The last Grasp Special '34 3 window build

It is with sad heart and a tear in my eye I write this after reading your post Tony.
Tony, I know you and Rita knew this time was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier. We only talked on the phone about Harry's failing health last Sunday night and I hope what I said helped.
Harry was a great dog, who like so many pets has a great family. Not only your immediate family Tony but a whole bunch of bad ass hot rodders.
It won't be the same in your garage when I come to visit / work on the Last Grasp Special. Harry may not be their in body, but his spirit will be in the hot rod and dog garage forever.
I won't ramble on. I will just post a few images in Harry's driveway on the weekend of Jodie and Brad's wedding. That weekend end is still a blur to me after all this time. But that's another story!
Geoff aka whodaky



RIP HARRY

 

Good stuff guys, looking forward to this build & hopefully learning a thing or three.

 

Yesterday I filled the 2 small round holes and the gapping hole in the centre of what will become Frank's dash. I also welded the pieces together for the upper mechanism cover of my shrinker/stretcher. Then shaped it to fit.


Today I fitted the new section I had previously pressed for Fank's dash.
My first task was to bend a return on the bottom of the pressed section. To do this I shaped 2 pieces of flat stock that the pressed section would be sandwiched between so I could form the return.


I will submit this and continue on in my next post.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

The pressed section that now had the return on it, was trimmed to size to suit where it would be fitted on the right hand side of the dash. With it trimmed to size it was used to mark out where to glove box opening on the right hand side of the dash would be cut out!

This section was then cut out



Geoff aka whodaky

 

The opening was then trimmed to match the pressed section. Also the pressed section had to have a couple of areas shaped to suit the dash.

When I was happy with the fit I tacked in the pressed section!


Geoff aka whodaky

 

An hour later and it was welded in. A lot of care was taken to minimize heat build up and each small section of weld was hammered and dollied as I went. I TIG welded this piece. I had a bit of a gap on the top edge and hence got a real lot of penetration. On the other 3 sides the joint was tight, but I did get adequate penetration on these sides.
A bit of a clean up with the grinder and things are looking just the way I wanted. It still requires a bit of hammer and dolly work. But I am really happy with the results so far!

Geoff aka whodaky

 

really unbelievit work!!

 

Thankyou Tom!
Yesterday we got rained off at work, so I got to spend a few hours on Frank's dash. Basically it was the time I needed to get the glove box frame area ready to weld into the left hand side of the dash.
In this first shot you can see the nice hole that currently exists there!

To start with I trimmed the hole to allow me to sit the glove box door in it's postion. Note at this time the glove box door frame hadn't been located in the dash!

Having the glove box door lid swinging on it's hinges. I now had a definitive point of reference to mark out where to cut the dash , to allow for fitting of the glove box door frame.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Next I made up a couple of filler pieces for the couple of areas that needed to be filled outside the glove box door frame.
Today was a public holiday, so I spent my time on the dash.
The plan for today was to weld this all together and the first job was to weld in the 2 filler pieces!
With these done, I test fitted the glove box door frame, especially with the glove box door in position.


When I was happy with all of this I tacked in the glove box door frame and once again test fitted the golve box door.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Then it was onto welding in the glove box door frame. Taking care to keep heat to a minimum and hammer welding as I went!


With the welding completed I carefully ground and sanded the weld.

The area still needs some final work with the hammer and dolly.
But basically that is the bulk of the work done on Franks dash!
Next I will be able to move onto the Last Grasp dash!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Excellent!!!

 

Geoff, dash is lookin real good, You are making steel look like smooth icing on a cake.

 

During the week I decided to cut the original good dash that will become the modified dash for the Last Grasp Special.



So yesterday and today I filled the 2 mounting holes that were pretty torn up on Frank's dash. I then redrilled the holes and pressed in the countersunk detail.

As well as doing more straightening.

Next I will strip the rust from the back of the dash. There was been a couple of threads lately describing Electrolysis and I have been experimenting with it. So I will use this process on Frank's dash. Once this is done, Frank will be able to have his dash back.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

hey Geoff,
how much do you want for Frank's dash

 

Sorry Tom, but Frank's dash is not for sale. It is for his coupe. It hasn't turned out bad for a beat up old dash. But I did put quite a few hours into it, as you could imagine!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Today I did a bit on the dash for the coupe.
Basically I straightened out the rolled section on the underside of the top part of the dash, in preparation for fitment of the '32 style dash panel. This '32 dash panel will have a bit of a twist though. The twist will become apparent in my next post!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

I spent a bit of time on the dash again today. Basically I reshaped ( roughly at this stage ) the area where the '32 style dash will be grafted into the '34 dash header.
I will just post a bunch of images and let them do the talking!







My '32 dash section, I cut in half earlier; as it would require narrowing for this application.
I mentioned in my last post that this dash would have a twist. Well that twist will be in the form of one of the pressings I did to repair Frank's dash. That is the Last Grasp dash will have a '34 pressing in the centre of the '32 section. To make everything work, as well as narrowing the '32 section I also joined it back together to conform to the shape of the '34 pressing.

