More work on the rear seat supports.. Once the welds by the tunnel relief were dressed, the sharp corners (inside and out) were removed to help prevent any cracks from starting.. Then on to fabbing up the other side.. Kyle using the tipping die, I was relegated to bead roller powered option... The two short flanges were bent in the press brake.. Then on to shrinking the flanges in the Erco. You'll have to visualize this one as we didn't get pictures. Comparing the two... Test fit... Seat cushion will need a widening kit..
Robert , nice work . I am having a chasie built for my wife's 59 two door wagon and will be making the rear tubs larger . What is that seat frame you are using as I like that 40/60 size ? Keep up the good work . Blue
The seat was about the only one we could find to fit in between the tubs at 41", came out of a Ford Escort. Still not sure if we're using that back or the one from the Monte Carlo seat set that she bought for the buckets...
Our upholsterer stopped by the other day and discussed interior components. We are going to make some arm rests for the rear seat similar to what is used in the 55 convertible. To make room, we're going to keep the bottom seat cushion it's original width and just add foam to the corners to form the radius. So the sides for the seat risers were trimmed once more and test fitted... The center of the seat riser was trimmed for the new size while leaving the flanges intact for later trimming.. Relief cuts added to tweak the radius, test fit into the car, and the top flanges clamped in place.. While clamped, the bottom flanges are trimmed for welding. Copper backer made for welding up the corner.. All clamped up for the next one...
Seat riser completed, test fit of the rear seat... Corners of the lower cushion will have some foam added to fill out to a radius. Seat back will have some end cushions added to match the width of the lower seat.. Blocking out of the driver's door is the last to go, and all the front sheet metal will be ready to come off for the next round of epoxy primer.. And here's the before and after of the frozen water pipe damage... A bit of paint touch up and this will be done!
Spent the past few days at Dan Pate's. Well, it was only about a day and a half, but once you include the travel time... To preface, I had posted a WTB ad for a 52" shear and Dan had sent me a PM about the one he had in his shop. It was getting replaced with a 6' machine. Dan hosts a yearly metal shaping workshop and he suggested I come to his spring meet and pick it up from there. This conflicts with a mother's day event that I must attend every year (annual yard sale....I'm the furniture mover ), so I picked a window of opportunity that left minimal chance for the white powdery stuff falling from the sky. Namely, this past week. I departed Southern MD at about 12:45 am on Wednesday and drove through (rather un-eventful), arriving at Dan's at about 8:45 pm the same day. I recommend Mountain Dew and sunflower seeds for such an undertaking. I was looking forward to a break from the 55 wagon and to help out on some of the many challenging projects that Dan has shown us on the metalshaping sites over the years. So Dan, what have you got to work on? Oh, this car here over in the corner, he says...... I restrained my enthusiasm as best I could in true Charlie Brown fashion (just kidding Dan) We walked down the hill to the shop the next morning and Dan had experienced some fitment issues with some of the panels on the 55 and asked that I take a look. RichardK showed up mid-morning and we proceeded to take measurements and cross diagonals nine ways to Sunday. We verified these to a sample car sitting out in the yard, and still didn't have that ah-ha moment. Everything we checked seemed to be within factory specs, although that was pretty loose in 1955. My plans were to work around the shop for a day, load up the shear the next morning (Friday), and leave around noon. I have a cousin, Nancy E. Rueckert, who lives in Litchfield, MN. She had been in an industrial accident at work and was now paralyzed, and I was going to visit her that evening. Dan wisely pointed out that we should load the shear to have everything ready to go, and then worry about other shop activity. So here is the shear prior to the John Deere moving it... ...and for anyone with sufficient space available for one of these, Dan has this nifty equipment hoist... As there was some rain forecast for the east coast on Friday, the shear got some appropriate attention.. It was about time for me to get cleaned up for the visit to my cousin's, and Richard mentioned that he had a buddy who lived in Howard Lake, a short drive before Litchfield. Since the truck was hooked to the trailer, he offered to drive me to Howard Lake, where he could visit his friend and I could continue to Litchfield. What a true gentleman, and as I've seen with Dan, genuine MN hospitality. Had a nice visit with Nancy, and I think our conversations got carried away that when I looked at my watch I was worried Richard would put out an APB on his car :bounce: Here's Nancy with her husband Dan.. (to eliminate confusion, let's call him Dan2) I made it back to Howard Lake and got a chance to meet Richard's friend, Jan Gilmer. He's well known in the Midget racing world and even more so, since his retirement, in his meticulous reproductions of 1/4 scale RC replicas. Here are some pictures of a restored Midget from 1956... .....along with Richard's thread posted here about the body he built for the car.. A work of art to say the least. http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=2768 And here are some links on Jan Gilmer for those interested... http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2012/stories/Gilmer-cars-Australia.html http://www.quarterscalelegends.com/gilmer/gilmer.htm Jan has a small machinist shop and still produces amazingly accurate 1/4 scale reproductions to this day. They are highly sought after, and after seeing them in person, I can see why. Richard and I returned to Dan's with only one close call with a couple of Minnesota's 4 legged Bambi creatures.. Even as late as it was, Dan greeted me and I think we talked of more