Projects '36DD - (My Double Duty 3-window build.)

Thanks for all the kind words guys! I'm really trying to get this build back on track. Been so busy with work this past year nothing much has gotten done on the coupe, but hopefully that is beginning to change.

Bear

 

Hey, Lon.

I know about some of the components going in to your roadster, so I'm sure you have nothing to be ashamed of!
Or did you just mean by your analogy that yours is gonna be closer to the ground than mine...

Bear

 

Bear, You can buy or make all the components to make a build but at some point you have to "marry it all together" and that's one of the area's where you excel. I look forward to every chance you get to get out in the shop and report back! Tell Santa you want more "shop time" with a bow on it for Christmas!

 

Thanks Lon, you are too kind!
I had a great plan to spend this weekend out in the shed (shop) but, as seems to happen all too much lately, work got in the way again.. I had 6 semi trailers to fit 10' x 7' promo signs to the rear of next week ( pre-Xmas week, the busiest time of the year here in NZ) and I found out Friday night that 5 of them were going to be parked up for the weekend, so that was the end of my 'great plan'. Still, now I might be able to have a day off during the week...

Anyways, I have had a crack at working on the dash again, and it's going 'OK' so far.

I tacked the new edge flange to the '40 dash

and then carried on welding it all together.. Still working on getting that to a point where I'm happy with it....

Being a non-smoker, the ash trays definitely had to go, so I attempted to make up some patches to make them go away.
I cut out some panel steel oversize, then proceeded to beat it over my vice jaws with a range of dollies and hammers till it got close to matching the required shape. Not an easy job! Each edge required a different curve, and the patches were quite spherical in shape.


Once I got the fit close enough I scribed the shapes onto the dash and cut out the original ash tray recesses.



Once I had the fit real nice, I tacked the patches in to place.



Then skipped around til they were fully welded.



Once I had ground off the high spots of weld, I tapped and filed the patches until they blended in to the overall shape of the panel.



I spent WAY more time on these than I anticipated, and still haven't got them perfect.
I reckon they're about 95% there, and I figure the last 5% will take about as much time as I've already spent, but, with this being my first shot at this kinda' stuff, I'm happy to leave them where they are and get the last bit with paint prep.

I figure that anything above around 75% good with my own hands beats paying big money (which I don't have) to a pro for a 90 - 100% job. And if I keep at it, I'm only gonna' get better.

Now I need to get back to finishing that seam across the top...


Bear

 

Absolutely amazing craftsmanship, detail, and patience (in a good way). You sir are an artist. Love the build.

 

I should say; nicely done! Some high-build primer and you will be good to go!

 

The metal finish looks pretty good from half the world away!

 

Once again, thanks for all the positive comments!

I couldn't resist the opportunity to try my new dash insert in place, now that the dash itself is starting to take shape.
I had to rework the corners of the opening slightly to fit the insert, and there will be a little bit of 'finessing' required to get a nice even gap right round.



I had been in two minds about whether the insert was gonna' fit the style of the car and was considering other options, but now seeing it in place, I'm quite happy with the look.


It's got just enough hot roddy influence without deviating too much from stock.

Bear

 

Looks great!

 

As much as I have been dreading starting on the main body repairs, I figured I needed to get all the lower body stuff done before I fit the floor in place.

So, I tackled the ugliest bit first.
The rear tailpan was pretty beat up - it looks like it had been pushed around with another car or tractor while it was sitting in a field somewhere near Fresno. The bottom was pretty much rusted out too.



I bought a new tailpan patch off of EMS way back when I first got the body.


I've heard a few negative comments over the years about the fit of these, but it looks like it will come pretty close by the time I trim away the original damaged portion. It's just pushed tight over the existing panel here.
I'd certainly rather be starting with this than a piece of flat sheetmetal ...


I cut off the rusted outer piece to see what I was dealing with. The rearmost section of the trunk area was rotted out, and was pretty beat up from the 'pushing around'.