The last 2 images show the '34 pressing sitting where it will be located. One image this is sticking out like it would in a stock '34 dash and in the other I have the pressing sticking in. Having talked to Tony, I think we will have the pressing sticking in.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

lots of real nice work!

have subscribed and look forward to seeing the progress as it happens!

Glenn

 

Did a bit more on the dash today. I made up the filler piece for the section I cut out. Then welded it all and ground it all smooth. As well as finishing off the area around the hole for the windscreen winder.
The last image shows it all mocked up. Still a way to go before it is all welded together!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Hi Geoff, great work on my dash it looks brand new, you are a master at this work.
Thanks Frank.

 

I finally got Frank's dash completed a couple of weeks ago. But there is still a way to go on the Last Grasp's dash. But since I had them both in bare metal and I would be delivering Frank's dash to him soon, I thought I would take a picture of the 2 dashes together.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

This will be a great thread. Good to see you poke your head up around here again Geoff. Watching....

Pete

 

Some real creativity, it'd be nice to get get both idea's out of your head at the same time!

Looking good,

Am watching too!

 

I hadn't made any arrangements with Frank to get his dash to him at this stage. However I had said when I took his dash, that maybe the next time that I passed going down to Rita and Tony's that I could perhaps drop the dash off at Frank's.
Anyhow a couple of weeks ago Frank rang and said he had seen this thread on the HAMB and he complimented me on the dashes. He also said he had put a proposition to Tony. He had asked if Tony and I would be interested in chopping his ( Frank's ) coupe and if we were he would give us his spare '34 chassis for doing it. ( you see we have a chassis that we could make work, but it isn't a '34 chassis and we didn't want to spend any money to get one). So Tony told Frank he would need to ring me to see if I would be in it. Hell yeah! Tony and I would have done it for Frank, even without the chassis being given to us.
Tony has been going down and assisting Frank with the construction of his chassis for his coupe.
Actually Frank is a bit of a novice at this hot rod building. But he is very much hands on, a quick learner and knows what he wants.
Geoff aka whodaky
Frank's dash in his coupe

The chassis

 

So a couple of Saturdays ago I went down to Frank's, as did Tony. Of course I took the dashes.
I was of the impression that we would just be bolting down Frank's body to the chassis and getting the doors fitting nice. As well as talking about how we would approach the chop. But Tony had other ideas. He said, well there is no good thinking about it; lets just get stuck into it.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Initially we discussed the chop and we all agreed that a 3" ( 75 mm ) would be just right.
Next we commenced to bolt the body down. But a short time later we could here the rumbling of a flathead. Tom ( Tony's nephew ) and Steve ( a friend of all of us ) had come for a look see. Tom was in his recently imported '34 5W ( our 3W body came in with the same shipment as Tom's coupe. I made reference to this in a post on page one of this thread! ) and Steve was in his chopped 5W.Talk about inspiration.
This was the first time Tony and I had seen Tom's coupe.. It is a beautiful car that Tom has many plans for, but nothing to over the top.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

It was handy having Steve's chopped coupe there for an hour or so. It gave us a chance to eyeball the chop. From this we were able to get some ideas. Also we had recently been looking at Kiwi Kev's thread. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...81&highlight=nice+day+to+chop+34+window+coupe
Even though we weren't chopping Frank's coupe as much as Kiwi Kev chopped his friend's coupe, we still got a lot of ideas from Kiwi Kev's thread.
While Steve's coupe was there I took a good side shot of the roof. From this we could see the major differences in the style of chop between Steve's coupe and the coupe Kiwi Kev chopped in his thread.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

When Tom and Steve left ( Tom would loved to have stayed, but he had family committments ), Frank, Tony and I began the chop.
Firstly we braced the body, front to rear and side to side.

We then decided where the best areas were to make the cuts. I marked out these areas, then Tony and Frank layed out the masking tape that would be a highly visible ( Our old eyes, aren't what they once were ) guides to make the actual cuts. We made the cuts with a hacksaw and a 5" ( 125 mm ) grinder with a thin cutting wheel.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

In this case we actually cut the pillars and window door frames at the same time. We did the bottom cut all the way around first. When the roof and door window frames were lifted off the tape remained to show where we would make the upper cuts.

When we had the roof off and on the floor, Tony asked Frank if he was excited yet. Frank said not really. Maybe he thought, what have we done?
With the roof on the floor we cut the 3" pieces off the 'A' pillars. We then moved to the 'B' pillars. We actually cut these just below the drip rail ( and would remove the 3'' later ). As these will need to be moved toward the front of the roof as the roof comes down.
After all this cutting the roof was placed back on the car to see how things were shaping up. We clamped the 'A' pillars. At this point we left the 'B' pillar section out. The rear section of the roof at this stage hadn't had the 3'' removed. We just allowed it to slip down into the body. Of course it was forward ( leaving a gap ) of where it needed to join the back of the body. What we decided to do, was push and clamp this area of the roof to close the gap and presto it seemed like this would work out well.
At this stage Frank was really starting to smile. I think he now realised now that his coupe body would all come back together again.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

When we got to this point, Steve's chop all started to make sense.
We then cut the 3'' off the bottom of the ''B'' pillars and placed them into position.
Geoff aka whodaky