metalshaping stories for the next couple hours. My day job has me heading to Oahu in the near future, and he was telling me of his visit to the only Pullmax owner on the island of Oahu, let's call him George. So I hope to meet up with George on my next visit to HI. After breakfast we headed down to Dan's shop. Back on the 55, it wasn't until we took the height dimension of the windshield that we came up with the answer, there was a quite a difference there. Dan had installed a new roof on this from a donor car, one of the seams being in the A post. We found a slight excess in vertical made for quite a jump in the windshield opening. So with a bit of slicing, our height adjustment at the a-pillar made for quite an improvement and a more consistent and parallel gap to the door behind it.. Since I wasn't going to be at Dan's spring event, he spent quite a bit of time showing me some shop tricks... Band Saw "guide" for cutting convex shapes on the band saw... Slides into the blade and gets bolted to the table.... Essentially moves the table surface for those oddball shapes that don't fit the table.. Linear stretch dies for the Pullmax.... The cantilevered and jack bolted design allows you to adjust the stretch for a tight radius, and the pointed ends allow you to get into the corner as tightly as needed... Adjustable backstop for thinning a panel for sharper bends Delrin die to use for panel beading.. in conjunction with MDF forms.. (partially unscrewed to show threads) "tank roll" or 45* radius tipping dies for the Pullmax... 3 pieces were laser cut in 1/4" stock and welded together to form the 3/4 shank.. Flanging/step die using an MDF guide.... Imagine this for a bed side... At this time I think my target departure time had come and gone.. But no visit to Dan's shop is complete until you've used the Yoder.... All packed up, ready to head east. I made mention to Dan that Friday the 13th was not a good day to travel. About halfway down I39 in Indiana proved this. I had just passed by a semi and pulled back into the slow lane in front of him when I noticed a set of headlights coming toward me.... in the fast lane I had just moved out of. I made out of that rather lucky. About a mile down the road some scattered auto debris and one car against the center divider showed they weren't as lucky. Everyone was OK, and I think most of the damage resulted from hitting the divider after swerving to miss the clown heading north in the southbound lane. Well upon arriving home, the rain added to the recent snow from last week has made my driveway a swamp. Looks like we will unload the trailer when this has dried up a bit.
Love the shear . I just scored a Wysong & Miles #452 old stomp shear and a Whitmey- Jensen 416 combination brake . Took me and my wife to cut a 16 ga sheet in half but beets the snips I've been using . 55 looking good .
Tonight's shop progress. Got the 55 moved into the paint booth.... .....but only temporarily, not quite ready for paint yet.. Shuffling some stuff around to make room for bringing in the new shear on Saturday, and needed the car out of the way. The new shear is just shy of 7 feet long, so it wouldn't fit in the same spot as the old one without moving something else as well. In measuring the tool box, it looked like a good fit in that spot, so moving it and the kick shrinker will make a better spot for the new shear against the back wall. .....and as we haven't used the radial arm drill press in over a year, I think that's getting ready to go on CL to make room for the planishing hammer, when that gets finished up..
This morning started at my brother-in-laws to pick up the new shear. It's been parked in his garage since last week while my driveway has been drying out.. One of the neighbors a few miles down the road has a Pettibone forklift. I had him lined up to help lift the shear off the trailer today. He made it about 1/4 mile and had the brakes locking up and frying, so we had to back up and punt. Another buddy has a skid steer with the fork attachment, but the shear was on his trailer. So we dropped off the trailer/shear at the shop, went and got another trailer and picked up the skid steer.. I will say this shear is about at the limits of the lifting capacity of this skid steer, the back end was trying to go airborne when lifting it off the trailer. So we inched it up in the air and then pulled the trailer out from under it. Here's the placement... Now just need to finish the electrical hookup...
Got some electrical work done this evening, wired up the phase converter first, checked the voltage, then wired up the shear.. When I went to Minnesota to pick up the shear, I noticed that Dan had a couple pair of snips laying on the shear.. Didn't put two and two together at first. He had the shear installed without the back gauge due to the space requirements, and I had even less shop room than he did. This is where the snips come in. Mark your panel for the cut line... Use the red shears to make a slight cut on the right side of the panel.... .....and the green shears to make a slight cut on the left side... Now you have the cut line "marked" on both ends... Slide the panel into the shear just past the cut edge, then gently pull back until it stops against the lower blade... Now shear. No back gauge or second person to help sight in a full width sheet needed.. No fuss no muss. Thanks to Dan for the helpful hint! While I've been playing electrician, Kyle has been plugging along in getting various pieces media blasted so they can get epoxy primed....
kick ass shear, killer sheet metal work, hoping to do a class this summer... haha looking for a 55 2 door myself... good luck with the wagon, its sweet... dave
While the wagon was still in the booth, the floor and welding table got the semi-annual cleaning.... even the top of the tool box... Kyle had finished a bunch of media blasting so they were hung up in the booth to get ready for some epoxy, likely next week.... Kyle used the ball end carbide in a die grinder to remove the lower baffle of the core support, so we can get rid of the remaining rust there... Starting on the replacement piece, we'll get this finished next time.. Everything back in place....