I made up a new section from 16 g sheetmetal and cut out the rusted piece.


Then I welded in the new section and beat out the worst of the dents.


Welded patches in to the spare wheel mount holes and roughed out the dents in the lower panel.


Then I trimmed the rear pan to trial fit the patch panel. There was a gap between the patch panel and the rear bumper mounting pads, so I fabricated some packers to weld to the inner structure so that the rear panel wouldn't cave in when the bumper is mounted.



Welded them in place, repaired a couple cage nuts, and sprayed a good coat of zinc primer on all the bare metal in preparation for fitting the patch.



Bear

 

I'm not looking forward to this part of my project either. Mine is almost as beat up as yours; for the same reason.
Your view of the exposed inner structure confirms my fears; there is no way to pound out the dents around the
bumper mounts w/o cutting out the original and welding back in. (Or total replacement, as you have chosen to do)
Your fabbed spacers will also add rigidity to the bumper for those few times we find it necessary to stand on it
(on straps only!)to pull stuff out of the back area of the trunk. Not a great design by Ford; the low '39-40 redo was much better.
(Your trunk lid alignment is about as good as mine too. Don't believe it can be corrected by mere latch adjustment.)
Keep up the great work!

 

When replacing that rear patch panel it's actually easier to remove the back part of the car through the factory welds. Theres two seam welds just above the bottom edge of the boot and then drill out the spot welds along the bottom. Hard to explain and seems drastic but it makes life a lot easier.

 

Hmmm, will have to look into that. Really don't want to use EMS parts .
Thanks for the tip!

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

The thought of cutting off the damaged piece and replacing the tailpan was daunting enough for me!

I know what you mean tho', often its easier to remove a bigger piece, repair all the damage, then replace the piece. (The firewall being a classic example!)

Since your comment I have had a look at where those factory seams are, and taking that big of a piece off the body scares the hell out of me with my very limited experience. I think it would be safer if I keep picking at it in small pieces. But, for an experienced body man I can see that it would make the whole job a lot easier - its near impossible to get my hand in behind where the new panel is being attached.

Bear

 

I used the EMS tail pan panel on my '36 and the seams matched up perfectly. I was expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out.

 

Now that I have the beat up section removed, it looks like mine will match up pretty much perfect to the suages too. Very happy with the patch panel.

Bear

 

I've used EMS products in the past, they're not always spot on but they are decent and save a lot of time like that tail section. I've seen replacement panels from other manufacturers that are absolutely garbage, even on really expensive parts for expensive cars. At least EMS is decent in quality and price.

 

Really happy with the EMS patch at this stage. I have trimmed it down in size so that I am leaving as much of the original sheetmetal as possible. There are a few humps and hollows in the panel left from the stamping process, so I have hammered these up as best I can prior to fitting it.

I trimmed up the lower edge of the patch so as it matches up nicely with the repaired inner structure.





Drilled a row of holes across the bottom edge so that I can eventually plug weld it to the inner section.

Then I started welding the panel into place, starting at the large body suage to get that lined up nice, and working out from there.



After a bunch of welding , grinding, hammering, filing and sanding I've got it to this point. There is like almost zero access to the back of this weld, so I had to make up a flat lever/spoon to get in and raise the weld from behind, and used a slide hammer in a couple spots, but now I am fairly happy with the finish.



And then, the other side...





While all this was happening, I discovered just how stretched the original rear panel was around the spare wheel mount area where it had been crunched in.
I briefly contemplated repairing it, but with all my shrinking experience (absolutely zero) , combined with the fact that the spare wheel bracket was right behind the worst of it, I figured it might be better to try and patch the damage.
I cut out the stretched area, which also allowed me to clean up and prime the internal brace, then made up a pattern for the repair panel.





Once I had the panel roughed out, I went to see a buddy in a panel shop who has a big old English wheel. Gave him a couple of profiles to work to, and he eventually got his 85 year old father to wheel a bit of shape into it for me!



So , with a little bit of tweaking around the edges, I finally got the panel scribed to the hole, and tacked into place.





