Projects 1954 Ford Wagon project

Trying on this thread to get ahold of you about purchasing the 51' Pontiac. I have left you emails, and pm's but no response. Maybe you'll see this
Curtis

 

looking sweet

 

Anyone ever bought from www.a-resto-parts.com? they have a complete front end rebuild kit for @ $210. I was going to replace the balljoints, well, I was going to leave them but I decided to replace them as I will be putting Aerostar springs and new shocks on so you know... Mac's wants $75 a piece for the ball joints, another place wants $63 each. Close to $300 just for the ball joints. I woudln't mind replacing the control arm bushings and the tie rod ends are old, too!
Just wondering if anyone has bought from these guys (www.a-resto-parts.com) and if the quality is good. I am familiar with the idea of "You get what you pay for" and I realize that a lot of these resto parts come from overseas and quality and fit are not always up to par(!).
Thanks again! I will post some new shots soon. Frame has been POR-15'ed and soon will have cleaned and painted suspension and new shocks, brake hardware and lines, front to back. Slowly but surely!!

 

I've never bought from them, but the significant price difference would scare me away. I shop around for good prices but when there is that much of a difference it throws up a red flag.
Nice build by the way!

 

Slow progress but I will be bolting the front and rear suspension back together this week with rebuilt drums all around, '57 9" out back with new rubber bushings and 4" blocks, new ball joints and tie rod ends in front, as well as aerostar coils and new brake lines front to back. Frame got a coat of POR-15 and the 9" and stock leaf springs got cleaned and spray canned epoxy satin black. Now to my question, What would be the correct dual master cylinder and power brake booster for me to use with the drum/drum setup? I have searched this forum and 1954Ford.com and most of the info is directed towards disc/drum setups. I called Speedway and they have a basic kit but I'm sure I can do this with later model Ford parts. Thanks!

 

Good to hear you are making progress,

Check with one of the auto parts stores,,a mid 60's to early 70's Mustang dual master cylinder should do the trick. HRP

 

51 chieftain

Another wagon owner here, just a two door. i am in the process of placing the body on a rotosserie to do the floor boards etc and noticed you had bought the front floor boards. Who did you buy them from and how did they fit?
I think that it is general opinion that these wagons are rust buckets, at least the two I have are! Are the body braces rusted out?
I also had a tough time getting those two front bolts out of the frame. luckly, the drivers side had rusted off completely but the passengers side was another story. It finally snapped off just as i was thinking this is definitly the hardest bolt to access on the whole car. It would be even worse if the front sheet metal were still there.
keep up the good work.

 

glad to see a bit of a rare 54 being done. keep us posted!

 

GregK, I bought my floor panels from Mac's. They are by NO means a perfect fit. They do have the beads rolled in the same spot and the also are pretty big all around. With a good amount of cutting and fitting, they work just fine. These are basically flat panels with a couple of beads rolled in. You could probably buy the sheet metal and roll the beads yourself with a cheap HF roller, or you could make a poster paper template and have a metal shop do it for you for less than the cost of Mac's cost. I have not bought a bead roller (yet) but if I did it again, I would make 'em myself. I made the rear sections where the back seat is bolted down myself and they have much more shape to them than the floor panels that I bought. Yeah, they are pretty amatuer, and I have already learned a lot since I jumped in and did my floors, but I did them on the cheap and they are good enough for now ( when I do my rockers, I plan on "tightening up" a few spots).
I will be ordering a couple sets of butt joint clamps and a magnetic copper backing plate so hopefully no more crappy lap joints. I also bought an electronic welding helmet so I can actually see what I am doing! Makes sense to me!
Hopefull have some pics in a day or two.
Mike

 

Update!
Discovered rear pass. side body mount was completely gone while preparing to patch rear corner of spare tire area. Also removed the patch panel rear quarter panel that had been held on by liquid nails and rivets with lots of bondo. The patch fender isn't too bad so I will reuse it and weld it back up, Also need to redo bottom of wheel wells and rear inner fender. Oh yeah, I'm in deep! At least it was easy to remove the patched fender which gives me great access to the rear body mount and the other layers of metal that make up the rear tailgate mount area. I am now in the market for a shrinker/stretcher and a small metal brake. I saw a post here where a curved lip was made by cutting the shape out of 3/4" ply and the metal is cut 1" longer than the wood, clamped together and hammered over the edge creating a 90 degree lip. This will come in handy for my wheel wells, inner fenders and rear apron that all need to be replaced. I am feeling pretty confident that I can pull this off but it will definitely be a trial and error, learning experience.
Here are some pictures of what I am up against

 

You don't even need a bead roller, I used a router to cut a groove in a big landscape timber and hammer formed beads in. Getting all that body schutz off to find clean metal to weld is the worst part.

