Thank you guys, James that photochop you did years ago for me helped out a lot. Going to be smoothing out the roof next week and getting it in primer
So as I talked about above we dropped off the car Monday at my buddies body shop, we agree on getting the roof and jams all smoothed up and the fire wall smoothed and painted to be ready for a engine. DONE we agreed on a price that we are both happy with and decide remainder of the body work can be done when we have more funds. DONE, well came in last night and Frankie got bored and I couldn't of been happier
I couldn't of been happier cause Frankies idea of doing the roof is to sand entire car down ha ha ha, talk about going above and beyond.
Frankie is going to do some hammer and dollying on the roof and rear belt molding area so had to call Rick and let him know after he busted his butt to get the glass back in could he come take it out to avoid risking any shattered glass, not a problem he said. There is no way with my work and my skill set could I ever have dreamed this car would be coming together without the help of a handful of great friends and new ones to help push her along.
The last week Frankie and I have been ticking away and stripping the car down and starting on the body work. At first we were just going to concentrate on the roof and the firewall so we could get it on the road and then Frankie said lets just knock it all out so we can shoot it in primer and have it all be one color, who wouldn't agree. So he has been teaching me how to strip the car down properly and not dig into the metal too much, I am very pleased the trunk was what I started with and while I was working on that he has been working on the roof and c pillars.
The body line at the bottom of the c pillar will need to have the belt molding tweaked just a bit to follow the lines
MAnaged to get the roof in epoxy last night, going to move onto the doors and rear quarters tonight. Very pleased with our progress.
The last few weeks we have been working on stripping the car down to bare metal and digging out all the old and bad body work. I found aftermarket replacement rocker panels but I did now find the rocker panel from the back of the door to the rear fender so we winged it and feel it turned out really nice. My question is does anyone know what gravel shields these came off of? They were listed as 54 Plymouth however look more like 53 with a slight variation. I am debating on running the rear chrome on the car, up for any opinions.
Have you ever been cutting out rust and the hole just keeps getting bigger and BIGger and BIGGER, ughhhhh. Well the next few pictures show what we worked on a few weeks ago. I am a little delayed on my updates but I am really loving seeing this car come together.
Car is looking great. 53-54 Dodges & Plymouths are some of my favorites, especially certain body styles.
We have shaved the wipers, gas tank opening, emblems but not sure if we are going to shave the door handles and how much of the trim. Definetely want the trim on the front fenders and the belt molding but will leave the car in primer for a bit to make some adjustments until we can finalize. While soda blasting the fenders we uncovered a shadow of the old plaza logo.
Here is the 318 finally all painted and some of the parts going on it, I love the finned valve covers.
Incredible job on the chop! I'd love to have those lines on my Customline, just have to learn how to cut, shape, and weld metal. Hmmmm, shouldn't take more than a weekend to learn, right?
I like what I see there! My '54 Plymouth Wagon has a '57 Plymouth 318 and push-button Torqueflite Trans. It runs but needs some lovin! What did you do about the rear-end gear ratio in your car?
Not a lot visual has changed over the last few months, we put the new rear end in, ran the new fuel lines and brake lines and we are currently working on getting the wiring all ran. If everything goes as planned we will be getting her started in a few weeks. The exhaust manifolds ended up giving us some issues on the driver side so we are having a set of headers built to go around the steering column and clear the starter. Will get some pictures uploaded soon
Last few weeks a lot has been done but she isn't going to make roundup, just too many details I want to work on. We did manage to finish off the headers, I was going with a stock manifold however the ones I had one of dropped right down into the starter so my buddy Matt made some new ones. We ordered the Hedman headers for the 318 and modified them a little. Will post some pictures shortly
Here the new flow of the pipes are done Matt working his magic Here is the final test fit, now for the painful hand filing the welds down and then off to the ceramic coater to make them chiney I will get some better pictures of them before I send them off and after they are done. She is getting close to running, I couldn't of gotten this far without some very talented guys helping me.
I left out several weeks of work but below is Adam setting up the new brake lines from the front to the back, finalizing the core support for the new radiator and Jason cleaning up the header a little