Projects 41 plymouth coupe 392 hemi build thread

Nice work as always!

 

Man it just keeps getting better and better.

 

Used the grinder/Dremel to get the driver's side trunk bracket off and gave it some paint. Then welded both brackets in places, got the old grinder out again and gave it some paint again. Started on the other side panel and will have all of that finished tomorrow. Yes!

Now I realize that most people will never notice the change in position of the brackets, but to me it's worthwhile to make it slightly different and at least it won't irritate me once the car is finished. Couldn't think of anything worse than to have to say "I should have done that an other way....."

 

wow! took me almost 2 days to read through this thread. Great looking car and your work has been impressive to say the least. BTW you had a great deal of influence and inspiration along with member thinkfink on my search to find my "41 coupe.

Walt

 

Thank you Walt. You must be one quick reader! If I can help you in any way, feel free to PM me anytime. You have a 41 coupe now? It's funny, when Jochen (thinkfink) and I met, we lived only 10 miles apart and building "more or less" the same car! He has recently moved to Germany.

Edit: I remember seeing your thread with your newly acquired Plym. Awesome car!

 

As always, it's Looking great Eric! Hows the deck lid coming along?

 

Thanks Rich. The deck lid still requires a little work before I'm totally happy with it. And I still need to change the radius of the inner lid slightly for it to fit perfectly inside the outer. No boring days here in Holland!

 

Thank you guys!

 

Got the passengers side panel to fit and fabricated the driver's side. Made a small aluminium strip to fit below the panel so that it can be used later when it comes time to do the upholstery. This seemingly easy job of making these panels has taken a whole lot longer than initially anticipated.....

This got me thinking this afternoon, how do the fabricating shops make any money on something like this when I've already spent 20 hours on them........and will probably require another 4-5 hours to finish them to my liking. You can hardly charge a customer 400-500 bucks for something that "appears" to have been made in an afternoon. All you guys know that a couple of hours in the garage feel like just minutes. It does to me at least.

 

I've often wondered the same thing...

 

Because they would slightly overcharge per hour to make sure this little crap is covered in the initial cost of what they quoted you. It is all about quoting. In addition, if it is a good upholstery shop then they can afford to take a hit every once in a while if they are doing 4-7k worth of interior work for someone. At least the one I worked at did.

By the way, it looks great, are you going to do the same thing with some interior stuff (kick panels?)

 

Yeehaa! I finally finished the trunk stainless. After a few hours of work, I managed to mock it up before installation. After fiddling around with bolts and nust, this is the final product. I've decided to have it painted black, which should create a nice contrast with the beige/tan coloured leather and carpet in combination with the black fuel cell. Ok, what's next on the list?

 

Thanks Scott. Kick panels will be leather with carpet on lower part, following the line where the floor pan meets the firewall. (probably only 2-3 inches on kick panel, increasing to around 4 inches on the door)

 

Nice work on the stainless. You must be getting close to paint now. Still one of the best build threads out there! Keep up the good work and can't wait to see some color on this ride.

 

That will be slick. That is probably going to cost a pretty penny with all that leather. I really decent job that is one of a kind can easily be 4-6 grand. I am really looking forward to that.

One kind of cool thing that you could do (I have done it in the past) is use super thick oven mesh (thick woven stainless grates). You can polish them up and incorporate them into the design. The last one we did had all kinds of cool shapes that matched the contour of the interior.

 

for example I helped with this headliner and insted of the seagull shaped red piece in the middle we used the stainless mesh.



You can maybe do something like that on your door panels

 

Thank you for the comments speed v8, it's appreciated! Will be getting some colour this summer! (finally)

 

Nice fab with the trunk stainless.I am not sure about painting it,it looks just cool without paint.
How about polishing it and beadblasting a vintage Mopar logo on it?
Just an idea..
Keep it up!

 

Thanks for the thoughts Scott, but I'm going with a more plain look. I'd like to go with the old school custom look, something simple and clean. Thank you for thinking along though!

 

Thanks for the idea Antti! For some reason I think that by not painting it, it will look sterile and perhaps too much of an attention grabber. By painting it black it will blend in better with the rest of the trunk I think. Still got some time to make up my mind.

 

You could polish a 3/4 inch ( 19mm ) strip of it, mask it before the black paint and make it look like polished stainless trim also.

 

Thats not a bad idea!

 

That may be a good idea! When the time comes, I'll mask off some lines and see how it looks. Thank you for thinking along!

 

great idea!!
if you can get a shot from the back with the stainless inside i can do a quick photoshop of it

 

something like this?

 

That would be great Perry. Can you do something with this pic? I'm not able to get the side panels in the one shot, just the main stainless panel.

 

Haven't checked out this build thread for a while but I like the idea of painting the stainless the same as the body color. Would make for a very clean look imho.

 

Thanks Car. That was my idea as well. Perhaps Perry can change my mind with his photoshop......

 

I have this great hammer and dolly set, but for some reason I don't have a concave one. So what do you do? Make your own. (or go to a buddy like I did, someone with the cool machines)

I had a small piece of 6 and 8mm steel laying around, so Jaap and I used that to bend them on this great little (but powerful) press. Next, welded on some cut off tube for a little grip and there you have it. Concave dollies in 2 sizes!

 

Next was to put the new dollies to good use! Finished off the center piece of the outer trunk lid. Took me most of the afternoon and am happy with the end result. Final "tuning" will be done by the body shop. This is as smooth as I'm going to get it without spending another few days on it. Some things are better left to the guys who do this for a living.

I'll be tackling the bottom area next week. Just a note: It appears that the shell is warped at the top in the pictures, this is not the case. It's just not strong without the inner lid.