Sway bar end 'links' were different but that could just be ford stuff. there was a standard square bracket and bushing bolted to the control arm, and then right behind the balljoint, there was another bracket that was bolted on one end and the other side was a retention clip that went through the side of the control arm and is pulled tight from the bolt. No big surprises, its a 1958 car that's been off the road since 1968 when we're assuming there was an engine failure and it was parked.

20191129_145201 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200118_120431 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

I just took it all apart in one piece to bring to my shop to break apart, its warmer and there's more room to work. getting the spring out was the biggest pain, its pretty long and the upper pocket is pretty deep so getting the spring compressor in was a chore. While its all out, i'll take the inner fender out, wire wheel the frame, and throw some paint on it. The engine crossmember, and from the firewall back has already been wire wheeled and painted as the body isn't coming off. Surprisingly its in pretty good shape, and just looks really bad as its a lot of caked on dirt and grease so it should clean up pretty well.

20200118_171858 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200118_171825 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

the brake drums were crumbly, but inside didn't look too bad. We decided to do disc brakes on this from Scarebird, which I think uses some 70s or 80s gen Lincoln Continental rotors and S10 calipers to keep it off the shelf and affordable/ simple. With the 460 big block and wanting to be able to drive it around town and in the city, and for being the same price, ( might be slightly cheaper) as having to rebuild/ replace the stock stuff, it makes sense. Holding off until we have the engine in place to see if we can fit a vacuum booster as the stock 361 was already very close to the stock single circuit master cylinder.

20200118_172905 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200118_180009 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

With the exception of the sway bar bushings, the kit from Kanter's all looks correct. I was really expecting something to be wrong just because of what the car is, but it should all work.

20200118_180747 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200118_180721 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

"Haven't done much" > tears front end apart, lol.

My scarebird kit was for 5x5 bolt pattern. It specified a 75 tbird rear disc to go over the hub. Pretty much a modern front wheel drive setup.

I must have decided I need to have three vehicles torn apart to be just like you. The weather has been up and down lately, so every weekend that gets to the high 30's I kick a car out of the garage so I can work on a floorboard project ( gotta have room to open the door). Made it up to fitment this weekend, still gotta custom make the bucket seat/console mount as no one will cut one out and sell it to me, been trying for like 20 years.

I think another reason the la salle looks so huge is because the nose is straight up and super tall. I think a semi driver has a better view of the road than a la salle owner.

 

[xtremek]

Lucky on the Kanter stuff. Going with rear discs?

Kev, the floorboards look like a decent fit.

 

[Stooge]

"Haven't done much" > tears front end apart, lol.

My scarebird kit was for 5x5 bolt pattern. It specified a 75 tbird rear disc to go over the hub. Pretty much a modern front wheel drive setup.

I must have decided I need to have three vehicles torn apart to be just like you. The weather has been up and down lately, so every weekend that gets to the high 30's I kick a car out of the garage so I can work on a floorboard project ( gotta have room to open the door). Made it up to fitment this weekend, still gotta custom make the bucket seat/console mount as no one will cut one out and sell it to me, been trying for like 20 years. ...

Looks good! **** weld or overlapping the new panels?

You need several cars to bounce around with depending on the mood! I was doing a lot of sheet metal work for months, and wanted a weekend off, but needed something to do so i took a moveable car and made it un-moveable

That must be the difference with the edsel kit, the suspension, brakes and steering is a mix of ford, Mercury and Lincoln stuff. Some of the Edsel's had a 5x5 bolt pattern, while the small series cars and station wagons supposedly have 5x4.5 like the '57'ish thunderbirds, which i guess is what the '80s Lincoln stuff is supposed to be, then just GM D52 calipers and pads that were used in everything.

Lucky on the Kanter stuff. Going with rear discs?
.

Not sure yet, probably not as necessary, but could be a wash in price getting the stock stuff rebuilt, new drums, etc. versus one of the thousands of Ford 9" disc brake kits, ( i haven't verified it, but I've read a few places that its a ford 9, but there could be some differences) and for the same money, have disc brakes, it makes sense. If it is a ford 9, that should make rear end changes a little easier as well

 

[red94chev]

You wanna come down to MD for a week and help me with my bed? Never done sheet metal work so this oughta be interesting.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Stooge]

You wanna come down to MD for a week and help me with my bed? Never done sheet metal work so this oughta be interesting[/IMG]

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Hey cool! I think I remember before you started this truck in my old thread, looks good! is that a parallel 4 link and upper triangulating bars?
Also in that old thread, was how I raised the bed floor with all of those pictures lost to photobucket and losing pictures through getting new phones. I took about 8" out of the bed height I think and kept it so I could still bolt it together instead of welding it solid incase I had to take it apart. It was mostly building a frame off of the regular frame to support the bed floor while clearing all of the suspension stuff. a regular parallel 4link and a panhard or watts link, you probably could have gotten way with a simple sheet metal bridge over the notch and rear axle, and not had to rebuild how the bed mounts.

