The “2nd Best” ‘60 Chevy wagon build…

Carpet color looks great. Amen to the Auto Parts Lament.

 

Finally taking the time to check in on your progress.... Looking good, Roger!



Malcolm

 

Update # 17

We’ll call this one
NEAR THE END…!!!

Yep, we’re nearing the end of this build…only one or two updates left. Things are moving along nicely with the car…and, well, HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all since this the first update of the new year.

Since the last update, we haven’t had much to do on the car for the last few weeks since we were waiting for exhaust…altho I did take care of a few small things like build a radiator shroud and I did throw some bondo at the places I welded in new patch panels…and of course, sanded all of it back off and then blew some primer on those areas. That’s about as good as it’s going to get…we’re running the car, when it gets runnable (it is running but not yet drivable) the way it is for the forseeable future. Besides, everyone loves P-A-T-I-N-A, right…??? Not going to take the time to do bodywork and paint this winter…not enuff months in the winter season left right now…and the rod runs will start in April…besides, I’ve spent enuff money on this car right now…!! As soon as I can move it out of the garage under its own power and get insurance and license on it, then my ’48 Cadillac Sedanet is moving in…I’m itching…

Our new headliner showed up at the end of December… we ordered it mid-November. We ordered a “saddle” color in “star” vinyl…that’ll be the last thing we have put in the wagon as we still have to R & R the area above the tailgate window…it got rusted out from sitting under the trees for 25 or 30 years (the last time the car was plated was 1984)…hey, I just realized something…this year is 2014…that makes it 30 years since the car actually drove on the streets…wow…!!! This ol’ wagon won’t know what to do on the streets these days…


The headliner color is called “Saddle”…

...but appears somewhat darker here than the rest of the “saddle” we purchased…but up above your head is not going to be as noticeable as under your feet, besides, the brown piping in the seats and the brown windlace will match the headliner…and that means I pulled it all together…!!! Love it when a plan comes together…!!!

Then the first weekend of the new year, Dan and I went to the upholstery supply house and purchased some jute padding to go under the molded carpet… yeah, there’s some thin pieces already glued on the back of the molded carpet, but we wanted just a bit more padding…and on top of the Lizardskin and then the suppressor glue-down matte, it should be very quiet inside the car. We bought a piece of 3/8” jute 72” wide by 84” long…after working on it for a while, we couldn’t figure out how to put it down in one piece without it wrinkling all over so we ended up cutting it into four pieces and then fitting and gluing it down. When we got done it didn’t look too bad…and under the carpet it’ll be wonderful…!!! We’ll let my upholstery guy take care of fitting the carpet once the exhaust is in and we can actually drive the car over to him.


Cut it into four pieces…


Spraying some glue on it…


Here I am laying it and smoothing it.


Done and done…now to put the carpet back in, altho I’ll let the REAL upholstery guy glue and smooth it.

After we’d gotten that done, Dan and I decided to take off all the rubber on the doors and sand them in anticipation of spraying some champagne. The door moldings were still the dark blue of the original interior color and since all the rest of the moldings were now champagne colored, those had to be, too…so we sanded the whole door, masked it off and I sprayed the whole thing - uhm, we did just the jambs – we didn’t spray the (exterior) door itself…!!! I mixed up paint and sprayed. So, we’ll let that cure out before we buy new rubber for them…the old stuff was very hard…and all that rubber is going to run us a bit over a two hundred bucks…again…!!!


Here is one of the doors as I was blowing on sealer…

...had to repair the bottom of the door as the door apparently took a hit some time in its life and the old bondo was cracked and chipping off – of course, it had rust under it.


And the same door after it got color.

After the sealer cured on the radiator shroud, I went ahead and painted that champagne as well…but I’m getting a bit ahead here…!!! I’m not certain the engine needed the shroud as the fan was pulling air thru the rad really good when we finally got it started but at least, it’ll keep fingers away from the fan and looks good.


Here’s what the shroud looked like when I folded up the side pieces and shortened the whole thing.


And after I did some smoothing and spraying sealer…


Then the paint… I also painted a small piece to go on the firewall and the “Car Guys” plak while I had paint mixed.


Quite a difference from the original…

While not exactly having a lot left to do on the car at this point, we went and purchased a stereo…to hang under the dash…we decided to not hide it anywhere so will hang it for the time being…and in anticipation of eventually putting in a stereo, we’d already ran wires to the rear of the car and up under the dash and parked them there before we put in the jute padding (gotta think ahead, ya know…!!!). I built a small plastic box to house the CD/stereo and will mount the whole thing as soon as the carpet gets done.

