Stooge's Longer term car projects, Part 2

[Kev442]

$149 is exactly why I will build my own. I figure less than $20 in materials and 3-4 hours max. That's the kind of hourly rate I like to do the work for, I get a big smile when saving $30 per hour.
I also need to put things in the proper order and build this contraption over the winter. I really need to get the floorboards fitted together before it gets too cold, I don't heat the pole building. If this fall is anything like the spring, it will go from 85 to 45 in two weeks flat.

 

[Stooge]

$149 is exactly why I will build my own. I figure less than $20 in materials and 3-4 hours max. That's the kind of hourly rate I like to do the work for, I get a big smile when saving $30 per hour.
I also need to put things in the proper order and build this contraption over the winter. I really need to get the floorboards fitted together before it gets too cold, I don't heat the pole building. If this fall is anything like the spring, it will go from 85 to 45 in two weeks flat.

For some reason, and although i have to do it sort of often, i just have a real hate for spending time building tools and widgets. Hard enough to get the free time and motivation to go to the garage afterwork, i just want to get to the good parts! for something like a tubing straightener though, where an off the shelf one is that expensive, i will end up building my own. I work pretty well in the fall and winter, the garage has heat though i seldom turn it on, (i have enough self insulation and raggedy sweatshirts), but there's not a good way to cool it down in the summer, just really holds the heat in. i have a big blade fan, but its cumbersome and takes up a good foot print, and the corner i used to put it in, was converted to another 240 outlet since i got a new compressor a few months ago and that corner and outlet, made the most sense for the compressor. Sort of thinking of buying something like this fan, though maybe a little less powerful so it doesn't blow everything around https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NY1WFSC/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Started painting some of the underlapping edges on the buick floor pans for when I get to "spot welding" plug welding them in so its not just metal to metal, and also made a few repair pieces for the interior wall structure that connects to the floor, that was pretty rotted away. no pictures, but just a few straight shapes with flanged edges.

Chipping away at the edsel fender, coming together with less fighting than I was anticipating, just taking my time as not to cause more damage to some of the fragile rotted areas I haven't gotten to yet, since I will still need to copy them. Just tacked in for now, and I still need to make a filler piece for the corner of the recess/ dent, but its solid for now, and will start on the side of the headlight bucket area since going in and finish welding and grinding and cleaning up this piece, i'm bound to damage some of the paper thin rusty metal around the headlight and body line.

20180820_180554 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180825_145333 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

The recess/ dent looks undersized, but I was counting on massaging it in to fit the remaining edge of the fender, but it matches up now that its in.

20180825_141052 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

**** welded on the top and right sides, the bottom and left side underlap like the factory one did. the stuff on the underlapped edges is just white paint, to act as a protectant so its not metal on metal, and also in the second picture, you can see the holes drilled along the perimeter. This is so I can line up the new piece, mark off where the holes are on the fender, and give those spots a kiss with a carbide bit to remove the paint and I can plug weld the drilled holes to the paint removed areas, a la' poor mans spot welding.

20180825_161803 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

That fender is coming along much faster than I could possibly have envisioned. That bead roller is showing up in just about every picture you post, I think it's hauling the mail pretty good for you.

I took time off to enjoy the holiday, but I did dump the oil out of the posi rear end, mount it on the frame (that took a lot longer than I thought it would, needed a come along and persuasion), and filled it with new oil/lube.
Then, because I am still avoiding the floor pan, I installed the front swaybar, discovering that I do not have the standard bar, but the beefier one. Hopefully the bushings on the way are the correct ones this time...
I started mocking up drivetrain components, modern transmissions are much thicker around the middle than the old days. I may end up with a combination of thicker body mounts and some transmission tunnel surgery.
They are promising some decent temps for this weekend, so I will finally be able to wear some long pants, maybe baseball sleeves and a cap in order to tackle the floorpan. The less blood lost, the better!

 

[Stooge]

That fender is coming along much faster than I could possibly have envisioned. That bead roller is showing up in just about every picture you post, I think it's hauling the mail pretty good for you.