Thanks for the comments guys! Our Saturday progress had us making more painting fixtures, this time for the rear gates. The lift gate used some square tube and riv-nuts for attachment... Fixture was made to hold lift gate in same position as on car for spraying... More blocking.... Tail gate painting fixture.... Then a bit of scuffing to get ready for the next coat of epoxy....
Thanks! The car is going to be sprayed a two tone combination, Kandy Basecoat on the bottom, metallic on the top. Plans are for spraying doors, fenders, etc. separately from the car, so to improve chances of a paint match we have to get the body panels oriented as they are on the car.
As Kyle was going through the interior trim pieces the last couple weeks he did find one that had a few pits... So we got a used replacement from the Stainless Shoppe in Seymour WI. A shame to paint this one As I was getting the next batch of parts ready for epoxy, Kyle was setting up the bead roller for making the lower baffle of the core support. But looking at the center bead, the Fasti didn't have quite the reach... I had wanted to make axles for the bead roller dies to fit the English wheel, so today was as good a day as any. This will give Kyle some practice on the South Bend.. And my accomplishments for today... And as I had a bit of epoxy left over, time to seal the inner door to the door skin.. Both had been primed before assembly... Definitely want to cover the floor in doing this... Had enough to do both doors, should keep the rust bugs gone for a long time to come..
It seems the example you have there has been able to dodge the "rust bugs" pretty well. I've known them as tin worms most of my life. Pretty rare out here in the high desert but you do find colonies of them occasionally. Thanks again for the great effort in sharing your work. One of my rare weekly highlights!
Thanks for the comments.. Well it was taking a little longer on the English wheel adapter kit than I thought, and since that is on the shop's dime, I thought we'd try something that we could get done a little quicker. So the other machine with plenty of throat was the Lennox, so let's make some dies for it..... Also got in some more block sanding while Kyle was cutting out pieces for the dies. Pre-stretching the bead areas of the baffle... Adding the bead, using the backstop... Laying out the petcock recess. This is about a 1/2" lower than the factory to alleviate the clearance issue.. The tipping and skateboard wheels are used to "trace" the bend line to make any hammering a bit easier to locate the correct "edge"..... Relief trimmed, ready to make the folds....
Thanks! Tonight we got the recess finished on the baffle plate. Test fitted... Media blasted, ready to install.... Then Kyle removed the splash pan so he could clean up the core support prior to welding it in.... We also got started on some blocking of the parts sprayed last week.
Today the baffle got welded into the core support, here with the plug weld holes drilled. The modified relief we fabricated shows to be about as low as we could have made it.. Then attention was turned to the rear quarter on the passenger side where we had shaved the lead seam.. We had held off on the tail light opening as we wanted to fit the opening to the light bezels. We had received the reproduction chrome light bezels a couple weeks ago, and gave them a protective layer to keep the chrome nice and shiny.. The light opening seemed all out of sorts, with a bulge protruding out past the corner of the bezel here.... Let the modifications begin! And we had the opposite problem on the inner side... The vise grip dent puller and the special hook was used to spread the opening... A bit better..... ...and the tail light bracket is welded back together.. This mod seemed to make the attaching holes align better as well.. And Kyle continues to finish up the seam and we'll fine tune the opening once more when the welding and planishing is complete.
Well, it's that time of year again, and the local Arby's Wednesday night car shows are in full swing, so we've changed the shop nights from Mon & Wed to Tues & Thurs so that we'd have Wednesday free to stop by the shows. We plan on taking Brad's Fairlane (the shop's last project) to a couple of the events this year, Arby's is just over a mile away from the shop, so his 4 gallon tank may just make the trip.. This is one of those cars that you'll feel and hear well before you see it, so it should draw a nice crowd Last night's shop progress had me doing more block sanding, and Kyle continued on the rear quarter seam shave. The top weld is about done (except at the edge), other than final bumping and planishing. The weld through the middle of the mounting bracket was dressed out. The final weld seam that travels over to the gate opening will be addressed once the body is on the rotisserie, the planishing is a bit cumbersome working around a corner, so with the car up on it's side it will make the task a bit easier. The tail light fits much better but some final tweaking will be done after the gap at the top edge is completed..
Here's a better picture, shows the red more accurately than my cheap camera that took the one above..
Excellent work as always Robert! Just remember "I am still watching you!!!!!!!" lol Larry " L&L Custom Performance"
Hey Larry! you really get around! Well since Kyle has the top weld all the way back to the tail light opening, we checked the top crown and found a low spot by the 90* in the weld seam. We had to change the hoop on the Watervliet but since this one fit in the tail light opening so well, this will make short work of raising the low area.. We decided to go ahead and work on the opening a bit more, it was wide in spots as shown here... Some "friendly" persuasion... Much better fit....
The Jalopy Journal
