I know of a man who is in to early chevy restoration , has quite a stash . Any thing you need ? I have a nice 28 chevy frame with springs and good bushings I won't be using now .
The only body piece I'm missing is a small piece that goes under the driver side door. I'm trying to use up as much of my "collection" as I can. I have a friend near here with a lot of old Chevy stuff and I'm still trying to get in touch with another old Chevy racer near Carson City. I will remember this though incase I find I'm missing something else. Come to think of it I didn't see the trunk henges today. The '28 frame does sound interesting. We'll be modifying mine a lot.
Tom, I have put a folder of pictures and specs together mostly to help the other guys see where I want this to go. I made copies of how you replaced the wood in you roadster. Did you weld you body panels to the steel frame? Did you have a lot of nail holes to fill? Have rust on the bottom of both quarters, bothe sides of the bottom of the cowl and the back piece between the quarters and the bottom of the trunk lid. Did you have rust?
... $1000 bucks for a Chevy trunk lid......man I thought 32 Ford parts were expensive... Things are rolling...I mean you are in second gear already...Awesome My back got sore just reading about that 6' rail and then you posted a pic...dense steel that is... Shops are full of stuff to be careful with... Great end to the Year Sixball All the Best in the New Year... Pssst...El Mirage is Waiting
The only rust I had was at the bottom of the cowl on the drivers side. I was able to get a patch panel from a 33 that was shot up out in the desert to fix it. I did weld my body panels to the structure and filled most of the nail holes. The only nail holes left are the ones around where the top meets the body in front of the rumble seat lid.
Thanks Stogy, It feels good to have it moving. I don't know who put that price on it deck lid but it was for the whole body. Like I said before it came from the Bill Harrah collection when it was broken up and sold off. Bill Anderson, the guy who built the Ponderosa Ranch (Bonanza) at Tahoe, bought it and it sat at his overflow/ storage lot in Dayton NV for years. He was a tough guy to deal with and I could never get him to lower the price. This was in the late 70s I think and that price was high. It disappeared. Years later I had a bunch of rusty Ford stuff that someone wanted. I asked what he had to trade and he said an old Chevy roadster body. The dollar amount we were kicking around was $600. I don't remember the exact details but that is how it finally came to me. That was probably in the late 80s. Still waiting for the new 7/8" mill bit to arrive to finish the hole in the rail. I should have burned it through outside.
Thanks Tom. I know where there two more cowls but all three are too good to cut up to fix the others. It is flat there so I'll make a patch pieces and grab the other cowls anyway. My cabinet maker friend, with the CNC wood machine, showed more interest yesterday. I'll get him to take a good look at the wood I have and see what he thinks we could do. The metal guy is totally willing to make sheet metal brackets for all the the joints where we need them. Otherwise we'll go with steel. That would be the fastest. We want a body on roller by mid May.
Baby Steps!?!? Once you got rubber on the road, you have been smoking them! (maybe baby slicks, but still smoking!) I sent you a PM. Keep up the good progress!
I spent the afternoon with my son and we talked about a lot of stuff. The Triumph he wants to run at the dry lakes and Bonneville hopefully this year, our shops , and wood for the roadster. It seems that within our circle we have some friends with all the skills and special equipment we would need. Some of them don't know each other yet! We are looking at redoing the wood if we can do it in a timely way.