I took time off to enjoy the holiday, but I did dump the oil out of the posi rear end, mount it on the frame (that took a lot longer than I thought it would, needed a come along and persuasion), and filled it with new oil/lube.
Then, because I am still avoiding the floor pan, I installed the front swaybar, discovering that I do not have the standard bar, but the beefier one. Hopefully the bushings on the way are the correct ones this time...
I started mocking up drivetrain components, modern transmissions are much thicker around the middle than the old days. I may end up with a combination of thicker body mounts and some transmission tunnel surgery.
They are promising some decent temps for this weekend, so I will finally be able to wear some long pants, maybe baseball sleeves and a cap in order to tackle the floorpan. The less blood lost, the better!

Where you are already doing the floor pans, I would think the best way to do it would be to modify the trans hump rather than propping the body up with thicker mounts, that just seems like asking for trouble down the line with having things not line up. Whats that part of it look like now? leaving the firewall facing edge in tact, cutting down the lower horizontal sides of the hump and just prying it up until you have enough space, and filling the new gaps would be the way I would go if you just need a little more clearance. Post some pics here if you want!

im actually a little surprised how the fender is coming together, which is good since its pretty big, but the owner saw it last night and was really happy with it so far. The next part will be around the headlight bucket and remaking part of the body line, which will be the most complex out of it, but I have a few ideas for it. its been pretty damn hot lately so ive been taking it a little easy lately, plus I had a few dogs staying over the weekend so I didn't get much done then either, but hard to turn down really easy money, (around $400 over the weekend just for having 2 dogs over for the long weekend ).
I'm getting the info second hand and I still have to get in touch with them, but the guy doing the machining on the Edsel's engine, mentioned the shop next to him was looking to have some metal work done on an old Willys, though I don't know the specifics of what it actually is and what it needs. Also possibly doing some rust repairs on a 60s Pontiac Safari for a local Pontiac guy, as well as chasing down some wiring issues on his '53 Mercury Monterey. Have to wait and see what actually comes to fruition, but i'm going to be running out of space quick if it does, but I've been talking with a buddy about going in on a bigger space somewhere, but rents around here are pretty high for commercial bays so I would have to make sure I had some steady jobs to pay for it. I have it pretty easy at my shop now and can do whatever I want, but im running out of room if I want to take on more cars past my own, or want some new pieces of tooling, (looking at English wheels a lot lately). We'll see!

One of the 2 car shows I try to make it to every year is this weekend, weather is supposed to be perfect for it. Pre -'72 cars only, most of them being traditional hot rods and customs. i'll probably make a thread for pictures afterwards.

Screenshot_2018-07-09-08-21-38 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[OccupantRJ]

I have reshaped a couple of trans tunnels by using a 3 lb hammer from underneath the car to stretch certain areas for clearance when just a bit of modification was needed. Heat from a torch will allow more stretch of course.

 

[Kev442]

I should have mentioned that I am going to have to overcome a factory engine position that was between 5 and 7 degrees of tilt. The factory fixed that with the intake manifold to achieve a level carb surface.
I am going to run big and littles (tires) to gain back quite a bit of that, but seeing how I have to fabricate new body mounts, I figured to grab an inch there too. Maybe I'll compromise and go 1/2" thicker. Shimming the radiator support that distance would be no big deal.
I won't even get to the test fitting until next summer anyway, the rest of the undercarriage by the trunk needs to be finished in the Spring.

I did spend a couple hours with the floorpan today, slowly but surely?
I will have to spend some time wrenching on other vehicles throughout the fall, got plenty of chores there to do before it gets too cold.

 

[xtremek]

I did spend a couple hours with the floorpan today, slowly but surely?
I will have to spend some time wrenching on other vehicles throughout the fall, got plenty of chores there to do before it gets too cold.

Preach it sir. It ***** that life gets in the way of our addictions.

 

[Stooge]

....
I won't even get to the test fitting until next summer anyway, the rest of the undercarriage by the trunk needs to be finished in the Spring.

I did spend a couple hours with the floorpan today, slowly but surely?
I will have to spend some time wrenching on other vehicles throughout the fall, got plenty of chores there to do before it gets too cold.

I work a lot better in the cooler/ cold weather than in the summer, so I've been looking forward to it getting cool out. Between the heat, soup like humidity and my stupid leg acting up still, (although miles ahead of what it was like in June/ July when I could barely stand or walk), I've been a lazy ******* this summer!