The wheel tubs had to lengthen them front to back, shorten them height wise, and widen them a bit since the bed is sitting higher up on the tub so its a smaller diameter, but the hole in the bed floor is the same. Also had to section the front panel behind the cab so it would bolt into the bed side flanges as well as the floor. the threaded inner bedside mounts, I made new flanges with threaded holes and placed them 8 or so inches directly above the original mounting holes so it would bolt to the floor like stock. I also shaved the gas door and relocated a smooth on to the bed floor, shaved the stake pockets, had to cut away a bunch of the inner structure and replace it with rectangular tubing, had to unshave a previous owners work of shaving the rear taillights with a stick welder and bondo, and probably a million other things. it wasn't super difficult, just a lot of work and a lot of trimming and hulking the bed on and off

the black rectangular tubing that mounts the gas tank is the raised bed floor frame. I ended up using some universal body mounts from Energy suspension I think to act as the bed mounts/ isolators.

20171004_190808 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Battery accessible when the tailgate is down, also where the fuse for the air management is
20150919_124740 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20150919_124746 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20150919_124641 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

I had to notch/ flatten some of the ribs in the tailgate since the floor was sitting higher up instead of at the base of the tailgate where there is room for it

20150919_124652 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

this looks floppy because I hadn't put the new tube bracing in but had cut away a lot of the large underside structure to clear the new bed frame

20160514_121801 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20160807_100215 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20171005_215343 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20160731_160013 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

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20170819_183140 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

that's all the stuff I could find on the bed in my phone, there are simpler ways to do it and just welding it together would make things a lot easier

 

[Kev442]

I'm overlapping. There is a thick floor support running along the left side that I will use panel adhesive on along with some welds. I want more strength to support the bucket seat and no one will be looking underneath this driver quality ride anyway.

I'm surprised the Edsel has a 9" in it. The cutoff was supposed to be 3600lbs for their use.
Olds beefed up the standard rear in the Vista Cruiser with oversized bearings to handle the extra weight.

 

[Stooge]

I'm surprised the Edsel has a 9" in it. The cutoff was supposed to be 3600lbs for their use.
Olds beefed up the standard rear in the Vista Cruiser with oversized bearings to handle the extra weight.

From what I've been reading, the smaller series cars and wagons got a ford 9 rear, and the larger series cars had a mercury style, then in '59 something changed and they were all the same. Supposedly the '58 Edsel rear drums are some oddball configuration and size but I haven't had the rear wheels off of it yet to really poke around much, but could be an excuse to do discs in the rear as well if it becomes a pain

 

[red94chev]

Yep, that was me! The rear suspension is the Nfamus 3 link kit.

Thanks for those pictures. I've found like 10 ways to do it so I really need to sit down and figure out which direction I want to go.

I think I want to stay away from the sheet metal bridge just because I feel like the raised floor looks a lot cleaner and the space for air management and battery service would be nice.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Stooge]

Yep, that was me! The rear suspension is the Nfamus 3 link kit.

Thanks for those pictures. I've found like 10 ways to do it so I really need to sit down and figure out which direction I want to go.

I think I want to stay away from the sheet metal bridge just because I feel like the raised floor looks a lot cleaner and the space for air management and battery service would be nice

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Ah, gotchya, I was looking at it wrong and thought I saw an upper parallel bar along with the triangulated bars from the wishbone. Looks really good! Raised bed floor does give it a cleaner look. Im planning on cleaning up a bit of my bed floor before I bedline it and was thinking of making some sort of access panel over the accuair ecu, relay, and main wiring incase theres an issue, I wont need to take the bed off.