We’ve also scoped out seat belts and as soon as the seat gets bolted in, we’ll drill some holes for the belts…

As of Thursday , 1/16/14, the new 2 ½” exhaust is in…and boyhowdy does it sound good…took about seven hours for the exhaust guy to lay on his back, measure, bend and attach the exhaust to the underside of the car. It wasn’t the warmest day here and he’d told me his tubing bender doesn’t like cold weather, so we parked his whole apparatus inside my garage and cranked up the heat. This is kind of a unique set-up he has…his van has been cut down and he’s moved the rear forward and then mounted the bender to the rear of it …all he needs to do it plug in to a 220 outlet and he’s ready.


Bending the 2 ½” tube…not an easy job to bend and hang that big a pipe under the car. We used some Flowmaster 40’s on the car…


Ken is the exhaust guy….

..comes to your house with tubing, clamps, hangers, flanges, gaskets, mufflers and whatever else he needs to install a system, complete while laying on his back…helluva a way to make a living…!!! I sure as hell wouldn’t do it…!!!

As Ken was looking over the car before he started on the exhaust, he commented on the carpet and the fact there was no seat in it yet…I answered that the seats were done but I didn’t want to go get them and bolt them in as my will power was minimal when it came to taking the car out on the streets without exhaust under it…told him it was best I didn’t have a seat in it as I would have already tried out the horsepower…and my neighbors wouldn’t have liked that…waa-aaay tooo loud…!!!

So, as of this date, about the only thing left for us to do, once I bolt the seat in, is to drive the car up to the front end alignment shop and get all the front suspension set and tightened…after that it’s take the car to my upholstery guy and have him do carpet, headliner and door panels…then we can put back the rear floor panels and cover them with the “sand” vinyl we found…after that, toss in a spare tire, a jack and take a trip in it…put some miles on it…I’m thinkin’ there will be at least one more update…you need to see the seats, the carpet glued down and the rear vinyl floors…so…stay tuned…

Yep, it'll be continued…

R-

 

I really dig his exhaust setup! If I didnt live 5 blocks from the exhaust shop it would have been an issue to flat tow my truck there, mobile would have been a sweet option but I don't have 220. Coming along nice, see ya in golden soon

 

Yep, I'm certain the wagon will make the first Golden cruise...really looking forward to Spring now...

Back up from Page 5...anyone else want to see this...???

R-

 

I'm still digging it Roger! It has encouraged me to go the next step on my current project (and redoing my dads ot ride). I hadn't planned on doing the underside but you guys make it looks so easy and quick. Guess ill step up and make the mess....unless Dan is available to do the cleaning for me since he loves it so. LOL. Looking forward to seeing the wagon hit the road.


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Yes keep the updates coming! It's inspired me to get back on my own project after a one year hiatus.


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

ive read the whole thread tonight ,awsome build guys,my hats off to you...!!!!
no ive got to get my but in gear on my t bucket..!
Thanks.

 

Hey DrDave...Dan said he'd be available for hire, but it'd require an apartment (with a view), three squares a day, an early kustom to drive daily, a four-hour, four day work week, a minimum of six months hire and of course, a regular $$$ paycheck (he works cheap for me however)...!!!

Thanx for the rest of the comments...

Happy to say, the "first drive" occurred on Sunday, 1/18/14, sans front seat...just had to see if the tranny was working -backed it out of the garage, down the length of the driveway and back into the garage a couple of times...then into the warm sun and let it idle for half an hour...first time it's been up to operating temps since we got it running...and lo and behold-zero leaks...!!!



Updates coming...

To be continued...

R-

 

Seats can be highly overrated when you really want to see if it all works.
congratulations on getting it mobile.
here is my 59's first movement , i did have a seat, just no gas tank or front end.


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=12910

Looking forward to the next up-date.

 

Hey Roger,

You must have quite a feeling of accomplishment to pull the ol' wagon out under it's own power after all the months of hard word work. Can't wait to see it around town this summer..........E

 

Looking good Roger, still keeping an eye on you .

All the best.

 

Very Kool your making some kool progress. Can't wait to see it on the road.

 

This car is too cool

 

Update # 18…and the final update…

So we’ll call this one... “Th-th-th-th-that’s all folks…!!!” as Porky pig used to say a the end of the Saturday matinee cartoon.