Picked up one of the last big pieces of the puzzle yesterday, split folding bench seat out. it's actually out of a 1938 Chevy coupe, but with the exception of the location of the sliding track handle, (in front of instead of to the side), its all the same as what would've been in the Buick. The guy selling it had several late 30's Cadillac Lasalle's in various stages of assembly/ disassembly and I was originally looking at a seat he had out of one of those but wanted $800 for it and not a penny less. I asked about this one, and how wide it was and he put it into one of his '37 Cadillac coupes that had been stripped, fit perfectly and I saved $500 as the $800 one would have had to been stripped and reupholstered as well. I can finally finish the floor as I've been dragging my feet until I had a seat, ( and wanted this style) since I didn't want to button up the floor and have to cut it up and modify it to accommodate whatever I ended up with for a seat.

20180913_164509 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_164500 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

He had a lot of cool stuff, unfortunately I didn't realize my phone wasn't charging on the drive up and between GPS and Bluetooth music duty, there wasn't much battery when I got there.

20180913_130828 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_130901 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_130855 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

And I picked up a few things from his 'flea market/ swap meet' garage. nothing I really needed, but for the prices I figured it was worth it to have some spare parts incase I needed something or came across someone who did. Among other things, a Stewart Warned 'South Wind' heater, I haven't really looked it up yet but looks like an under dash gasoline heater, a mid-late '30s Philco radio/ speaker, not correct for the buick, but it was part of the lot and cool enough looking, and an unidentified bumper with pretty good chrome, fairly generic looking but appears to be early 30s Ford, I figure i'll put it in the corner until it finds a purpose

20180913_150642 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_150653 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_150430 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180913_150448 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Kev442]

I guess we are operating on the same wavelength, I'm lazy too!
Actually, I've been watching Cl for a parts car to supply an interior for the other project car that I got roadworthy this year. One finally showed up about three hours away, I only hope that he does hold the car for me until I can get down there. He works swing shift and I don't, plus I told him straight out I won't tow in the rain or 80+ degrees. Towing a car puts me right at my suv's tow rating with all my gear in it.
I could not believe how hot it was today, it felt like mid July being 83 degrees and blazing sunshine. I may spend an hour or two in the pole building tomorrow. I'll probably start sweating, get pissed and quit.....

 

[Stooge]

good luck on getting the parts car, I even took a half day to pick up the seats the other day! after a year of looking, I wasn't going to risk missing out on them for a good price and within about an hour drive.

Got a little done before it got into the 80's this morning. Since I have the seats, I can start buttoning up the floors finally, just a few parts to make that I've been putting off. First tacked in the driver side floor pan, rear and inner divider facing edges overlap, and the forward and side facing edges are **** welded. Overlapping edges are primed and painted on the sandwiched edges, drilled holes in the top piece, and the marked off on the lower piece accordingly, kissed with a carbide bit to remove the paint from the lower for a poor man's spot weld.

20180915_191357 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

First was making a new rear outer rocker, same way I did the driver side rocker so I had a better starting idea. Left out the door sill steps on this one and will make them in a separate piece to make it a little neater, lesson learned from making it out of one piece on the driver side. Replaces the panel a previous owner made with a lot of pie cuts to make the body line rib and held in with a dozen self tapping screws. Looked to be made from galvanized.


20180916_111811 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180916_102403 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Next was making a replacement piece of the inner body structure that's affixed to the side of the floor pan. Seems a lot easier to replace this piece and get it and the inner and outer rockers welded in before the floor pan just from an accessibility standpoint. Driver side piece was in good shape and didn't require making a new piece.

20180916_102844 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Nice and simple, basically guessed some measurements since it was rotted apart in the middle and traced some of the original


20180916_111452 by Dan Haas, on Flickr


20180916_111524 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[1/2 Cup]

Stooge luv your work..

 

[Kev442]

Damn. You got more done before 80 degrees than I did all day!

 

[xtremek]

Using the bead roller again? Looks good.

 

[Stooge]

Stooge luv your work..

Hey thanks for checking in, I appreciate it!

