Now to get our outer patch fabricated.. The corner is going to need a GRUNCH of shrinking.. We started on the Baileigh, but the dies are only going to get us so far. So some tuck shrinking with some heat for persuasion was used.. A tipping wheel in the bead roller was used to mark our bend line, and an upper press brake die used as an anvil to hammer the flanges over.. Some hammer action to stretch the corner flange so it will tip the full 90* I missed some in process pictures here, but various hammers, anvils, punches, and other implements of destruction were employed to give us our basic shape... After a bit of fine tuning, it is trimmed and fitted into the A Pillar... and the windshield stainless is test fit for good measure.. The finished piece is media blasted (Barton Garnet) so the SPI epoxy primer will have a good bite. The inside is primed as a bit more preventative measure over factory.... The flange is quite small compared to what we normally plug weld, so we opted for a .169 drill bit to keep the heat away from the edge... In order to clean he primer out the inside of our plug weld holes, we flattened and backfaced our drill bit to mimic an end mill.... Does a good job of giving us nice clean metal for a good weld.. much better.... .
Here's some of the forming process of our A-Pillar fabrication that I missed the other day. Did a couple time lapse videos, first shows the shrinking of the corner. The Vise Grip tucking tool, torch, and hammer is used to get the corner to come down about a 20* angle, then the two flanges were folded, which gives us one big tuck. At that point wide VEE is heated up and the high spots of the flange corner is hammered back into itself. Repeat for the next high spot, until the corner is folded where you want it. Here's the corner shrink complete... Then the barrel end hammer is used to make the joggle creases by using an upper die from our press brake as a post dolly. That’s the basic process. .
Today we worked on some rust prevention up inside the roof. This is between the roof skin and the perimeter structure just above the windows. The car was rolled on it's side and SPI epoxy poured into the area, acid brush was used to cover everything we could.. Once the entire passenger side had been flooded around to the liftgate hinge, we rolled the car right side up again. It wasn't long that we had paint dripping on the top of the rocker panel.. It was running down inside the A Pillar and running out the bottom of the dogleg. This is a good indicator of exactly where the roof condensation runs to when it reaches the A Pillar, and why we had rust issues there. Here's a picture of when we opened the roof for rust repair, showing what the condensation did for us.. So our primer is sealing the joint between the roof skin and the structure.. We found an opening above the windshield that would help us to flood the front seam.... We opened up an acid brush to form a funnel, and poured SPI Epoxy in the area.. A puddle out of the A Pillar dogleg shows we have good flow through the windshield... To insure everything was covered above the windshield header, we joined two acid brushes for an extended reach over the header, and bent to match the roof skin profile....
Progress this weekend, We had originally left the factory jute insulation under the roof supports, thinking we could just butt up to it with the new stuff. After installing the Noico inside the doors, I guess my OCD wasn't about to leave the old stuff in the roof. So the bottom edge of the roof supports were scribed on the driver's side for relocation purposes, de-spot welded, and pulled downward enough to scrape off the old jute.. The bare area is then scuffed with 80 grit and two coats of SPI epoxy primer applied.. After that sets up we applied the Noico sound deadening mat to the inside of the roof skin. Then the roof supports are aligned with our scribed marks and plug welded in place.. Mike has been plugging along on the Drummers Lounge sign, the arrow is close to done, it still needs fastening hardware added for the access panels, and holes added for the lights..
Nice work, Robert. Still convinced, that you iron your underwear ... but yes, that jute backer, obviously had to go !! Be gone, jute ! Now you can wet sand, basecoat, clear, cut, buff, and polish underneath those supports, too. Like glass, baby !
Today Mike sent time blocking out the epoxy on the sign parts and addressing any low areas. I continued working on sound deadening, have one inner quarter panel left to go..
