Thirtytwo, thanks for the pic! Do you have an idea when the car was converted from 29 rpu to 34 Sedan?
It's all kinda fuzzy these days ....it was a pickup before I met Fabian, he always used to do stuff at the last minute before shows so my guess is 2002 or 2003 before vlv or paso pretty sure it's maiden voyage was viva and was in bare steel it may have been primered yellow also that year prior to bonneville, I think Peter Vincent took some photos of dianna branches 32 with this car and were dubbed " the Easter eggs" as the 34 was bright yellow and diannas car was bright robin egg blue primer Pics in mags I know of -As a pickup rolls and pleats- maybe burnout -Rolls and pleats as a sedan , bare steel vlv -Street Rodder maybe? Coverage of LARS and the truck body was at the swap meet after the re-body -American Rodder when Jon dianna poked fun of paso( interior shot with no floor boards) - rolls and pleats again on vlv coverage when you seen it yellow primer
Hey Guys! I know, Iknow, I´m slow , and an update was long overdue...I promise, I wasn´t totally usless I was just tinkering along on a lot of little details and I wasn´t really sure how deep I wanted to dig into this project... I love this car , so I thought I just fix what I think needs fixing. Now I´m in well over my head, but I guess that´s just how I am, hahaha All Hot Rodders know what I mean when I say that things have been snowballing for me.... After I had new bushings in the old 34 pedals I still didn´t like the way I had to step "onto" the pedals instead of pushing them forward.... I had an old 50s 356 Porsche pedal assembly I got with another project, and they looked like they could fit....or maybe made to fit... On my way there I made a couple new floor boards and good use of a trans tunnel I had cut out of a 61 Buick years ago. Instead of a clutch linkage I will be using an older CNC clutch master cyl and a hydraulic throwout bearing. I tried to keep the clutch linkage, but moving the pedal assy far forward, the linkage would have been too short and it´s angle had been way too crooked to be operating properly. I also made a new steering column with a closed ball bearing, a column drop, I braced the A-pillars and the roof structure, made an inner door structure and new door bottoms... Right now I´m working on the pedal assembly covers...figuring out the small stuff took me quite some time, so there´s not so much to see... I´m making a little progress, but at least the pics kind of proof I ´m not just out in the garage drinking beer and listening to Junior Brown ...
That´s where I am at right now.... I ´ll also have to do a couple of little body repairs.....What brought up the thought if I´m just fixing up the existing yellow paintjob on the repaired spots or go ahead and repaint the body GM autumn gold with a white frame, rearend, dash and firewall....
I parked next to this car at the Dallas Autorama a few years ago ,Good luck with your rebuild.Nice car.
Thanks! Yes , it´s been in the Dallas / Fort Worth area for quite a while. That´s where I bought it. Today I finished the pedal assembly cover, made a mount for the emergency brake and started fixing a few details on the rockers. They were cut out partially ,so now it was time to fix this.
You are making good headway and it looks like you will be taking it to the next level when you are done.
WOW, Glad you are just making a few minor alterations to the car. LOL. By the way just curious, what are the fender laws in your neck of the woods? Larry
Thanks for the compliments! Non-fender laws are pretty much non existent here. There is a law stating that every vehicle needs some kind of fenders to prevent stones and mud from being thrown at following traffic. For vehicles newer than 1962 there are defined minimum fender sizes ( I think 1/3 or 1/4 of the wheel must be covered at the width of the tread), for vehicles older than ´62 the law only says that the car is required to have some sort of "fender"...I´ll sneek my way through that. The German title contains lots of details, like gross weight of the car, height, displacment and power output, tire sizes, and any modifications from stock must be inspected and altered in the title.... You know, in Germany back then there never was such a thing as traditional hot rodding, at least not to the extent as in the US. Someguys have put 356 Porsche engines in beetles in the 60s, but that pretty much was it... The TÜV-safety inspectors are used to check brakes, lights, overall vehicle safety and they put any alteration of a car ( in case the alteration is safe, passes the inspection and is TÜV accepted )in the title... I think one of my least worries will be the missing fenders when I tell the TÜV guys, that my 34 Ford has a modified 32 Ford frame, the Body a chopped and sectioned 34, the rearend 57 Chevy, the engine 56 Ford T-Bird....there is a legal way to get through that but most of all it is important and necessary to find a TÜV guy who is ready to jump the loops with you.... You know the Johnny Cash song Psychobilly Cadillac? So after you have convinced your TÜV engineer that your chopped and channeled mouse trap is perfectly safe and sound, you have too proof and document that all of the alterations are traditional or may have been possible within the first 20 years ( roughly) after the car has left the assembly line. Y-Block, 283 Chevy, Nailhead, early Caddy, Hemis, etc, the early generation of OHV engines would fit that . That pretty much is how it works here. I am already in contact with my TÜV engineer who is an old car guy aswell, and if I build that car reasonably nice and clean there should be no problem. But he wouldn´t have accepted open floors, no inner door structure, sharp edges everywhere, sloppy steering, no turn signals, no hazard flasher, no emergency brake, plexi windshield, and so on... The imperfection is part ot the soul of an early lakes hot rod, but there´s no way the get it on the road here like how it arrived...so I figured, if I have to go through everything anyway I can aswell do as good as I can...and save as much of the look and history as I can
this is probably the coolest story I've seen so far on here! Awesome car! Awesome story! I absolutely love it man!