Damn. You got more done before 80 degrees than I did all day!

it all came down to seeing that it was supposed to be 83 by noon and figuring laundry and house cleaning could wait until the afternoon! I'm a little behind where I wanted to be by now, but the end of sheet metal is in sight I think, though there is still a good amount to do.
Need to get on a schedule of making it down there a few times during the week so I can get the body in primer sooner than later.

Using the bead roller again? Looks good.

Sure did, that thing is proving itself useful all over the place. No regrets buying it and its paid for itself multiple times over by now. Any issues i've had with it are basically from not having a tall enough clearance throat, and also I think 18ga steel is probably a hair too thick for it since it seems to handle the 20gauge i've used on the Edsel fender just fine. Mittler brothers makes a high clearance jaw version, but the cheapest one is still a grand, says it only does 19ga steel and also sounds like it needs special high clearance dies, which are also more expensive than the standard ones, ($105 per set). Would be nice to have, just not in the budget right now for what im doing, though I have been starting to really think of getting an English wheel from them.

 

[Kev442]

Did pick up the parts car. Wife went with and we went a little out of the way to a tourist trap. I figured if the car was a bust, we would have something to show for the 400 miles. I doubt tourist traps see many cars on tow dollies not hooked up to a rv!
Got that all done on Saturday, so of course I had to play with the new toy Sunday.
Motor will run with gas poured down the carb, but will not run off the tank. I filled the bowls enough to test drive and reverse in the transmission, no brakes though.

Some mouse damage, so I would rate the interior an 8 of what I was expecting. I'm happy.

 

[Stooge]

Did pick up the parts car. Wife went with and we went a little out of the way to a tourist trap. I figured if the car was a bust, we would have something to show for the 400 miles. I doubt tourist traps see many cars on tow dollies not hooked up to a rv!
Got that all done on Saturday, so of course I had to play with the new toy Sunday.
Motor will run with gas poured down the carb, but will not run off the tank. I filled the bowls enough to test drive and reverse in the transmission, no brakes though.

Some mouse damage, so I would rate the interior an 8 of what I was expecting. I'm happy.

A B isn't bad depending on what you paid, and sounds like you atleast have another usable engine and trans as a backup or to sell off to recoup some money.

Didn't get much done lately, took Friday off to burn a vacation day and actually had some nice weather and played with the neglected white truck at my parents house. Tried siphoning the old gas out but it looks like most of it evaporated so I just filled the carb bowl, hooked up the slightly less bead battery and it fired up first try after really not having had run since January or February. Dumped the rest of the gas in the tank, replaced a suspected damaged relay for the air compressors which was luckily the culprit and went on a little birthday drive, (the big 31!). Also started aligning the new passenger rocker, cut out the old inner rocker and made a new one, though I didn't take any pictures of it, and tacked in one of the new pieces I made last week for the body structure...also killed a backup sander since my air sander needs a new backing plate

20180921_123503 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180921_123117 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180916_102844 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180923_131641 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

2018-09-24_09-14-53 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[OccupantRJ]

Stooge, you are getting right good at that metal wrangling!

 

[xtremek]

Cool to see the truck moving. Nice work as usual.

 

[Kev442]

I wondered if that was your truck hauling the 460/C6. Now I know he answer.

Don't let that truck sit that long anymore, there is a K10, about a 74, two doors down. Hasn't moved since it came out of winter storage. It had a flat tire for 3 weeks. Waste of a nice truck IMO. Don't be that guy!

Happy Birthday!

 

[xtremek]

Your birthday? Happy belated birthday sir.

 

[Stooge]

Stooge, you are getting right good at that metal wrangling!

Hey thanks! im having a lot of fun with these cars and im really trying hard to keep some forward momentum going so it doesn't become a truck or gto project where they just get dragged on for too long and interest starts to wane. Body in primer by the end of the year is the current goal. body in primer by October was the original goal but I think I was looking at some of the work through rose colored glasses as theres still a lot to do. I made a vague list and I was even surprised at how much is left to do, sheet metal wise.

I wondered if that was your truck hauling the 460/C6. Now I know he answer.

Don't let that truck sit that long anymore, there is a K10, about a 74, two doors down. Hasn't moved since it came out of winter storage. It had a flat tire for 3 weeks. Waste of a nice truck IMO. Don't be that guy!