Yep, you read that correctly…19 months after rolling the ’60 in the garage, it’s “done”…well, not completely finished, as you’ll see in this update, but close enuff to say we’re done building it. No, we’re not going to paint it…we’ll run it in its ‘patina’ for this summer, besides, isn’t ‘patina’ the hot look right now…??? Maybe, just maybe, if someone doesn’t step up and purchase the car by next fall, we’ll get after it next winter and throw some shiny paint at it.

This build was probably the fastest I ever taken a car from ‘junkyard’ status to back on the streets…and of course, I have to thank my brother, Dan, for helping me with the project. He was right alongside me all the time-it’s great to have someone you can rely on for help. FWIW, the majority of ‘building’ this wagon was done on the weekends. Maybe we’ll call this wagon the “76 weekends Special”…!!!

But let’s not dwell on the end of the updates on this one…besides, as soon as I get license, registration and insurance on this wagon, the ’48 Cadillac Sedanet will be removed from its sleeping spot and rolled into the garage…time to start on that one….again. Yeah, I’ll prolly do a build thread on that one too…!!!


This is what the Caddy looked like as I found the car in a Kansas farmer’s field in 2000...



And as it sat just before I put it in the shed to sleep over 8 years ago…



And how it looks today still asleep in my shed…


So, right now, it's been a month since I last updated this thread...so let’s get on with the final update on the wagon. Let’s start by saying a couple of weeks ago we had a catastrophic failure …!!!

No, that’s a bit too dramatic…and a bit overreaching. Let’s just say the since the engine had sat under my counter for a number of years while we were working on the ’55 Cadillac and then the ’60 Pontiac and finally the ’60 Chevy wagon (this one…!!!), gaskets tend to dry out, especially here in humidity-less ColoRODo. After we’d filled the tranny and moved the car out from the garage, and back in under its own power a few weeks ago, we turned out the lights and closed the door and watched the Broncos get their butts whipped. With not much else to do on the car except wait until our upholstery guy called us to come get the seats out of his way, there wasn’t much reason to go to the garage to work on the ’60 - we’d gone as far as we could. However, when I did go to the garage and when I opened the door I was shocked to find a flood of red tranny fluid running from under the car to behind the rear tires and all under the car. Damned dry gaskets. It took some time to clean it all up. Worse part, man, there went about $40 bucks running on the floor and two rolls of paper towels…

So, now we’re back at it…as you can see, we picked up the front seat and mounted it in the car…it looks good.


Used four of the original bolts…

...took a while to get the seat brackets slammed down into the carpet simply because of the four types of insulation we put down (Lizardskin, Supressor matt, jute padding and the carpet). The bolts almost didn’t reach and we went and bought four more longer ones to cinch it down good.

Once we had that accomplished, we measured for seat belts and set out to find the correct color. We had a bunch of old seatbelts in a box in my storage shed so used them to measure, found some latches and locks and floor mounts and then figured out where we needed to put some holes in the floor… with that done, we went down to the supply place and purchased some “Antelope” colored seat belt webbing. Once we had the correct color for the interior, we cut off the Chevy latches and floor mounts off the old belts and took them to our upholsterer to have him sew them up.


Looks good with the belts in place, eh…???

Here’s a little rant: You want to know how much lawyers affect our hobby…??? Out of the box of old seat belts we pulled the floor connectors and the shoulder bolts…so we went to the ACE hardware store to find some Grade 8 nuts…as we were looking for fine thread nuts up walks a store employee guy to help us…he’s helping us find correct nuts and fingering the shoulder bolts and finally asks “What are these out of ?” I answer Chevrolet and he says “What part?” I answer seat belts. He stops. Looks at me and hands me the shoulder bolt back to me and says “I can’t sell you nuts for these.” So in my usual tone of disbelief, I say “bullshit” and reached for the bolt, going to find my own. He says “Stop. I can’t sell you anything like that because of the liability. If you insist, you have to leave the store.” I said “The bolt is factory, way past a Grade 8…and you won’t sell me a Grade 8 nut for it.” “No,” he replied. So I left…but, best part is I went back in the next day and bought some Grade 8 (unshoulder) bolts and nuts and some huge washers to put on the bottom of the belts so they won’t pull thru. So, now if the ACE sourced –(probably China…!!! ) Grade 8 bolts break, can I sue ACE…???