I said some of this in a PM with grumpy gaby 2 and think it should be here. I had a conversation with my older son yesterday some of which was about the roadster. We spent some time on wood vs steel in the body and decided we both prefer wood. Partly because it's Chevy partly because we don't know better. Between the two of us, my friends, his friends and our friends we have a lot of capability and it's wrong not to use it. There is a lot of good wood in the roadster. It all has to come out whether we use it or not. When it is out we can photograph it sitting on graph paper from several angles. He can load the pictures into his computer and come up with measurements at any point we want. He can also make images of how pieces fit together even if some of that is gone. The wood guys can figure out the proper joints and fasteners. He has a friend with the capability of creating 3-D images from the photos. I have a cabinet maker friend with a wood CNC machine. He said two days ago if there were CAD drawings he could load them in his machine and cut them out. My son's brother in law can do anything with wood that the machine can't. The guy doing the metal work is good with integrating wood and metal where needed. If we put the wood back together we would have specs and measurements that evidently exist nowhere else. At least none of my research or no one else I have found has anything on '25-'26 Chevy roadsters other than what they worked out during their builds. It may be hiding in some serious Chevy restorers shop but I can not find it. We could have it all right here in a few weeks. Even if I end up with steel this wood should be reassembled. It could be it's own thread and might help some others. Here are some pictures showing more of the wood parts I have mostly still on the sheet metal. Need to get back to something close to this '32. I have read on here and other sites of guys replacing the wood with steel and then having wood burning parties.
@Six Ball Looks like you have a lot more wood that you can use for patterns than I did. Sounds like you have a good plan with a lot of support. Go for it! Tom
And if I fall short I have your steel pictures to guide me. There is some good information scattered through the Termites& Bowties thread. I'm changing this post to show pictures with some really nice wood patching done by tb33anda3rd. These are the one I wanted to show from the T&B thread. This is something that interests me more than rebuilding the whole thing. Also grumpy gaby 2 sent me some really interesting pictures of patterns he made from the old wood on his '26 Chevy roadster. A
Grumpy gaby 2 and I have been exchanging some information on a PM. He has a couple of these roadsters and some of the wood I don't have. I have some he doesn't so we are going to help each other. I'm confident now that I can repair the wood in my car. I't will probably take a little longer than putting steel in it. I finished putting the breathers on on the valve cover today and de-rusting some parts. I'm trying to get the pitman arm off of the rusty drag link without destroying them.
I got no shop time today. I'll try and get those measurement before I head to town tomorrow on a parts and tool run. Nothing extravagant. Does anyone have any Ideas on how to keep the lids on those breathers. They just loosely snap on. I'm afraid they won't stay on. That's what you get for using old stuff.
The fins are about 0.140" and the spaces are about 0.410" They vary some from fin to fin and space to space but thats ball park.
Got a few more pics today. the first are of the back of the right sill up over the kick up. I did a side view then a plan view. The piece between the end of the sill and the tail end piece is only a 2d piece of card board. I also showed what a 25 looked like while I was at it. (pic four is all 25 rear wood) The vertical piece that ties to the quarter panel and fender is upside down in the first pic.
I tried to put together some of the seat structure on the sill, but could not get it to stay with my limited room. So I turned the seat upside down. So think of it as if you are on the floor under the transmition looking up and back at the seat. Disregard the sill.....some dummy just chucked it upside down on top of the car!!! In the first picture, where the little rectangular board on edge with two holes and the redish board on edge come together is the corner where the door lock pillar goes. The two screw holes can be seen in the second picture of the other side. In the last picture, I added the first floor board that is attached to the front of the front seat vertical support. (note that there are two boards there, only one fits here. I did not have both marked and did not want to sparate.) The front vertical seat support sets on top of the sill and is notched to drop down into the floor board relief creating a change in screw direction of 90 deg.
Hope you are planning to spar varnish ( non water base ) on all the wood before covering it with metal for the last time (tick off termites and make it look sooo good !)
OK, Time to 'fess up. Gabby grumpy 2 and I have been calibrating on a PM. He has 2 of these roadsters and wood Patterns for '25. He sent me a bunch of pictures and some measurements to help me check out exactly what I have. I spent today measuring and taking closeups of my stuff. We will get it on here as soon as possible. There is going to be a lot of '25-'26 Chevy roadster wood information here before this is done. I have also been talking with Mike Lynch on the Rusty Bowtie site. He has done this with slightly newer Chevys and is building beautiful wood for one right now. Touring20 has some stuff and a Chevy restorer connection and has offered to se if he has parts I need. I am getting a lot of help on this and I very much appreciate it and need it. I took the closest look at my pieces today that I ever have and I could not be happier with what I saw. Grumpy's help let me understand what I was seeing. I have to down load today's pictures and it will take a while. Please bear with me while I catch up. Thank you all again!