Happy Birthday!

Your birthday? Happy belated birthday sir.

Thanks guys! 31, im no spring chicken anymore! getting the truck started and going for a drive was the most planned eventful thing I've probably ever done for my birthday. plus I justified spending more than anticipated on the buick seat, as a birthday present for myself. its a good thing I did get the truck running though, my daily driver impala SS with the 5.3 decided to start leaking at the water pump Wednesday, and i'm having a hard time finding a new gasket locally so ive been puttering around in the truck, but i'll pull the pump off tonight and see whats going on. the way the pump is set up, is basically just a seperate impeller that sticks into a manifold, so there really isn't much chance of the pump actually going bad, and id rather spend $15 on new gaskets than $160 or whatever it was last time I did it a couple of years ago. its a real pain to do though, as funny as I thought having a front wheel drive v8 was when I bought it, clearance to do anything isn't the best

my bed could probably move the 460 and c6, (probably in the 8-900lb range) even with how much its been cut up, but I wasn't about to learn the hard way with it! that was someone else's brandy new Sierra, (well under 10k on the odometer) who was silly enough to let us use it to move a grimy old engine in the rain.
plus my truck bed is closer to a flatbed than anything else with how shallow the depth is, although I did buy some flush mount D ring shackles for it, but they're still sitting in the box

2018-09-28_07-19-51 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[xtremek]

Sorry to hear you've been having to drive the truck. Such a cross to bear. :

 

[Strouty]

Happy belated birthday, bet it felt good driving the truck! I remember when I was 31, a decade ago, now I don’t really feel old, but my body feels worn out at 41.

 

[Kev442]

Anything with a bearing can leak. I was so sure the gasket was bad on my third car at 22yo. Could not catch the weep hole wet. Got to do that twice. Now I buy the pump and gasket.

Wasted Saturday running a new fuel pump and rubber lines to the parts car. Had to drop the tank, Whee! Got it together and purring nice and after 5 minutes, it cut off dead and would not restart. Something in the distributor puked, either the coil or condenser. Maybe the points welded. You just can't get good 15-20 yo parts anymore.

Sunday was brake lines and gas lines on other junk. Got the plow truck somewhat ready, I'm sure something else will fail when the weather gets nasty.
One more brake hose and the yard truck will be ready for fall chores and firewood hauling. At least the weather held, about 50 all weekend and overcast, but I got some outdoor stuff done.
Forecast this weekend is rain and more rain, I guess Rosa is coming to visit. Will be in the 60's anyway. Time to do some floorboard work!

 

[Ohmthis]

Happy belated birthday! 31, man I wish I could go back to that age! If I woke up at 31 the way I feel today, I’d wonder who I got in a fight with!!!

 

[Stooge]

Plugging away a bit, did some cleaning around the shop and got the buick spun around to make finishing the passenger side rockers and floor a bit more convenient. Going to need to figure out a more efficient way of clearing off the a few of the crusty/ stubborn old paint areas of the body, specifically around the curvy rear section and windows. the coarse surface conditioning/ hard scotch brite style pads ive been using work pretty well for the flatter sections, but I keep launching the pads on some of the curves, as well as im trying to avoid bringing in any heat as there is some factory body lead around the areas. I might bite the bullet and pickup one of those Eastwood surface conditioners to move things along a bit. getting the body sandblasted now isn't in the budget or plan, (although I do plan of getting the frame blasted) but also isn't really necessary as most of it is pretty easy to clear up https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html

Also been working on smoothing out a few dents here and there, not sure when they occurred, looks like they've been there awhile but it had been sitting in a barn when I bought it

2018-10-15_07-49-13 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

this one was right in front of/behind? an immoveable part of the inner body structure, happy enough with the outcome though its giving me an excuse to pick up a new hammer or 2 for the future.