Moving on, with the front seat in and bolted down and the seat belt holes made, it was time to glue the carpet down. We started at the rear and worked forward…and our upholstery guy standing by to give us directions. He admonished us for wanting him to take care of it, said “you guys can do it. If I were starting from scratch with carpet that needed trimming, fitting and binding, it’d be different, but you guys bought molded carpet…all you need to do is fit it.”

So we did. It wasn’t that difficult to stretch and glue down…!!! Not bad for a couple of amateurs, eh…??? After that success, Dan and I talked about stretching the headliner on all the bows…I’ve never done a headliner so we’ll see how it goes…but I do have to replace some of the tack strip and that’s going to be a fun challenge.

After we put the seat in on Sunday afternoon, we took it for a ride…had to put in two quarts of tranny fluid in order to get the car to move so we could take it over to my tranny guru neighbor a couple blocks away and have him change the pan gasket and filter…when he had the cleaned pan bolted up with the new gasket in place, he slid out from under the car laughing. ”What…???” we asked. He told us we used the wrong yoke in the T-400…seems tranny fluid is leaking past the seal in the tail-shaft cuz we used a too-small diameter yoke, got about a ¼” gap around the seal…so now we get to change that one to the proper sized yoke…who knew…???

Worse part: now I’ve got to get the car in the air, again, and pull the driveshaft, see if I can find the proper yoke… bummer…hope I don’t have to shorten the drive-shaft again…!! I found some new car bugs as well as I was driving the car - another small problem: the carb linkage is also wrong, won’t open the four barrel (but it did get second gear scratch on the way over)…so have to modify the linkage to get it to work properly…and the new pedal for the foot-feed doesn’t work…it’s an aftermarket piece of plastic shit and it won’t stay on…don’t quite know how to solve that problem tho. It’s tuff to find this stuff out as you are driving the car…!!!

As we were heading to the tranny guy place, Dan was following me in his Jimmy and said as I went around a corner, I left a trail of gasoline coming out of the fuel tank filler tube…found out the gas cap is waaa-aaaay too loose, so now we have to go find a new one of those…!!! I tried the horn to honk at one of our pals as we went by his house and it doesn’t work now…boo…don’t know what went wrong in there so I get to tear that apart again…!!!

BUT, if all that minor stuff is all I have to deal with, then we’re golden…!!! Guess we’ll find out when we get to take the car on an hour long trip around town…and see how it does on fuel.

After we got it back home I noticed my plastic door panels are too long now as they catch at the bottom on the doorsill carpet trim when I open the doors…OK, guess I’ll have to take the panels off and trim them down. That’s another real minor thing…but all this ‘minor’ stuff takes time.

We felt so good about doing the carpet ourselves that we decided we could put in the new “sand” colored vinyl flooring on the rear cargo panels ourselves, too. So we did. We’d found this vinyl flooring in some Christmas catalog a year ago…thot it’d be perfect for the rear of the wagon so we bought it…it was a lot longer than we needed to do the whole wagon but they wouldn’t sell anything shorter to us. It was intended for garage floors but it looked like original wagon flooring we figured it’d work for the wagon.

So the tailgate we bought at the swap meet didn’t have a cover panel, went out and bought a piece of powdercoated sheet metal and trimmed it out to size. Then I took that and my trusty can of 77 spray glue to glue the vinyl down.


Here I am glueing…

Once I had it glued and rubbed down good, I took it over to the tailgate…


…and mounted on the tailgate…fit good too and looks almost factory.

After I had such good luck doing that one, I decided to do the spare tire well cover…before I painted this gem, we had to use a couple pieces of 2” x 4”, a car tire and a car to flatten it back out…it was bowed terribly from all the junk tossed on top of it while the wagon was used as a truck. It took us a few times to get that panel flattened enuff to use it. After I roughly trimmed out the vinyl, I laid it on the panel and glued it down. It worked as easily as the tailgate so…buoyed by the success of the spare tire cover, I decided to tackle the largest of the cargo panel…that one took some work but I got it done…


And here it is when I got done that huge cargo panel done.

I’ve got the panel for the back of the rear seat covered as well, but the rear seat is not in the car in this shot…and IF you’ll notice, the wheel wells and the rest of the side panels are not upholstered either…that’ll come later. If you look closely, you can see where I’m attempting to build a small “box” for the rear speakers (center left in the photo) … I didn’t want to cut huge holes in the metal bracing back there and there’s just no room in the side panels to put in a speaker …up front, we’ve found a dual stereo speaker that’ll fit in the stock radio speaker hole and that’ll give us the stereo effect…and that way I don’t have to cut holes in the doors either. Oh, BTW, I built a bracket and hung the CD player under the dash, next to the gauges…didn’t want to cut up the dash to put it in or hide it in the glove compartment.