Spent some time over the weekend trimming and fitting the end of the trunk floor. I was really expecting to have to take a lot off, but was pretty close when i put the outer panel over it, but i trimmed it back to let the outer sit just below flush of the fenders so it will allow for adjustment with the fender itself, and body work as the fenders already had a skim coat of filler it looks like, and a few coats of primer.

i think most of these were taken before i trimmed the back of the inner panel to take it in since the outer skin is sticking out passed the rear fenders, they are now slightly below flush. I cut an undersized opening in the inner panel for the rear bumper brackets, but there is a factory grommet on the outside that I'd like to buy first so i can cut the outer opening to fit the grommet.

20200126_121941 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200126_134553 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

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20200126_113131 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Also, picked up a cowl vent that i saw pop up. i had already had a vent cowl, but in the history of the car being parted out, someone probably offered him $5 for some bracket off of the vent because i was missing the main connecting piece. i probably could have made it, but i have enough stuff to make on this car and it was cheap and at my door in 3days

20200127_203037 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

i did still have the original knob and some of the linkage. Uses detents and have 3 or 4 tiers from closed to full open. Planning on reusing the original dash knobs where i can. The lower under dash knob is what controls the vent, it looks a lot worse in the picture and is actually pretty smooth and not crispy.

20200127_200929 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200127_195619 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200127_195523 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200127_195530 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

And im trying to put together a clutch for this thing. i have the rear flywheel for the back of the 320 straight 8, the bellhousing, and transmission and pedals that hang off the side of the transmission. I missed out on a take off one a few weeks ago when it got a little too spendy, but i did manage to find a rebuilt 11" disk to atleast fit the spline. i can buy the throwout bearing new, but im trying to find an off the shelf pressure plate that will work. Supposedly for the smaller engines, mid '90s jeep stuff works, but not for the bigger ones. So far, fullsize 70's ford stuff and early 80s jeep v8 are looking the most promising.

20200127_202434 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200127_202539 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Having the pedals mount to the side of the transmission should make it a little easier to figure out what will fit without having to have it in the car... i hate working under cars

20180527_151046 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

I see you now have a place for your sawed off shotgun in the trunk. When the revenouer asks you to pop the trunk looking for 'shine: POW!

That trunk work bench came in handy on the job too. I used the trunk of my parts car half the fall to toss power tools and hand tools in there, real close to where the action was. It took 10 solid minutes to empty it out and put stuff away when it came time to chop the car up.

Seeing how Chrysler and Jeep were about joined at the hip in the early '80's, check the specs on the 4 speed dodge truck stuff too. There were two levels, light duty car/van and heavier duty pick up truck.

 

[xtremek]

I finally understand the trunk piece, and it looks nice. It's interesting what will work across the different car lines, and I'm looking forward to watching this play out.

 

[Stooge]

I see you now have a place for your sawed off shotgun in the trunk. When the revenouer asks you to pop the trunk looking for 'shine: POW!

That trunk work bench came in handy on the job too. I used the trunk of my parts car half the fall to toss power tools and hand tools in there, real close to where the action was. It took 10 solid minutes to empty it out and put stuff away when it came time to chop the car up.

Seeing how Chrysler and Jeep were about joined at the hip in the early '80's, check the specs on the 4 speed dodge truck stuff too. There were two levels, light duty car/van and heavier duty pick up truck.

I finally understand the trunk piece, and it looks nice. It's interesting what will work across the different car lines, and I'm looking forward to watching this play out.

Im still not even sure what that trunk recess is for, but the factory had it and I thought it would be ****** to just make a nice and easy, straight across piece. The nub that sticks out in the middle of the original floor section is threaded and holds the spare tire clamp in place, so maybe some sort of area for a tool kit, but that doesn't seem right. I might make a little hole somewhere in it for a drain as it seems like a great place for water to sit. i think after everything's painted black in the interior, it wont stick out like a sore thumb and that's what i was more concerned with than matching the factory one exact.

I was staying on top of keeping it clean for a bit, but you just end up using a lot of stuff and plus, I know myself well enough that if the hammer I should use is over with the other hammers across the shop, but a good-enough hammer is right there, that's the one im using so I might as well keep it all right there!

Good call on the dodge stuff, first page i opened was 11" pressure plates with the 3 finger levers and the correct number of springs, (factory buick big series had 12 so i figure i'll stick with that). Plus a little cheaper than 70s jeep stuff so i wont feel as bad taking a chance on it to see if it fits. i guess next is to get the throwout bearing and find or modify a clutch fork and take some measurements so i can hopefully narrow down what pressure plate has the best chance of fitting.

you can sort of see the recess before i cut the outer section out. it just kicks up to clear the frame rails on either side.