For starters With Grumpy Gaby 2's help we figured out that my body is probably a late '26 and my frame is a molested '25. The back of the frame has been cut off, I knew that but now I know the body will stick 4 1/2"-5" beyond the end of the frame. Not a problem it'll allow me to build a new rear crossmember. The front crossmember has been removed. I have a '26 crossmember that will work but If I can find a '25 stamped one I can use a cool '25 cast moror mount that I have. I would also like to find a '25 rear perch for the right front spring. Touring20 are you listening here? You have seen some of GG2's pattern pictures. There are some more I'll move over. Here are a few of the shots I took today. Bottom of right side of cowl with the front of wooden sill still attached. The brace for the front kick panel is straight on both sides with only surface rust. Bottom of left side of cowl with rust that will need a patch and rotten wood but some is good enough to help making a pattern. Another of right side and straight floor board channeling wood for front of sill. Back of cowl right side A pillar and door front.
Psssssssssssss...t....Wood is Good... Bowtie's Rock...When did They start calling them Bowties? Can You imagine the Wood Shop in 1926 must have been a sight...truly a form of Art Combining the 2 and making it work ...I wonder too the ratio of Steel Structured to Wood in NA Production at the time?...
Stogy There were actually two wood shops in 26. Fisher built the closed car bodies and the open bodies were built someplace at GM. The pieces from the 25 wood that I also had parts of for the 26 match up down to the screw and nail locations.
I read somewhere that one of the early developers, not sure if it was one of the Chevrolet brothers or Billy Durant saw the logo design on some wallpaper in a hotel room and the Bowtie name was soon attached to it. Here are some more closeups from yesterday. The trunk lid: The front driver side corner with missing piece. There are finger joints in some of these long curved pieces. : This is the same joint on the passenger side. Passenger side again with part of the hinge looking across to the missing driver side piece. This is further down the passenger side showing 1/2 of one of the trunk holder uppers. The cross brace at the bottom is about the middle of the lid. Here is the passenger side lower corner. Part of the seat frame in the background. The trunk latch. It sits off center to the right. I think to miss the spare tire bracket that was centered below the trunk. The driver side lower corner. The main difference I see between '25 and '26 is the trunk area. '25s had a smaller lid more like a '26-'27 T. The wood bracing had to be different. There could have been some regional difference as well because Chevrolets were built in plants all over the country. They may have used different woods and even different body manufacturers. I have read that the open car bodies were not Fisher bodies. That could be why there is so little surviving information. This car was built in Oakland California. It would be interesting to know how it got to Nevada, maybe I'll make something up. Damn! These all look like touring cars.
I called my friend up about your needs , but no luck . He has grill shells and radiator tanks Tuneup , maybe a clutch disk ...... has no 25 frame stuff .
Thanks for checking. I know this stuff is out there. I'll check with an Inliner friend at our next meeting. This frame came from him as well as some other parts. I also need the sheet metal piece that goes between the quarter and cowl under the driver side door. Not a hard piece to make but I'd like to find one. More pictures: Driver side quarter: Lower rear to sill Metal plate near mid quarter top, I don't know the purpose. Top of quarter front of trunk area and rear of passenger compartment. The large block has a groove/notch that matches one on the other side. That piece ends there with an old cut. there is another two screw plate close to the sheet metal that runs across the notch. Could there have been a metal rod there that went across the back of the seat? Front of Quarter with B pillar/door latching and alignment hardware. The metal bracket goes through and is part of the mounting hardware for a top. Full B pillar with door alignment tabs and notch for latch. Top mount bracket sticking through. You can see the notch in the block in the back. Bottom front of quarter where B pillar fastens to sill.
Dad's homemade tool came through again today. Got the pitman arm off and in the rust remover. Thanks Dad!
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