Projects Not Your Average Coupe Build: 37’ Chevy Unearthed

Coming along excellent!! You inspire me to keep chipping away at mine!

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Thanks Jeremy! I just subscribed to your '39 build thread. Very cool!

 

So I was a little over ambitious last week when I said all the floor pans would be done today. I underestimated how much more of the main floor structure I wanted to do before making the floor pans

First I was concerned with the strength of the transmission tunnel, being that it would only be formed 20 gauge steel. So after a few days of brainstorming I figured out how to reinforce it without adding a ton of weight or taking up too much space.

I bought a 6" pipe riser clamp used for hanging water main vertical pipes in multi story buildings. This ended up working great to join my two floor halves and add some rigidity to the tunnel.





I measured the 7" width and cut the flat tabs off







Once the tunnel supports were welded in, I was able to start figuring out how to mount the floor to the chassis. The factory rear mounting point is a little tricky because it's at about a 10 degree angle that I'd have to plan for.

I decided to use stand off bosses welded in the square tubes to pass 1/2" grade 8 bolts through




The stand off bosses I had were 2" long so I had to cut down to size



Then weld them in from both sides and grind flush, taking care not to grind through the weld penetration





I didn't have enough hands to position the tubes, ensure squareness and alignment, tack weld and take a picture of the whole process lol, so here's the end result. (Rear most tube)





The overall channel I wound up with is the distance between the bottom of the tube and the top of the frame (minus about 3/8" for a rubber bushing)



Now it was time to weld the drive shaft tunnel in place to button up tying the two floor halves together. Since I will have floor pans set on top of the tunnel flanges, I decided to plug weld the tunnel to the underlying tube, so I drilled 5/16" holes every two inches. Once the welds are complete I can grind flush so I can lay the floor pans on top of the flange



Before I welded it in, I put a flange with the bead roller to allow the transmission tunnel panel to rest on and ultimately be flush with the surface of the drive shaft tunnel instead of butt welding and trying to blend the seam



I only welded some of the plug welds just in case I screwed up somehow and have to take the tunnel off later



You can see how nice the riser clamp radius fit the formed tunnel








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My next step was to button up the front floor structure.

To make room for my TH350, I ballparked how much clearance I would need, miter cut the tubes (with a cutoff wheel lol), and welded them. This now gives the profile of what the front floor pans and transmission tunnel panels will be



Then I had to notch the front cross tubes where they would intercept the main tubes I just described





Then weld them in




And here's where I ended my Sunday afternoon.

Floor pans next weekend!




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Nice work.

 

...lookin real nice...did you ever prop up a door in the opening to check fit?

 

Thanks rusty1. My door's are extremely rough, but I was able to get the drivers door solid enough to the point where it could be mounted. It'll take some messing around to get the gaps right, but I think I got it close.

The passenger side door is still welded shut from when I transported it lol. That rocker is still intact though so I at least had that door opening for a quick reference.




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Cool, it's comin along nicely.

 

Today was when the hard work actually started to pay off.

Since I took my time building the structure, both sides actually matched! So I only had to make one cardboard template






Decided to break out the 12" shear to make the cuts a little straighter than if I used the nibbler



I originally was going to do one large panel on each side, until I thought through how I wanted to bead roller the panels, then I realized I had to cut it in half because my hand bead roller has only an 18" throat



Bead rolled the perimeter, just inside the tube structure



There's been plenty of tech forums on how to prevent distortion of the panel when bead rolling. Ultimately, when you bead roll, the material shrinks. So to combat this, you have to pre or post stretch the material. I've messed around with pre stretching the material, but I'm just not patient enough to do it, so I post stretched the material with the planishing hammer around the beads

You can see the bow in the panel



3" radius die in the planishing hammer



Although not perfect, the panel lays flat after about 2 min of planishing.



I spent probably 30 min sketching and figuring out spacing and designs for the beads. I wanted to incorporate length and width wise beads to give rigidity in both directions. Here's what I came up with

Rear panel



Front panel




End result. I still have some planishing to do but clamps do the trick! I still need to find some 3/4 ID pipe to cut down and clean up the ends of the beads, but I'll post that next week



The last task of the day was puttering around with how much of the front floors I wanted to replace with new steel. So I came up with this little patch. Not sure if it's how I want to go but it'll work





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So there is no set rule as to which way the bead lays, up or down?
What gauge sheet metal?

 

To be honest I haven't decided. I can swap floor pans to the other side for beads down. I think it looks better in this case beads up though

Sheet metal is 20 gauge, just like from the factory




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Wow, nice job.

 

Nice work on the floor!

 

Looks pro, nice work!

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Thanks gents! More to come next weekend.