20191201_115256 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20191208_113524 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20191208_114032 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

My WAG as to why the recess is there is as a cheap crumple zone. In a minor biff that area collapses instead of the whole trunk pan wrinkling. The deck lid would be forced into that opening too as it bends down and inward.
Or, it is just there to keep things from rolling out of the trunk and landing on your foot.

 

[Pressingonward]

Nice progress. It's cool seeing the old technology like the transmission-mounted pedals.

 

[Stooge]

Nice progress. It's cool seeing the old technology like the transmission-mounted pedals.

Hey thanks, I appreciate it!

Finally stopped dragging my feet, made a few little tweaks and got the fitment of the new tail pan where I was happy with it and started burning it in. The outside edges still need to be welded up, but im going to do that as part of some small repairs/ cleanups to the wheel tubs, and I cut out the tacked in lower trunk channel to accommodate the changes so the inner area looks a little messy here, but it will get cleaned up. also started cutting out the old rotten channel and test fitting the new ones I made.

1 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

2 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

3 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

4 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Nice to have it look a little normal again

5 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Since I was pulling the rear fenders off to finish welding up the tail pan, I figured I should probably, finally blow the rest of the body apart Saturday. I have a bit of a plan to have it in paint this summer, though I originally had plans for paint this spring, but I underestimated the trunk project and its just a little easy to get a little lazy in the winter months here

6 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

7 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

11 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

I already knew that the bottom cowl areas were going to need work, but the fenders were obstructing them and the driver side had a rough patch screwed in place over it, so I couldn't see it much. Driver side is obviously looking a little worse and I'm probably going to make one big piece that includes so of the door sill/ corner, but I think with all of the brazing on the passenger side, its going to be a bigger pain since the other side was just left alone but covered.

8 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

10 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

9 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

before I started pulling anything off, I was a little worried about the condition of the frame since it looked pretty crusty and a little rough, and that I would have to have it sandblasted, and have some repairs to it. Hit it with a wire wheel on the crossmember just out of curiosity, looked promising, and spent maybe an hour or so going over it and Im astonished how well and easy its cleaning up, so I think, wire wheel, some air sanders, etc, it wont be fun, but I should be all right when I pull the body off in the next few weeks and can get to the rest of the frame.

Also have to say that im pretty impressed/ more surprised how good of condition the inner areas of the front sheet metal is.

12 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

13 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

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As an aside from that, I've wanted to start some of the "stupid little projects" that I always think up but never really do because theres cars and other stuff to work on, so this combines playing with sheet metal and my silly cartoons that I paint into exciting new stupid hobbies! Made from whatever scrap that was within arms reach of the table I was making it at

Screenshot_20200202-124443_Video Player by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200202_164712 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

A video of it in action, I don't know of a way to embed video into this forum. the ice cream arm is the lever

20200201_182123 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

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20200202_164805 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

last1 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

last2 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[xtremek]

The doodles look like fun. I hope you get the car in paint soonish. Looking forward to see it driving before the summer is over.

 

[Pressingonward]

I like the octopus

 

[Kev442]

Winter is definitely slack season, ask me how I know.

That hour you spent on the front engine cradle has been on my "next time I feel like doing something" list for two months...

In my defense, Winter actually showed up with 16" of snow in February, so I've been going snowmobiling on the weekend. It then takes until Thursday for my old carcass to recover.

The doodles are probably a cheap form of therapy, no doctor bills!

 

[Stooge]

The doodles look like fun. I hope you get the car in paint soonish. Looking forward to see it driving before the summer is over.

i might be able to hear it make a noise this year, but id guess that im still a solid yr from it getting to a point where its driveable

I like the octopus

Winter is definitely slack season, ask me how I know.

That hour you spent on the front engine cradle has been on my "next time I feel like doing something" list for two months...

In my defense, Winter actually showed up with 16" of snow in February, so I've been going snowmobiling on the weekend. It then takes until Thursday for my old carcass to recover.