2018-10-15_07-45-10 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

2018-10-15_07-45-29 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Spent a few hours Saturday to start work on the part of the Edsel fender I've been humming and hawing about how to approach. Decided to do the raised body line in a separate piece from the rest of the headlight bucket piece to make it a little more manageable. Still pretty early with it so its a little rough looking and its just over whats left of the original section so its sticking out a bit past where it will be, but its a start. going to have to make a few wood forms for one of the stepped areas as well as a hammer form for the body line, or atleast that's the plan

20181013_124812 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_132558 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_141210 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_141233 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_152005 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_152009 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

**Ignore the all over the place cleco placement, theres not much good metal left to clamp too and they kept popping out from the soft metal underneath

20181013_152826 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_152836 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_153210 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181013_153216 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Sorry to hear you've been having to drive the truck. Such a cross to bear. :

hah, its been good to get it out and about! rides better than I remember but I need to do something about my air cleaner, as I suspect the cool batwing Cadillac style one I have, might have turned the distributor a time or 2 when I was taking it on and off since it wasn't meant for a big hei style and although I massaged it a bit, still touches. Was fun figuring out why I was stalling a few times on the side of the road when I hadn't touched the timing

looks cool atleast! but I don't have a lot of 'up' space to space it up, so I might have to look for another one or modify this one

2018-10-15_08-17-05 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

2018-10-15_08-22-53 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[Strouty]

Making some good progress, the car is going to be one cool machine when you get it done.

 

[Kev442]

Plugging away gets somewhere, I've learned that 2-3 hours here and there eventually equals an uninterrupted 8 hour day. Probably a 12-8 ratio doing it piecemeal, but still worth it to me.

Can't help with the old paint removal, I settled on a combo of the non toxic paint remover and one of these to keep the heat minimal on the roof I did this summer:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058I3DEE/?tag=atomicindus08-20
HF and Menards have them cheap. I actually settled on it for rust removal, it is astonishingly good at removing surface rust, but slow on paint.
I visited a body guy I know that plays with 50's-60's stuff "for fun" and he had just got done running 24 grit down the side of a 50's Mercury. I just can't bring myself to do that on pitted surface rust.

I was right about it going from 80's to 50's, it never broke 50 on Sunday with rain. I ran around the last two weekends doing winterization on my outdoor junk, but spent Sunday afternoon with the floorpan for the first time in well over a month. Needed a heater right on me as it was down to 54 in there already. Ended the afternoon with cleanup, I will be out of town and want to walk into a situation ready to work.

Keep it up! You are my motivation to keep going and you are working minor miracles with that Edsel fender.

 

[Stooge]

Making some good progress, the car is going to be one cool machine when you get it done.

Thanks! im hoping after im over the sheet metal 'hump' progress will be a little quicker, but its also going to get a lot more expensive since i'll have to start buying!

Plugging away gets somewhere, I've learned that 2-3 hours here and there eventually equals an uninterrupted 8 hour day. Probably a 12-8 ratio doing it piecemeal, but still worth it to me.

Can't help with the old paint removal, I settled on a combo of the non toxic paint remover and one of these to keep the heat minimal on the roof I did this summer:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058I3DEE/?tag=atomicindus08-20
HF and Menards have them cheap. I actually settled on it for rust removal, it is astonishingly good at removing surface rust, but slow on paint.
I visited a body guy I know that plays with 50's-60's stuff "for fun" and he had just got done running 24 grit down the side of a 50's Mercury. I just can't bring myself to do that on pitted surface rust.

I was right about it going from 80's to 50's, it never broke 50 on Sunday with rain. I ran around the last two weekends doing winterization on my outdoor junk, but spent Sunday afternoon with the floorpan for the first time in well over a month. Needed a heater right on me as it was down to 54 in there already. Ended the afternoon with cleanup, I will be out of town and want to walk into a situation ready to work.

Keep it up! You are my motivation to keep going and you are working minor miracles with that Edsel fender.

i think i have a cupped version of that nylon attachment somewhere, though its been a few years since I've seen it. I'd like to grab a new sander, and was thinking of supplementing whatever the new one is, with one of those small 3" ones, (maybe the Astro pneumatic one) for the curves where its a little harder to get a 6" pad in, and cutting down the coarseness. Looks like the Gold 3M disc rolls i use only go down to 80 grit, so i might have to try another flavor, and I've had good luck with 3M and Mirka so i'll probably try and stick with them. Lots to look at on the Autobodytoolmart site, but i might order most of the sandpaper i'll need for bodywork at the same time so i'll need to take stock of what i have in the cabinet.