Now I've just gotta' weld the whole thing in without distorting the hell out of it...!

Bear

 

Nice to see your still progressing on this, hadn't seen your thread up for some time.

 

Yowza; looks great! Approximately how many hours will you have in the fit and finish of the lower panel?

 

The 36 blew everyone away when they saw it in person at the Surf city rod run. I have been following your build , but now wish I had kept up to date on here before we saw the car to really appreciate the detail and major effort gone in the repairs. Then all the very well thought out customising to get the ride height sitting where it is . You have raised the bar for what you call a newby body worker.

 

Yeah definitely - was great to see it there!

 

Thanks for that! Really, I would hate to think how long it has taken me. Without accounting for the repairs to the inner structure I would guess around 12-15 hours for the lower panel only, but that was with cautiously sneaking up on the cuts and a bit of time spent hammering up the panel before installing it.

If I was being practical, I shoulda' just got someone who knew what they were doing to sort it for me, but unfortunately around these parts, anyone who knows how has gotten too old to be interested in doing it. The younger guys who think they know don't really, and just end up doing a crap job anyway, so I figure I might as well do that myself!

Bear

 

Hey, thanks for the kind words, guys.
It was great to have a reason to throw the body back on again. Cool to have it outside for the first time since I started the build and be able to stand back a ways and study the profile. Helps with the motivation when it starts looking like a car again. Of course, the next step will be to pull it all back apart.....





Just now wishing I had taken some better photos while it was out.

Bear

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^So do we! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Back into it again now!

Got the rear patch fully welded into place. Approached it very cautiously, skipping around the panel with short welds about 3/4" long, hammering and cooling as I went, but the panel still moved around a bunch. I've cleaned up the welds and hammered things back as close as I can get them. The bottom seam is a real bitch with very limited access to the rear, but I have managed to get it close with a combination of levering and hammer and dolly.





I reckon I have it about 90 - 95% there, with maybe a maximum of 1/16" variation from the high to low spots. Right now I don't think I will get it much better, but will probably revisit it down the track when hopefully I have a bit more idea of what the hell I am doing!

Bear

 

After a hint from a club member I used the tig for heat spots for shrinking. Worked well with no flaming torch to deal with. Looks good bear!

Sent from my SM-J320ZN using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I love 36 Fords and 3 windows are great.
It really is amazing how much time these builds use up isn't it ?

It's a lot of fun and the feeling of accomplishment makes it worthwhile.
A lot of people have no idea what goes into our cars.

Your work looks really nice so far.

I recently had some experience with a shrinking disc I bought and it was nothing short of amazing.

In tight spots like you have it would probably work great too.
I had a few spots I had to reach into with a pry bar and pop the metal out further than it needed to be.

Then some work with the shrinking disc and a wet rag brings it in to where it needs to be a lot easier than I thought it would be.

No flaming torch or spots to deal with from welding in heat spots. The shrinking disc creates heat with friction and really works.

Any low spots as you work, you just bump or pry them out and then shrink them flat.
I also found it relatively easy to take any waves out of the weld seam with the shrinking disc.
http://www.wolfesmetalfabrication.com/
Larry.

 

By the way, unless it's my eyes or distortion from the pictures it looks to me like you need some work on the weld seam that crosses the crown from side to side.
It has a really nice outward curve to it both side to side and from the back window down in that direction before welding, after it appears that there is a "pucker in the weld seam in both directions and the crown has been lost to some degree.
Possibly popping it out and shrinking it back down with the shrinking disc could correct that.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Larry.

 

Thankfully it is just the picture making it look like that - the different color of the lower weld seam makes it appear 'sucked in' at that point. The patch actually had a little bit too much crown in it and I managed to raise the weld seams slightly and hammer out the excess curve to a point where there is now a nice even curvature across the whole panel.
That lower seam does still require a bit of work - I have bought myself a shrinking disc and once I get confident with using it I will come back to that area to refine things a bit more.

Bear