The doodles are probably a cheap form of therapy, no doctor bills!

thanks guys, I like the doodles too, I don't know if its a form of therapy, I think I just like making stupid/ weird stuff and making my friends laugh

I've given some away to friends if someone wants one, and have even sold a couple, not on purpose but have been asked. This one went to Brian Lohnes, the NHRA announcer/ has a show on motortrend

2020-02-28_07-08-48 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

I've been thinking of figuring out the primer and paint that i'll use, sooner than later and have been talking with a painter friend to bounce some things off of. When I painted the dash, I just bought a quart of Boulevard black to try out and see how it looked, from TCP global's restoration shop line since that's what I used on the white truck and liked it. I like the boulevard black, but was thinking of trying Tamco's primer, sealer and high gloss black after seeing it in person. I've only heard good things about Tamco, pricing is the same https://tamcopaint.com/collections/...roducts/high-gloss-polyurethane-singlestage-1 Underside of the car, the frame/ chassis, inside of the fenders and floor/interior will get sprayed with Valspar Tractor and implement paint for durability since it wont have an upholstered interior for a bit.

20190922_120126 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20190922_120118 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

"reminds me of Imron" That got my attention.
What's the temp range of the Tamco polyurethane? I was going to go Southern Poly, but they admit you need 70+ for their product to work well. That's not going to happen often in Northernish Wi.

 

[Stooge]

"reminds me of Imron" That got my attention.
What's the temp range of the Tamco polyurethane? I was going to go Southern Poly, but they admit you need 70+ for their product to work well. That's not going to happen often in Northernish Wi.

I didn't see it listed on the site but I bellieve they just recently launched that new site so the TDS sheets are mostly dead links or 'coming soon'. the TCP site lists their single stage polyurethane reducers, that I would imagine are fairly similar, as;

Fast Reducer 60-70 degree

Medium Reducer 70-85 degrees

Slow Reducer 85 and above degrees

Its still cold or cool most days here, there's been a handful of days in the 50s, but still there are several blowers for the heater at my place to warm it up pretty quickly. I was going to email tamco about the fillers and high fill I've been using to see if there are going to be any issues before I get too far into filler and primer. My painter friend is telling me its fine, but I just want try and make sure I don't have issues with adhesion or something down the line.

I've also only heard good things about Soulthern Poly, and I believe that's what I've seen MP&C use on his instagram. For paint, im not really worried about trying to save small amounts of money and this isn't a consideration about why I was looking at using Tamco or restoration shop again, but the $130'ish a gallon for theirs, SP's single stage and hardener set is $218 per the site. I plan on buying 2 gallons, (we estimated 6quarts for a few coats for the size of the car and that everything has to be painted) but I might try and see if I can get one of the gallons split up into quarts so that i'll have an extra unopened can or 2 from the same batch incase something needs to be repaired/ repainted in the future, and I would rather have excess material than not enough incase it takes more than we thought or I screw up and have to do a door over or something.

 

[Kev442]

I got concerned about Southern because they want the metal stabilized above 70, more like closer to 80. If I can find a poly that truly works well with the metal 65-70ish, I can live with that. The problem around here is that 80+ always means humidity around 90-100%.

 

[Stooge]

The last weekend or 2's projects have been skipping around a bit, but have been getting some time in on the buick trying to get it ready for body work and pulling it off the frame sooner than later.

Since I had the fenders pulled off, figured I would the untouched one in primer, but first had to massage a few dents and wrinkles out, ( I also spent a few days after this sanding out all of the pitting and discoloration that could be rust). I think it must have been bumped at some point in it's lifetime since the passenger side had the same damage.

20200301_161909 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200229_164415 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Some dykem to highlight the highs and lows

20200301_163231 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200301_164042 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200301_164949 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200301_165804 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

And in a few coats of high build a few days later, (also sanded down the hood sides and sprayed those in high build as well) Still have a few areas that need work, but its a lot easier for me to to see in a solid color than bare metal

20200308_174037 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Yesterday's project, I wanted to get started on making a new repair piece for one of the front rocker/ fender mount area in front of the doors. I need to do both sides, and since I had the car pushed over to one side, and there was more space and light on the passenger side, I started on the passenger side. Both sides are pretty rotten, but the driver side is a little worse so I figured using the slightly better passenger side as a template/ reference to start made a little bit of sense. I didn't take many pictures of it since there wasn't much to see, but started out cutting a 14"x14" piece and a 9"x4" piece, the big piece for the mostly straight rocker skin, and the narrow piece for the deceptive amount of shape in the recess for the fender. That was started on the shrinker to get the flange, but probably made it harder to shape the rest of it in the long run since it was made more rigid

2020-03-16_08-16-28 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

I still have a brace welded into the door frame. so that still needs to be cut out and the door better aligned before I cut out the weld and weld in the new.

