Finished the steering wheel up .. also installed and trimmed the carpet mold. Started working on the body patches. They're not perfect but theyre flat and smooth and with a skim coat of filler, you'll never know they were there. All i have is crappy pics right now from my phone but ill shoot some more up here when i get a chance.. anyways on to the photos. Luke after pulling off the tape .. And this is the mega pain im currently poking around with .. Slow and steady.. interior is mostly all done so now its on to the body work.. which i cant stand. Ugghh
Can't go wrong with black and white for the interior. I picked up one of those hubcaps over the weekend too.
Thanks man .. believe it or not i was riding home one day and went a different route (cause it was nice out and i was just day dreaming) .. and i happened to look over and do a doulbe take when i noticed it off the road about 100 feet. I whipped around and snapped a handfull of shots over at the building. Turns out 2 weeks afterwards the building owner painted over all of the tags so i felt real lucky to have gotten the shot. Especially cool knowing theres probably only a few others who noticed and took advantage of it while it was there!
Thanks for the kind words.. its coming along peice by peice.. I wish i had more time in the day to piddle around on it but i dont .. unfortunately lately ive been coming home and working on this through the week.. Promised the fiance it wouldnt get pushed aside with the purchase of the Poncho .. so now i basically work 12-15 hour days between my job and the basement/car so i can get these both done-ish in a reasonable time. In other good news Eric "wwauto1" and i both got the whole car skim coated where it was needed and mostly all the way sanded out. Just waiting on my patch panel to arrive for the drivers side door. Couldnt find a 2-door donor locally or even semi locally and couldnt bring myself to pay $300 plus shipping on ebay for one so im trying a nice looking patch panel i found online. When it comes in ill take some pictures and give some reviews on it. The company makes patches for all sorts of cars so im interested to see the quality. After that gets stiched on .. ill smooth out the door and we should be about ready for primer. Til next time ..
So its been awhile since ive posted and i apologize.. Long story short .. the basement took priority for a couple weeks and is about 90% done. Just need to trim it out and do some touch ups, ect. So about a week ago i was able to get back in there and start fooling around again. Haven't made a ton of progress but .. eh whatever its better than nothing. To get started i had to go through the shop and improve my lighting situation for winter.. i only had one fluorescent bulb over my bench top and my 30 year old incandescent ceiling fixture and 100w bulb which just wasnt cutting it. So I hung some new lights and got the car shimmy'd sideways a bit so i can keep the door down and still get to the whole car with the heater running in there without issues. With the car positioned correctly and all of the bullshit out of there i was able to turn on the heat and start in on one of the last projects for the year ive been dreading, the bottom of the drivers door. I had sourced a few parts car doors but nothing i could find was close .. not even any styleline coupes .. so unfortunately for me its up to the patch panels to rescue me this time. Patience isnt my thing .. and im finding you need alot when doing surgery like this. I pulled the drivers door.. if you remember in the beginning of the build i had found a football sized spray foam chunk in there. So now was time to check out the rot in all its glory. I dont approve of the bondo patch panels .. and below is exactly why i didnt try and just patch the outer skin .. weeeeee .. isnt that fun. So rather than pout about it more i just cut the shit off .. Look ma .. more foam. Good grief.. So then i started mocking up the outer skin off of the door measurements i took down. Then tacked it on .. and started on the inside piece. I got these panels from Brookville Roadster .. and they're a pretty nice piece. I was impressed how well everything matched up. Especially since these were made for the '51 Chevy Styleline Coupe. So i got it all tacked up and found some new interesting developments in Ol' George's restoration from back in the day. I got the door on and noticed the bottom edge was flared out a bit from where the door should be. I had always noticed it slightly before but figured it was from the bottom of the door separating.. now i know its not. If you look at the first picture you can see they have pinched the side of the car in a bit back there. The other side has a similar flow but this one is definitely much more drastic. Next step is going to be some relief cuts inside the door sill and rear floor .. ill pull out the bottom of the car a bit as well as cinch the door in slightly and it should flow together much nicer. Luckily even the way it is currently its not too far off so im hoping its not a huge under taking .. we'll see. So this is where i am now. As you can see in the above picture they royally screwed up the whole door sill so ill have to do some relief cuts in the front also and flush it out with the fender too. Anyways .. this is where i am .. more pictures as it progresses. Should be a bit warmer this weekend so im hoping to get a hand full done over sat and sun. Thanks for looking, Luke
Thanks, appreciate the support Got a little more done sat and today. Eric (wwauto1) came over and we got the drivers door knocked out.. finally. Took a lot of massaging but we were able to get it to line up fairly well. Additionally we got the latch to close properly and actually hold the door closed in the full latch position. The drivers door handle mech was seized terribly, Eric was able to get it broken free from its rust lock and now i can open the door from inside the drivers seat .. which feels like a new luxury. Finally we got the door drilled and the threaded plate welded inside the bottom of the door skin to bolt it to the hinge.. with her opening and closing nicely all that's left is to finish welding the seams then skim coat the seam and sand to prep it for paint. After working on the drivers door we had to knock out the last of the main problem areas to the body. The previous owner had riveted a piece of thin sheet metal to the body behind where the side pieces are attached for the grill. The drivers side had been bulging from a dent and after further inspection we found that it had been back filled with Bondo and was basically a rotted hole. Lovely.. more sheet metal work. So i cut out a panel .. and shaped it a bit ... and welded it in. Hopefully that's the last of the surprises for now. I'm getting tired of sheet metal work. Cut the bottom section of the door in half to remove the pieces i needed to re-weld to the new door panel for the lower hinge. .. still cant believe that door Door all aligned. Had to split the door sill in the front and part of the back of it and the rear quarter to get the body straightened out a bit .. afterwards the door fit 10x better and only needed a little hammer & dolly work. And here's the nasty rot i uncovered afterwards.. Making the patch .. .. welded on and getting metal finished. Hopefully ill be taking a day off work this week and i can get some more progress.. Thanks for looking, -Luke
Nice work! Seems like the Dayton area has a lot of talented car guys. Maybe you can make it to the Road Rockets Rumble in 2013 so we can see it in person?