 

Got some more work done today. I re-made the back of spare tire area that was rusted out. this pieace has a lip that goes over the rear frame cross member. pictured also is the rough start of the rear wall of the spare tire area that connects to the rear splash apron or whatever it is called. Hopefully I can get this fitted and tacked on tomorrow. Then I still have to fit the rear body to frame mount and the rear corner apron ( pictured next to what was left of the original. Welds are getting better. The two joined halfs of the spare tire floor I had already tacked in and started to weld a while back. The back section that goes across and over the rear cross member I did today as well as finish most of the welds around the tire floor. I can see a difference and I think I'm getting somewhat better. This is a good thing because I'm def. not out of the woods yet!

 

Can you tell that I bought a bead roller after I had already started welding one of the floors halves in place? "It's custom!!!!"

 

Here is a link to my Photobucket account. Some shots from the day I bought my wagon ( almost 2 years ago!) and various progress shots....
http://s1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii487/Koolwagon/

 

Looks a lot like what I had to do,,a shrieker/stretcher will defiantly come in handy when you need to fabricate the wheel wells,,

You are doing a good job,,hang in there. HRP

 

Hardcore!! good work.
Keep thinking about the 'maiden voyage' for motivation.

 

Finished the spare tire pan and I am almost ready to attach the back wall. I need to fix some spots where I blew through the sheet metal but all in all, I think it turned out pretty good. I was hoping to get an opinion here concerning my welds. When I put the 2 curved halves of the spare tire floor in a while back, some of my gaps were pretty big and as a result, I blew through some of the metal and ended up with some really boogered out welds. Underneat they look O.K., not perfect by any means and there are still some pin holes around the joints. I think all in all everything is solid and I plan on using Loctite metal caulk to seal all the seams ( much cheaper than POR 15 seam sealer). My question is: How do you feel about seam sealing over less than perfect welds that do contain some pinholes?

 

lookin good

 

I'm just a hobbiest but I think you will be fine with the seem sealer. Seal it from underneath as well as above and as far as looks from above you can always carpet or use some type of trunk mat so that you don't see the welds anyway.

By the way.. cool project.

 

Got the rear wall of the spare tire area done today as well as the rear pass. side body mount. Also ordered a set of Cleco panel clips that showed up today so hung the rear fender back up just for fun. Next step will be to attach the rear corner splash pan to the rear body corner and line everything up. I also need to remake the lower part of the wheel well with the 90 degree lip and attach it to the fender and make a filler piece for the inner fender behind the wheel opening.
I need to make a trip to the welding shop for more shielding gas and some thin cut off wheels before I can get started on the body panels.
.....Small steps!....

 

You are doing a great job,,I remember being in the same position and wondering if I would ever get past this point.

Hang in there and keep flogging at it your making good progress! HRP

 

Some progress, it's been slow but it is coming along. the friendly guys at the local Metal Supermarkets (Albany, NY) bent me up some inner and outer rockers. Not exact reproductions but they are close and the price was right. The inners I got in an 8' length. the outers are 4' lengths (the metal brake could only bend up to 4') I welded them together and then slid the whole thing until the seam was under the post. I also cut and replaced the ends of the rotted body mounts and joined them up to the new inner rocker. I still need to finish up the wheel well and attatch the B post. I did have one issue and that was caused by my first attempt to patch the floors when I first got the car. Basically I ended up raising the height of the floor by 1/2 - 3/4" and this has caused a clearance issue with the new rockers. When I put in the new inner rocker, i put it up to the "new" height of the floor. It's not much but it did make fitting the pillar kind of tough. I pretty much had to hammer the outer rocker through the bottom of the pllar and up to the "ledge" of the inner rocker to join the 2. It looks a little funky but I guess it should be alright. Other side should be a breeze, right?!?

 

kinda curious why you had someone bend up flat outer rockers when replacement rockers with the curve can be had?

 

I didn't want to spend the money for reproduction rockers with this car. This is the first car that I have cut and welded on. I still am not sure how it will turn out but I try to soak up as much info as I can, either here on the H.A.M.B. or other sites and then go into a section of the car with hopefully a good idea of what I need to do. (Mostly, I just go to HOTRODPIMER's photobucket album!) The repro outer rockers would cost me @ $200 per side, yeah, the would have the correct curve, but I figured this car is going to be low, and the rocker will be 3-5" off of the ground so you know... The Metal Supermarket route cost me the price of a sheet of 18ga. + $30 for the bends.

 

Sometimes making the patches yourself make you feel pretty good,so they ain't perfect and look exactly like the originals but from wjat I can see they look fine.

When we were building the wagon no one made rockers,,there was very little available.

Your doing a good job,just keep plugging along. HRP