I've always said, if i can find a place where its 50-60'ish and sunny enough all year round, im moving there! i don't need the heat and i don't need the snow, just cool comfortable weather. hopefully we get a few months of fall before its starts regularly being single or negative digit temps outside and i can get some stuff done.

The Edsel fender is coming along a lot better than i was anticipating, and the car itself is actually being moved to my house next month so i'll probably start working on the mechanicals of it over the winter and go through the steering, suspension and brakes. Not much news on the status of the engine and trans, which im not too excited about. Sounds like so far, he has paid the guy somewhere between 2 and 3grand, and we dropped them off in August to be gone through. He seemed like a good enough guy and was trying to make a go of it with his own shop, a little braggy but i guess you have to sell yourself a bit. i just hope it doesn't end up being one of those stories after a year of sending money, all he has is just a box of parts and a blown apart engine, so we'll see!

 

[Kev442]

Engine jail is getting as bad as paint jail these days.
Back in the '80's when I was getting engines rebuilt in company vehicles, turnaround was 7-10 days. Obviously they weren't getting mic'ed too closely, but still a full rebuild.

I hope that Pontiac is at least paying you storage fees equal to a rental, otherwise you are just being taken advantage of. Heck, it should be double for being heated....

 

[Stooge]

The real kicker is, my shop is literally in the same building as Custom automotive machine/Camco Racing Engines, a longtime, well respected engine builder who works on just about anything, as well as having nitro and alcohol funny cars. It wouldve been more money, but atleast know it would be done right in a short turn around, and theres someone you can trust standing behind it. Tried to encourage him to take it there but his brother in law knew this other guy just starting a shop about 2hrs away and ended up taking it there instead. The guy was trying to get me to bring my buick 320 there when we dropping the 460 ford off, and i was kind of humoring him but its going to the guys out front. Im not made of money, but im also not paying someone to learn about vintage engines on mine. Im hoping for the best but im not too optimistic so far

The pontiac guy pays a couple hundred a month storage since no work is being done, but i would still rather have the space and have everything im working on in one place, plus i want to see that stupid thing painted after working on it for 2yrs!

 

[Kev442]

There's no reason why you can't tell him you have another paying project coming in, so his needs to go to regular storage somewhere else. Might motivate him to send it to paint.

 

[xtremek]

I hope you're wrong about the engines, for both of your sakes.

 

[Kev442]

Progress!
It started raining Friday at 2 PM and did not stop until this evening. I started an electric heater Friday night and it was livable in there all weekend. No excuses, I put in the time on the floorpan. Front is within 3/8ths, I need to get a couple ratcheting lever clamps to snug it up. Rear needs a couple (many?) more hours. A couple pics:

 

[Stooge]

Progress!
It started raining Friday at 2 PM and did not stop until this evening. I started an electric heater Friday night and it was livable in there all weekend. No excuses, I put in the time on the floorpan. Front is within 3/8ths, I need to get a couple ratcheting lever clamps to snug it up. Rear needs a couple (many?) more hours. A couple pics:

That's looking really good! This was a floor pan you already had started, right, before you bought the parts car?

I've been making a little headway on getting the floor/ rocker/ door sill finished up. made a few changes, and also decided to pie cut the new door sill to make fitting it a bit easier/ have it look cleaner. Still a ways to go, but happy to say, it shouldn't be too much longer with this section atleast, then I can put the last piece of the floor in, though I've discovered another small section that will be cut out and replaced, but isn't as involved.

20181025_191753 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Part of the sill and the inner rocker cut out

20181025_192225 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Not the prettiest of welds, slowly tacked in, (its good metal just a little thin), though I did clean it up afterwards

20181025_200301 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

More sill and door jam cut out

20181028_140816 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Starting the new door sill piece

2018-10-29_07-15-55 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Added the weather stripping channel, happy enough with it considering I did it with the side of a table and some junk I keep around, though I did end up pie cutting the joining end to give myself a little better fit.