i can relate to all of these repairs my own poncho was rotted out in most of the same locations.i have been watching and you have come along way,great work keep the pics coming
Nice work... love the poncho's. Always nice seeing another one being brought back! I'll subscribe and watch your progress.
Thanks that means alot! Ill definatly be alot more attentive the next time when im in the market to keep an eye on the tell tale bad areas.. Appreciate the support. Got a few days here of 60 degrees so im going to try and get it as close to being ready for primer as i can as soon as possible. Last night i was able to get the etching primer on the roof. Its amazing how excited you can get over just seeing a panel covered in one uniform color. Ha! Luke
Finished smoothing out the front drivers side patch for the grill. Now it has me staring at the other side wanting to do that one. The other side still has a decent rivoted patch from the prior owner thats all hidden under the gril peice but it still starts making my OCD itch.. Got most of the passenger side smoothed out and spray bombed some SEM high build on it to work out some of the imperfections as much as i could prior to spraying the actual primer on the car. Then it was time to tackle that dumb drivers door. Got the door mostly straightened out with the help of Eric (wwauto1) prior to welding it up. If you look at the prior pics you can see the difference doing some relief cuts made. The gap at the bottom of the door was close to a 1/2" off but with a little modification to the body and the door panels we were able to get them lined up pretty well. Didnt get any final welded pics of the door .. but all in all it took about 2 hours to do all of the welding on the outer and inner skins. Still a few spots here and there im going to throw a few tack welds on around the inner edges but for the most part its all done. Just needs the welds cleaned and a skim coat over the seam smoothed out and it should be about ready to rock. Anyways .. hopefully i can get 90% of the remaining body work and straightening done this weekend.. im getting really anxious to paint this sucker. Luke
Hoping to have color on it before the new year.. that way I can shift my focus to any mechanical issuses that present themselves . Getting married in march and I'd like to drive it away from the church. -Luke
Well got a package yesterday.. weee! G78-15 Goodyears w/ 3 1/4" whites.. from coker .. thank you alliance discount. Getting cold in the garage these days .. luckily the wifey had girls over for a game night .. so i snuck in and stole a bowl of chilli. .. additionally i cant leave anything alone. I started messing with the passenger side skirting and found some more rot. Its hard to tell from the picture but the hole behind the filler was about the size of a quarter .. so another patch .. and more welding.. blah Hopefully ill get some more progress this week/weekend. Thanks, Luke
Keep at it, I have two friends who each have a 50 Pontiac Business coupe. Love seeing these sleds get back up and running on all four wheels.
Well havent done a bunch lately.. just some loose ends. Been busy at work so i havent had a bunch of time either so ive been trying to finish some little things until i can get over and buy some paint and primer and take a day off work and spend it sprayin in the garage. Finally pulled my new brake lines out of the box thats been in the rafters of the shop and decided to straighten them out and get some installed on the car. These things fit great. Got them from pontiacparts.net . Still waiting for the rubber lines i ordered online this week to get in but once they do ill get them on and the whole brake system should be good to go. Pulled the master cylinder apart and cleaned out everything.. officially the coolest part on my car to date. The side of it reads "Dayton OH" .. and clearly states it was manufactured in the Moraine Delphi assembly plant. That plant closed down a few years ago but its still standing about 3 miles from my house.. pretty cool. The previous owner said the brakes worked and just needed bled. I pulled the master off and it was bone dry so i pulled it apart. The rear seal looked like it was twisted sideways. Which i assume was allowing the brake fluid to leak out of the back of it where the push rod puts pressure on the plunger. I cleaned everything up well.. ran some fine sand paper around the cylinder walls and blew everything out with compressed air. After lightly lubing everything and reassembling it i think everything will work great. At least i hope .. id love to be able to keep this master on the car, that and not pay $135 for a replacement. We will soon see.. I spot shot some aerosol high-build primer on the back of the car to see how it looked.. aka boredom and procrastinating going inside to help clean the house.. turned out pretty nicely. Im getting excited for actual primer now. .. also a sneak peak of my early christmas present to myself .. took some searching but i found one finally. My plate tag .. painted, letters sanded, and cleared (and obviously hanging upside down.. lol drying) Bought my dad a hoodie from Brookville Roadster this week and saw this bitchin christmas card.. had to take a picture of it. Dad got a kick out of it too when i showed it to him. Happy holidays! Until next time.. -Luke
The Jalopy Journal