20200315_101227 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200315_101309 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200315_101255 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Still need to map out where the new fender mounting threaded inserts will go, and tighten up/ clean up the edges and corners a bit better, but its a start

20200315_153526 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200315_153535 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200315_153705 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Pressingonward]

Making progress!

 

[xtremek]

Looks like a very good start. I'm learning a ton from youor thread.

 

[Kev442]

Nice!

I see Hi Build lived up to it's name. I hope it does the same for me someday.

 

[Growlertdi]

Good stuff.

 

[Kev442]

Your newest pictures got me too antsy. I opened up the pole barn too early this weekend. Spent an hour scraping undercoat with the heatgun until my feet got cold on the 38 degree concrete. Maybe try again in a couple of weeks, did feel good to be back on the project for the first 50 minutes...

 

[Stooge]

Your newest pictures got me too antsy. I opened up the pole barn too early this weekend. Spent an hour scraping undercoat with the heatgun until my feet got cold on the 38 degree concrete. Maybe try again in a couple of weeks, did feel good to be back on the project for the first 50 minutes...

Every little bit counts! I've still been going to work with all the stuff going on, so I didn't get the time off I had been expecting with a temporary shutdown, but I've been trying to set little weekend or during the week, quick evening things to finish. Im not usually great with setting goals, planning or keeping timelines in any aspect, but feels like I've been making some forward progress, but theres still some stuff I've been dragging my feet on, like spending the time to line up the doors really well and replace that toe board/ front rocker area, start fitting the trunk perimeter channel have been the big ones lately.

A little evening project from the other night was to atleast start welding the rest of the tail panel, though I am making a new piece to replace a section of the wheel tub so theres still an open side. I had originally cut the body to match the new tailpanel, but made some changes, so that's why there was a triangular hole to fill, ****** planning rather than ****** execution

20200321_173444 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Just a first pass clean up, but not a million miles off

20200321_194302 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Then I started getting the nose/ radiator support and the headlight buckets cleaned up since they were the last of the removeable sheet metal that hadn't been stripped yet. The original remaining paint on the fenders and nose matched the body, but with the exception of a few dents and wrinkles in the fenders, they are in much better shape than the rest of the body and shouldn't take too much to get them finished.

20200403_200207 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200404_135944 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

The headlight buckets are around 19" long

2020-04-06_07-45-48 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200404_142715 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200404_154704 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

When I took apart the headlights to get them cleaned up, unsurprisingly, I seem to be missing a few pieces to have a complete assembly. where I've been a little nervous about some part of them getting damaged/ specifically the lenses and reflectors, I decided to get them painted so I could take them home to rebuild them and keep them out of the way while the rest of the car is being worked on.

trying to spray primer on big light buckets hanging from a hook was pretty clumsy, so I spent 2 minutes making a little paint stand out of some scrap panel and exhaust tubing

20200405_095023 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

From the picture, it looks a little wavy while it was wet and I thought I screwed something up, but leveled out fine

20200405_123131 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20200405_123256 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

i'll going to get the lenses and chrome rings cleaned up a bit, and mock them together to have something to look at this week, I just painted the headlights yesterday so I haven't unmasked them yet.

 

[Kev442]

Dam it has to feel good to have finish paint on parts of the car.
Your landlord end up using the metal support for his sander after all?

 

[Stooge]

Dam it has to feel good to have finish paint on parts of the car.
Your landlord end up using the metal support for his sander after all?

its especially nice knowing how good of shape the fenders, nose and hood are in, that I can mostly focus on getting the body sorted, and while there's still a ton to do, painting is atleast visible in the not super distant future.

Not sure, Saturday I was talking to the father, whos the owner, and said his son must have misunderstood or something, but the son had been planning on putting both sanders on some other frames, so who knows. They are a general contracting/ construction company, and he said theyre going to be shutting down for a few weeks, and the son will have plenty of time to move the sanders. Im not in much hurry, and getting the body off the frame was mostly to get some paint on the frame, rather than much to do with the body, so its not really holding up metal/ body work at all.

in other news, hope I never have any issues with the air management on the white truck. the company Accuair, I used for the air suspension "brain" went bankrupt/ ceased operation the other day! i think i spent a little over $2k with them, but if i had to switch to another company's version, it would be around $1500. They are blaming it on the virus stuff, but i saw some of their distributors posting online about it, saying they seemed to have been in trouble for awhile, taking along time to deliver orders, sending partials, etc. so who knows

 

[xtremek]

I heard about Accuair as well, lots of sour grapes. Did I miss a post about the sanders? The headlights look great.