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Nice craftsmanship, always liked 37 Chevy coupes. Good luck !

 

Didn't make it into the garage last weekend because I was out of town, so I needed to make some serious progress this week to keep the motivation up. So I threw in some guns and roses and got to work!

If you don't feel like scrolling through the post, here's what I got done on this chilly Wisconsin Sunday.




Put the third and last tunnel support in. Had to buy another pipe riser clamp, but winding up with a spare half turned out ok in the end! Used it to form the trans tunnel



Skipped the how to on the remaining portion of the drive shaft tunnel, but used the trusty old oxygen bottle and the English knee to form it!



Decided to fab up the rear floor panels . These were perfectly rectangular so I didn't have to make a paper template like the fronts


Then sketched out the bead roll pattern that mimics the fronts



Rolled the inlay with the step dies



Then rolling the beads. It twisted like a potato chip, but I'll straighten out with the planishing hammer next week prior to weld



Moved on to welding the driveshaft tunnel in. Picked up some Cleco pins off eBay. These things are rad!



Once the plug welds were done , I removed the clecos and plug welded those, except I used a copper spoon as a backer so I didn't have a mess to clean up after


You can see that I did reverse steps on both the rear and front tunnels. I did this because I felt it would offer more rigidity



On to the beginning of the trans tunnel! For some reason I decided that paper would be easier for the trans tunnel layout than card board.



I used the spare section of pipe riser to form the rear, and that's when the creases/ folds appeared. A little time with the hammer and sand bag, followed by the planishing hammer stretched the creases back out







I repeated the drive shaft tunnel weld process with the cleco pins



Voila! Need some flattening prior to weld but they came out pretty good for a newbie!




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Looking great, thanks for posting the progress.

 

Great Work !

 

So I was debating whether to move toward the firewall or back to the trunk with my floor replacement. To finish the transmission tunnel, I need to mock up the motor and trans.


The problem is, the trans cross member that was and is in the car is some crappy angle iron job that had to be replaced.

I started designing one until I went to start pricing material and came out at around $75! That's when I came accross the chassis engineering inc cross member below, that is a bolt on for a 37 Chevy. For only another $30 I'll take the pre made one this time!



So given that I now have to wait for my cross member to arrive, I decided to move back towards the trunk, which meant removing what was left of the trunk





I fabbed up some tubes that would be the side supports that get welded to the rear wheel wells and then tie into the front structure





Then welded a cross brace to the side supports to maintain the width of the trunk floor, followed by some diagonal members to weld to the front floor structure which gives the floor rigidity and is now capable of supporting weight!




Next weekend I'll make the rear pans, tie in the rear portion of the drive shaft tunnel, and likely cut out the original body mounts into the trunk and lower the rear of the body onto the frame


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Subscribed! I have a similar floor job ahead of me for my Sedan Delivery project, and I will be referencing your floor work often I can see. Keep going....

 

I am sure the trunk will look as good as the rest, keep up the good work.

 

Lots of nice metal work!

 

Thanks gents, I appreciate your interest in the build! One of these days it'll be solid enough to start working on more interesting stuff like bolting panels on and setting up drive train and interior!

 

Keep up the good work. Nice to see you fabricating the panels and not just buying replacements that would not fit anyway since your car is so far eaten up with the rust and missing metal.

 

Could of bought panels and built a structure for it, but where's the fun in that!? Haha 8)


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I took a lot less pictures today, but it was a solid days work nevertheless.

I was determined to hammer out the entire trunk floor structure, and that's exactly what I did!

First cut out the last remaining portion of the 80 year old floor structure.

I made sure my floor support upfront was supported, and left my cross tube in from last week to maintain proper width accross the trunk




Then using the same concept as I did upfront, I cut down my 1" diameter standoff bushings and welded them in the tubes for the body mount



It took a solid 30 min planning how I wanted my trunk floor pans to work. Despite the car now being channeled, I wanted to take advantage as much as I felt comfortable, of the extra space in between the original trunk floor and the reframe, so I came up with a width wise support with about a 3" drop. All the while still maintaining adequate space for dropping the body



Welded in the rear cross tube.

Now I'm going to be honest. I did not feel like cutting down and drilling out another set of standoff bushings and welding them in the tube. So instead I offset the tube far enough forward so I could create a body mount out of 3/16 steel later on off of the tube structure



The last task of the day was to make the two supports you see running lengthwise accross the main trunk floor



Now I'm finally done with square tubing! Next week I can move on to making the main trunk floor pans.

By then I'll have my transmission cross member too that can be installed so I can start welding in the front floor pans




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Crossmember arrived today! I've got to cut out the old cross member mounts before I install this one. But It it looks good mocked up




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...still following along,...very nice work you're doing,