Projects '59 Thunderbird Radical Custom build.

I did indeed start slinging mud today. I've got the right front fender almost finished, and started as well on the right rear. Pictures tomorrow when it looks like I get things a little more "finished".

Brian

 

Forgive the "tutti-fruity" look of the mulit-colors of primer, long-strand filler, and top-coat filler. This side needs just a little finesse around the rear bumper notch and the secondary skirt. Then, on the left side and bumpers.

 

ya know those wheels aren't quite so bad, I kinda dig em' and you wanna have a later style wheels on a thunderbird, cause they were ahead of their time. don't give up and let the mud fly!

 

Worked on the 'Bird all afternoon, once the shop got warm enough! It's at the "hard to see progress stage, getting the fit of the skirts perfect (or, as perfect as I can get them), and blocking filler.

The wood stove is stoked up now, I've had a couple cups of coffee, and the sun is out, so the shop will be warm enough to work in a few minutes. Until then, here's a look at yesterdays "finished" right side fender and skirt. Well, almost finished… The gaps are good now, and just a couple little spots to work out.

 

Looking great Brian!
Was out in the shop last night cutting the hood on my project. 20 degrees inside the garage.
Kind of hard to see when your saftey visor keeps fogging up.
Torchie.

 

Indeed. It was 22 when I went out, 8 outside. When I went in at 5:15, it was 58 inside, so my hands weren't freezing to the tools…

Brian

 

Finally, after todays work I can see some progress. If I had no self respect or ambition, I could, with about half an hour of blocking, have the car "ready" for a coat of high build, follow up with some flat black and call it done. with a couple days of work, have it ready for a couple coats of high build, block it out, prime it again and squirt it silver, like the plan.

Here's where I am now…

See more at:http://flynbrian48.wordpress.com

 

That last picture really illustrates the changes you made Brian. It really looks good!
As for the weather, it was really cold when I got up this morning. The NOAA website said it was 59 degrees. Whats worse, its gonna get down to 55 tonight. Holy Moly!

 

Thanks, and hoping you don't freeze your coconuts off! The little gap between the lights at the bottom of the bezel I think I'll simply cover with some heavy stainless screening a buddy of mine has, painting the back area flat black. It'll finish off an otherwise hard to detail spot.

Brian

 

Something occured to me, that if you are going to paint the bumpers silver and make them part of the body, then it might be a plan to build up the tops of the bumpers to smooth out the transition between them and the body, to just leave a panel gap, but no real big change of shape between the two panels. The "lip" below the headlights seems to protrude near the corners and it kind of distracts from the flow.

This kind of thing...

 

Hmmm. That does look good. Maybe I'm not done cutting stuff apart yet…

 

As an owner of a '60, that gap between the body and the top of the front bumper always bothered me. It looks good tightened up.

 

James D has a good point and his rendering really helps. Tell you what, I'll email you some Hawaii weather so you can get started right away.

 

Something I've always wondered about. If you're a-cuttin' and a-hackin', what if...

 

I actually lost some sleep last night thinking about this. Initially, the bumper overhung the lip at the fenders, and I narrowed it the amount of the overhang. This seemed to me to be a good idea, but now, as James has pointed out, it fits poorly in the opposite way, the fender lip now overhangs the bumper. I couldn't put my finger on why it didn't look right, but James saw it.

It's hard sometimes to see past one's own point of view.

So, now, the bumper needs to cut up AGAIN! At first I thought maybe just trimming and reshaping the fender lip was the answer, but no, it's the bumper that is wrong. It's all in the top of the bumper, from the bead up, that needs reshaped. This bumper is "tweaked" a little anyway, which doesn't help the fit, from hitting something down low sometime in the cars murky past, so that might as well get handled too.

I knew it wasn't "right", but I couldn't quite see past what I'd done, to where it needed to be. Ain't the HAMB great?

Brian

 

Sorry!

I don´t actually spend all my waking hours hatching new ways to get you to do sheetmetal work.

And it´s the same for me as you - it often only takes a fresh pair of eyes to see something that seems obvious afterwards.

 

You could have taken the tools and junk off the hood while you had the photoshop brush out...

 

lol!

 

wow, great build Brian! My parents stay near Lansing in the summers, I see why they come back to CA in the winters....

 

Just to start a discussion, here's a different view of my modified bumper idea.
Original:

Modified:

 

No offense, but I'm not feel'n that. Too busy. Nice photoshop work though!
I'm going to get some 1"x1/8" flat stock today, cut the top lip off the bumper, and reshape it to fit the body better. We'll see how ambitious I get in the sub-zero weather...

 

Hey, no problem. It's just an exercise to spark ideas and discussions or, in this case, find out what doesn't work!

 

The suspense is killing me....!
How's it coming on?

 

Last I heard there were some delaying issue's with the snow plow.....it broke and had to be repaired.

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I'm going to try to work on it today. I got some steel to use to reshape the upper lip the other day, some new cut off wheels, so I can get busy. In between plowing my drive, my folks, my neighbors, my in-laws, and figuring out why the bird bath froze over.

Like lots of guys before me with snowplows, I'm learning it's not a low maintenance possession! Rust NEVER sleeps.

 

LOL...guess that depends on where you live...I've had a piece of bare metal laying outside on my patio for four weeks now wanting to see if the vinyl I bought for the wagon and the glue I used to hold it down was going to release or the vinyl discolors...the metal, just this week, has finally formed some surface rust (and we've had three snowstorms since then). I still have a section of bare metal on the wagon that's been there since June and it has gained zero surface rust, of course, the wagon sits in the garage.

Yeah, while I agree rust never sleeps, it just happens to sleep less here in ColoRODo...

R-

 

Some days, nothing goes right. Went out to the shop after getting all the plowing done. It was nice and warm inside by then, and I started trying to figure out how to fit the bumper better. First thing I did was discover that the new cut off wheels I'd gotten the other day are gone. In the middle of putting the plow back together, I must have left them on the top frame of the plow blade (I remember setting them there while I bolted the plows trip springs back on), and they're nowhere to be found.

A trip to the hardware got 4 new ones, and I made a relief cut in the right corner of the bumper to try to spring it out a bit. That made it spring in worse, and drop down at the end even more.

Crap.

Undaunted, I shoved, hammered, pushed and hammered and heated until it I discovered my 02 tank was nearly empty, but got the bumper fit almost as good as it did before I made the relief cut. Attempting to tack the cut together with the MIG, I discovered it is out of shielding gas.

I cut the upper lip off the center section of the bumper in an attempt to push the bumper up a bit tighter against the body (it hit the bottom of the body below the headlights), and then noticed the bumper brackets mounted to this lip, so I had to make new brackets for that.

Of course, now I can't open up the mount holes now to push the bumper upwards, as I'm out of 02 for the torch, and I can't weld anything back together anyway, so I spent some time figuring out where to cut and add to the bumper to fit it.

Tomorrow, hopefully will see me actually get something done.

 

"Mama said there'd be days like this". She just never said that there would be so many.
You will do better tomorrow.
Torchie.

 

Well James, whaddya think? I think it's KILLER! Still have to complete the welding, grind the welds and a little filler to finesse the lines, but it looks MUCH better than before.

Here's a couple shots, check out my blog by following the link in the signature line to see the whole story.

I love it.

 

That will be SO worth the effort! Looks excellent and it'll be even better when it's all one colour. Two thumbs up.