Here’s a shot of it…

I got some window channel material from a HAMBer that had found some for his wagon and put that in the tailgate window channels and boy did that make a difference…!!! When I rolled the tailgate window up there was absolutely no vibration.

The only thing left to do on the wagon now is to take it to the alignment shop and get everything in the front suspension tightened and the alignment set. Once that happens, it’s on to license and registration…then to take it to the local cruise…the first one will be out in my area of town at the Sonic at Hampden and Tower road…we ‘cruise’ from the beginning of daylight savings time in the Spring to the end of daylight savings time in the Fall…the next major ‘cruise’ will be in downtown Golden April First (barring any unforeseen weather…but this is ColoRODo, weather around here can go from 65 degrees at 3PM in the afternoon to blowing snow at 7PM and 25 degrees – seen it more than once around here and Ma Natures’s Spring in ColoRODo is sometimes ruff.

ANNN-NNN-NND with that, this ends the saga of the 1960 Chevy station wagon build…but, don’t worry, I’ll post some pix of the full interior when that finally gets done…and that won’t be for a couple of months - my upholstery guy is very busy…!!!

C yaaaaaaaaaaaa….

R-

 

Great work, sorry to see it end but look forward to the Caddy

 

Wow, Roger, I really like the seats. Dig the pattern style and choice of colors. I know it took 19 months, but it seemed alot faster, and you and Dan made it look easy.

Good job! E

 

Turned out sweet!! You guys do some great work. Looks like a cruisin' machine for sure!!

Can't wait for the Caddy build either.....

Bill

 

What a fun build to follow, Roger. Probably looked like a bloody murder in the garage, all that red fluid on the floor. At least the color matched the puddle I leaked out of my rear yoke seal in your driveway in 2010. Where does the time go? Apparently into yours and Dan's weekends .... and here I sit at my keyboard.

Well done guys!

Bill H

 

fantastic build! love those old wagons, really cool in 2 door keep updating i will watch, love the color choices so far.
p.s. sorry for your broncos but i know all about it (i'm a chiefs fan)

 

Gettin' there, and with style. But I expected no less from you and Dan.

Got a question......what Christmas catalogue did ya find that vinyl flooring in? Looks like something I can use in my 58 wagon..... Were there color choices? Was the cost..."bearable"? Thanks for your help, and for sharing this build, Roger.

 

Thanks for sharing this build, I really enjoyed following it. Turned out pretty sweet.

 

Love your builds Roger! You guys make a great team, well done.

 

Like everyone else I'm sorry to see this wagon build coming to a end.

Finding a vinyl like that for the cargo area in a Christmas catalog was a lucky find and it does indeed look like what GM used at that time.

Looking forward to see the interior finished,you & Dan have done a great job. HRP

 

HOTRODPRIMER said it best , Thanks for sharing, Roger .

 

Thanx, time to take it out for a cruise-see how we did...!!!

Appreciate it Ed...see you at a local cruise...???

Hey Bill, thanx for watching...and I'm really itching to get on the Caddy...they've grown to be my favorite car.

Bill, you just need a bigger garage...and hurry up on the Buick you're building...Spring is coming.

Thanx goatboy, but the only update now will be when the interior gets done.

Appreciate the compliment Earl. I think I've got that catalog stashed with all the receipts. Yes, there were color choices and the price wasn't bad -I'll PM you with the info when I find it.

Thanx dvs.

Yeah Brer, we have fun with it...thanx for the compliment.

Appreciate it HRP, we 'saved' another one...we'll enjoy it for a while.

Thanx Mr. Lomont...appreciate you following along...

R-

 

Man this is gonna be cool. Wouldn't expect any less from you. Nice work Roger. Gary

 

Wow a mobile exhaust installer, that is a cool setup that guy has. keep up the great work, looking good.....

 

Sad to see this come to an end, have enjoyed it all the way.

Sweet wagon with killer potential, for sure.

 

Thanx Gar, appreciate the compliment.

He does a lot of installation amongst my car friends...we keep him busy...

Thanx Ribbedroof...should be a fun cruiser this summer...

R-