20181028_142000 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

old rocker cut out

20181028_150659 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

the new rear rocker versus the one that came screwed on the car when I bought it

20180916_102403 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181028_152556 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

Where the new sill meets the old, it looks misaligned because the outer facing edge is pie cut and hasn't been tacked down yet, but the rest of it is tacked in for the time being

20181028_153043 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

 

[xtremek]

Looks pretty good. How long do you think it'll be before you're ready for mud?

 

[Stooge]

Looks pretty good. How long do you think it'll be before you're ready for mud?

Hard to say, after I get the door sill and rear done, the front driver side rocked needs to work, but I have to pull the front fenders off first to do that, but before I pull the fenders off, I want to finish up the passenger side running board bracketry to make sure the fit is good, and finish some cosmetic stuff on them, like adding edges and a panel to hide the frame and mountings on both of them. Also need to fix the weather stripping channel on the trunk, theres a spot that's pretty rough. I've been sanding down the body, and grinding out the surface rust, pitting, and some of it will get chemically treated first, then I can get to some mud and high fill primer to see how smooth I can get the body without this *********** too much!
I want to have some high fill primer sprayed by the end of the year realistically.

 

[Kev442]

That reproduction of the weather stripping channel in particular is impressive. Watching you metal wrangle is actually making me less likely to ever do the same on my backburnered '51, lol.

Yes, I am back on the floorpan I've been horsing with for two years, the parts car I got last month was mainly for the interior of a different project, with the drivetrain hopefully a free bonus.

The floorpan has been slow going because I wanted to be absolutely sure a 4 door pan would be the same as a coupe. I had both side by side as I removed the 4 door B pillar and checked all the curvatures and rockers against each other. The only real difference has been in the rear wheel well architecture, so it may need a bit more massaging. It is nice to be down to the final fitment, but it is slow going using mainly a 3" cutoff with the guard removed to get the last little bit of trimming done. All the lower strength in the body is how the rockers attach to the firewall, so that has to be real nice. There are about 20 spotwelds in a 1' area up there, I hope to duplicate at least 15-18 of them.

 

[Kev442]

Yikes. 5 pages deep and no posts in 3 weeks.

I threw in the towel and shut down the pole building 2 weeks back. Converted it to winter storage when the snow and cold arrived early and the ratcheting clamps could not close the gap on the floorpan. Will need to drop it again and do more grinding work in the spring.

Switched to removing the interior from the new parts car so that it can sit in a snowbank without suffering further mouse damage. Did that in the garage where I can maintain 50 degrees. A new worlds record for mouse nests: under the rear seat, under the console, behind the rear seat armrests, up in the roof where the sun visors mount.... yuck.
Would work on it for a couple hours, then go straight into the shower.

So, now I count on you for my metal wrangling fix all winter, so get to it!

 

[Stooge]

Yikes. 5 pages deep and no posts in 3 weeks.

.........

So, now I count on you for my metal wrangling fix all winter, so get to it!

Hah! I had a few tools break, primarily my new die grinder I just bought a few months ago that is probably my most used tool at the moment, along with my go-to sander, my second most used tool, so I needed to do some research and spend a few bucks! Plus chasing down a few daily driver issues with my stupid impala SS, what seemed funny at the time buying a 5.3 v8 front wheel drive car, is a real pain in the *** when you actually need to work on it! Plus the holiday season is starting and that's my busy time of year for helping a buddy's dog walking/ boarding business, so ive had a string of dogs staying over and that eats into the free time, but it does pay pretty well though! Just over the thanksgiving weekend, theres one dog staying 5 nights I think, and another staying atleast 2, so bare minimum is an easy $400+ just for having some well behaved dogs for the weekend, as well as a great excuse to skip family holiday things!

I did get a new to me early 40's steering wheel for the buick. its the same design as what would have been the standard '37 wheel, just with a different horn button. Its in great shape, fits the kind of race/ hot rod theme for the car better than the other banjo style wheel I have for it, but I don't have to get this one recast/ refurbished so I save about a grand! I have dogs over until Saturday, but I have a new grinder and sander on the way so hopefully they get here and I can get a bit done this weekend after the dogs go home.

20181112_070946 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

And the last few visitors

20180816_222407 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20181104_162009 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

20180819_192048 by Dan Haas, on Flickr

2018-11-19_08-35-03 by Dan Haas, on Flickr