The rockers had some bullet holes(?) in them and lots of pin holes, so I ordered them at Macs last Monday night and they arrived here by Friday. Shipping was 35$, not too bad for shipping a pair of rockers and quarter panel bottoms half way around to world. The door gaps needed some attention in a few spots, but everything worked out fine.The inner rockers were very solid, no pinholes and no thin spots... I really wondered why the outer rockers were so bad compared to the inners... I was listening to the Ramones all day, that made me work faster , so I finished the passenger side rocker and almost got the drivers side finished, too. The lower quarter panel still needs some trimming on the driver´s side, but that´s it...
And here comes the driver´s side. I kinda knew what was waiting for me, so this side was a little easier to do...so I switched over to Junior Brown and took it easy, hahaha The door bottom on the driver´s side doesn´t have a continous curve, not a lot, adding 2-4millimeters will do...
texkbc: Maybe it will return to yellow, maybe some kind of bright gold ( like metalic yellow) with a white frame and firewall. Got a little further into this yesterday.... finished the driver´s side rocker, inner rocker, added a little to the dr side lower door edge to make the gap more even and made a filler panel for the transition between firewall und inner rocker....here come the pics, hahahaha
I also drilled some drain holes in the rear panel and the lower 1/4 panel bottoms so trapped water can get out and will not wreck havoc from the inside again.... I will also use some cavity wax or grease in the rockers after the body has new paint on it, just to be sure nothing will rot out again.... we get some rain here, this is not Texas or Arizona, unfortunately, hahahaha the lower gap is alot better now.... not welded yet, had to call it a day because honey called to meet her on the couch
First time I've seen your thread . . . just wanted to let you know that you're doing a great job on this car and fixing a lot of things that were a bit rough, or just needed attention. It is great that you're going through all the metal work, cutting bad stuff out, etc. - you'll be preserving it for the future (yours and others). Keep up the good work and keep the imagination and creativity going! B&S
I was busy today, cleaning everything an sealing the floors with epoxy primer.Next step will be to seal all the little gaps between the panels with seam sealer and then getting ready for paint.... everything looks better in white, hahaha
So, here´s another little update. Nothing big, but I´m about to get the body ready for paint right now, I sealed the floors with seam sealer to avoid moisture ( and maybe salt) to be trapped in the gap between the floors and the floor structure...I also blasted the frame and lots of little parts at a friend´s place close by. A few cosmetical updates will be made, but nothing major... I hope to have the body and frame painted at the end of May/ early June. I´ll keep you postedThanks for watching
Yesterday I started to work on the frame . The good news is, it is completely straight and true, only a few cosmetical touches have to be made. The frame horns were a bit twisted and dented. I didn´t know what 32 frame horns looked like and how they flowed , so I searched the web and found all the measurements i needed...I somehow couldn´t name what was wrong in the first place, but as I got closer to the measurements the better looked the frame horns. Before: the point of no return getting better almost done...also put on some new grillshell mounts... A few more little details on the frame and it will be ready for paint, not much left to do here. I also found the stock VIN on the frame... it is hardly readable, I think it is C 301 xxx or something similar...
I also got some filler on the body where it got new rockers and lower quarters. Most of it will be sanded down. My skills are not good enough to get away without any filler, but I try to avoid to use excessive amounts...