Sign progress, Fine tuning of some of the parts.... …..and for mounting it on the steel pole, this "shoe" is made of 14 gauge cold rolled and formed using the Go Kart slick.. The "sleeve" will slide over the pole and a set screw will hold it in place.. All ready for a splash of paint... The sound mat is installed inside the wagon... .
A couple coats of Epoxy last night to seal things up.... ….and then a white face added to the lighted surfaces... Then they were masked off for painting the silver.... and a bit of color for the "drum" video: Now to see if Mike can get this assembled this week...
Well the Logo has just been added, and the sign has left the building. Mike did the majority of the work on this project, I'm real pleased with how it turned out. More importantly, so is the customer!! video:
Me and Ramblur just talking about this project Q:did you use special sound deadener for roof??? Literally at this stage with my ‘64 98 Can’t wait to scrape all that old crap off the roof Yes, I’ll be wearing protection Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The roof has Noico 80 mil sound deadener. How's Ramblur doing? I need to stop and visit next time I'm in FL
Time for a long overdue update. I've had too much travel for the day job since the first of the year. Case in point, we've had more than one Taco Tuesday at the Sand Bar in Cocoa Beach... Since completing the Drum Sign, Mike has been removing dings from the wagon's stainless trim. Here Vince and I test fit the side spears.. We've done some stainless repair before using small hammers and handmade punches to match the rear side of the profile, but during the last metalshaping workshop I attended at Will Cronkrite's shop in SC, I picked up a stainless dent/ding removal fixture that he had made up.. The blue sleeve at the top works on the premise of a slide hammer, with the force applied controlled by the operator. The die at the bottom (punch) is removable to allow a wide variety of specialized punches to fit the application. This tool allows more controlled manipulation, especially to those of us that don't do this type of repair every day... Here's one of the purpose built punches made for the trim... Here's some of our efforts in polishing out the trim after ding removal, filing, and about 6 steps of progressively finer grits of w/d and trizact…. Reflection.... We also were test fitting the dash trim that the owner had picked up. I know, billet is a bit played out, but let's see what works here... In fitting the corner pieces, the rear point of the trim does not match the unequal radius of the recess in the dash. Then when the middle (concave) radius is pushed into the recess, the rear "point" drops down out of the recess. So the underlying message here it the fit of these parts is piss poor at best. So we are not going to use these, but opting for something in a stainless trim.. final design TBD... Lastly, all the travel I've had for the day job really interferes with long term efforts, paintwork in particular. So in the interest of keeping progress moving forward, we have farmed out the paintwork to Brandon and Richard Glymph at Absolute Rod and Custom Paint. So last weekend the body and various parts were delivered to their shop in Annapolis.. So we should be doing assembly here in the near future!!
Will, shown in this picture with one of his drivers, was an early pioneer in NASCAR and has told a host of stories and tall tales. But he surely hasn't shared any videos of his tool in action.. In all seriousness, I'm in NC presently and will put something together when I get back to the shop.
Not many pictures to show on our wagon progress, the body has been blocked out and Brandon is getting some touch ups done to get ready for one final epoxy sprayout.. Vince has been given the thankless task of media blasting some of the remaining bare steel components so we can get some painting done of piece parts on this end. The condenser mount was media blasted, epoxy used to seal the wired edge, and some Evercoat 416 added and sanded smooth to form a slight radius fillet to finish it off.. We should be priming this coming week..
Vince has been getting all the core support parts prepped this past week, so last night was paint night, time for some epoxy primer.. After epoxy: Even got some epoxy on the low-rider wagon's rear axles.
Why do painters alway spray on the walls? A piece of paper or a box will test their spray patterns. The dark spots play hell with you on seeing coverage, they also hold dust and overspray particles, IE trash in your paint job. With the transparent colors we use today its a must to have a clean environment with natural light to paint in. The M.B. Service Manuel states that you view the paint in natural light because artificial light changes the color shift. The last two paint booth I had were spotless and had white tile floors, I just don’t like paint booth nasty. Sorry for my rant Frank
The Jalopy Journal
