Projects Progress on Rocky's 34 coupe..last update 9/30/2020

Way to hang in there brother, it's "Looking-Gooooood"

 

setting door gaps and welding up pinholes. The new guys need to know not all the time building a hotrod is spent doing glorious stuff like welding on quarters and louvering panels...welding and grinding is a huge part is just some of the time-consuming, tedious work.

 

Weld ,grind ,repeat! Thats the name of the game!

 

Last night we checked another task off the "list". We finished welding above the passenger's door which turned into finishing up welding where we only tacked during the top chop. We also filled a pretty good sized hole where we had welded the bottom of the top to the top of the right quarter. Jimmy filled it with a series of small pieces doing all butt welds, no overlapping welds.
Only stuff left to do on the list is:
#2...........finish welding around the decklid hole. And
#5..........finish up hood sides.

 

While Jimmy put the finish touches on it with the grinder, I took a shameless selfie to show off my latest winter beard.

 

Looks like I'll have it home shortly after Thanksgiving now. I'm preparing the "new" shop area in my home garage. Can't wait!
The list....number 4 is now checked off

 

That's were Santa has been hiding in a body shop Looking good Rocky your beard and the car.

 

As the Beatles said..."It's getting better all the time!" HRP

 

Lookin good Wayne!

 

Winter Beard ! Trying to put Santa off from bringing you goodies to get it finished.

 

It's shortly after thanksgiving... Just saying

 

Yeah, Tim.............I know. We're shrinking the high spots on the hood sides after welding the 34 chevy louvered piece into them and it takes forever! Run the shrinking disc over the high spots, hit it with cool air and feel..........repeat. Over and over! The lumpy areas slowly get flat but damn! It takes a long time and it's super noisy.
We spent 3 hours on the left hood side Tuesday night and it's a lot better but there's still more to do.

 

If you had sent me those hood sides, I could have hammer welded them with the Tig, worked and metalfinished them, and shipped them back. I`m usually free in the shop between Midnight and 5 AM.......

 

Grinding is just as much of an art as welding. Especially on sheet metal. Then when there's problems with welding on thin metal, or over streched corners, or poor fits in an area that has a lot of details the grinding skill needs to be far better or problems get worse and work is doubled. The precision of a surgeon with vibrating metal eater in you hands. It's not fun, its not glamorous, its not glorifying but you'd better be good at it.

Nice job here rocky.
That hood is awesome !!!

Me and a friend working together made some shrinking disk discoveries. The light bulb moment if you will. Now he's never used a shrinking disk but is an excellent metal bumper. I've got a lot of time on the disk but not so much on the bumping. Working together and each learning from the other we discovered that bumping the metal into a smooth contour first then running the disk makes the panel flatter 10 times quicker that bumping alone or shrinking disk alone.
Doning It seems counter productive but it really does the trick.

 

Damn, House! Maybe I shoulda! These are going to turn out nice tho. I have all the faith in Jimmy's talent.

 

Looking good buddy.
Can't wait to see you run down the road in it.
r

 

Getting ready to bring baby home, I welded some plates and spacers to the top of my old 39 ford axle to get it mobile. I'll have to kick the tires to steer it and I put the 3 inch spacer blocks on top of the axle to keep the grille protected from scraping on the ground while loading it on the trailer....I'll tac weld this menagerie to the frame so I can roll it out of the shop.
Next up is to weld some small plates to the 9 inch ford rear and tac the axle to the 34's frame..
Pay no attention to the mess...........I'm preparing to move the entire garage contents to another room to free up space for my coupe to occupy this room. Lots of stuff happening in "Rocky-land".

 

Slid the front axle under the car tonight and tac'd it in place. This is only to get the car up on the trailer and back off when we get to my house. I have an extra 9 inch rear to get the car here and then the good front axle and the quick change rear goes in place.

 

...w O w !! This is an awesome build sir. I'm late to your party, and have brought nothing other then thanks. This is great!

 

Looking good Rocky...Nothing like getting them home in your own shop. I should get to bring my 3 window home soon also. Can't wait.

 

Wow! That's gotta feel good to see it on wheels even if just to move it.

I'm so excited to see it in your home shop because I know that means it's time for all the fun stuff that I know you'll be able to fly threw.

Gonna be killer

 

Fab'd up a pair of temporary brackets to attach the 9 inch ford axle under the back to get the car mobile. It's now down on all 4. Sorry about the post in the way but I couldn't get far enough away because of all the cars parked in the shop!

 

Great progress, I like your RD hat in the selfie! Nice body work, but that chassis set-up isn't going to work worth a damn...

 

Thanks, Eric. I got the hat from your brother...got a blue R.D. short sleeve shirt too! All payment [and a little cash] for those nice, tight 32 pedals you modified to fit the 3 window.

 

Good stuff happening since the 16th, I got my quick change back from the hotrod shop where they installed the posi unit [variloc], replaced all the bearings and seals and swapped the axle tubes out for me. I still have to buy the axle shafts and brakes.
I picked up a pair of tire spoons and mounted up 2 of my tires....one front and one rear. And I filled the center of the wire wheels up with silicone to seal the spokes where they attach to the wheel rim.
Went over to work on the body tonight and we worked on an oil-cannning left hood side...still needs a little shrinking to be right.

 

Lookin good

 

Damn,,,just Damn this car has come so far! HRP

 

"Baby" comes home this Saturday. I'll be posting photos. I'm really excited!

 

Very cool my friend!

 

Well, is it home?!