Like you, I have a car that was built poorly a long time ago. Hate to find out what lies under the bondo but I do have a good idea since I'm the one who built it.
Here's the car sitting for the last 6 months of so. I had an order of body parts from classic industries that had some back ordered parts. I had a run around with classic industries earlier on my floor and they offered to make it up to me with a $100 off my next order. Hoping to have them make it up to me I ordered a bunch of stuff from them Well after 6 months of waiting, the two parts finally came off back order, and the other parts which I had paid for and were in stock were now all of a sudden back ordered as well. Long story short I told them to keep their $100 and don't worry about hearing from me again.. Kind of took the wind out of my sails, so I spent some time off and took a break from the car. I ordered a bunch of body parts from Real steel, seems ok so far. Except costing me more to ship them here than the cost of the parts themselves. There are some stumbling blocks I need to solve for the trunk area but I'll get to that in the future.. I figured with my lack of motivation I would pick some low hanging fruit... Knock off some small items to get on a roll. I had a local welder tig some brackets to the rad, and I made some mount to hang. The washers represent the space that the rubber cushions will take up. I'm using a "bare bones" Be Cool rad. Last look before being blown apart again. I had stole the front wheels for my Model A, to try out a different look. They were too shiny so I gave them a coat of fakesium to match the car. If you're wondering why they changed color in the picture above lol.
Looking good man! Coupe looks fun with the rollers swapped. Been following along on IG looks like it made a good camping car as well!
So while waiting for the body parts I figured I could strip it down and try to knock out the rest of the frame work this past weekend. I tore the body off the frame, which is always a chore solo with out equipment in a small garage lol. I smoothed out as much grinding gouges and marks from the previous owner who did the straight axle. I finished all the welding, added some tabs for future needs, patched two small rust spots that I found after cutting off the spring hangers, cleaned up all the old crossmembers I cut out and brackets I didn't need. I added some reinforcement plates with nuts on the back side for future trailer hitch, never know if I run a drag week type challenge or something along those lines.. I wasn't super happy with the frame horns, kind of looked a bit bulky before with the two crossmembers so close. The square one was there when I got the frame . It looks good and is in a good location. So I chopped off the one I made and shorted it up a bit. Here my little tip? for the rounded end, instead of grinding down the edges to match, make your pipe slightly larger, add a bunch of relief cut and pound them round. Weld it up and it looks pretty clean with a nice edge that it still full thickness. So that is where I'm at today, three long days in the garage, 10 flap discs, sanding discs, etc. Would kind of be nice to use some all metal to clean up remaining spots, but it is just a driver so this is a good time to stop. I am getting it blasted and powder coated. I've gone over my list a couple of times, hopefully I haven't forgot any brackets or future welding, but so be it.. After this I can start assembling the frame, hopefully get my wheel tubs installed in the back and finish up the floor. Then some paint, sound deadener, and it can be bolted back together and I can be building a car instead of dismantling lol. Thanks for following along.
Hmmm might have to file these photos away. “No we can totally fit a 55 chevy in there, right there! On the wall! No problem” lol
Yeah its totally ridiculous, I keep asking myself what I've got into since the beginning of the build lol. Hopefully not much longer and they can be mated for good again. I'm hoping by fall I'll have that happen. Still not sure how I'm going to paint the floor in there, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there..
The previous owner had mocked together everything and left it outside, so I had a lot of rust cleaning to do. Various wire wheels and die grinder pads and they were good as new, or good enough lol. High tech climate controlled paint booth Also when its 36 degrees Celsius out I can bake the parts too. lol. The frame back from powder coating. Pretty much assembled. I need a few more odds and ends, and missing hardware. Now I just need more time and money.. Happy where its at currently. I have a few things on order to finish up the frame stuff, then finish wheel tubs and underside of car. The 1/4 patch panels showed up finally and look tall enough to cover and the bondo'd areas of the quarters.
AGI here in swift. Looks good, I’m happy with it. Would have been nice to spend more time or use some type of filler to smooth a couple areas a little better, but looks good either way for what I’m doing.
I had sometime off this weekend, so I worked on the part that I have been dreading. The wheel well tubs and outer wheel houses are rusty, replacement wheel tubs don't cover the rusted areas and a full on inner quarter is way too much money and work. Here are some pictures of the rusted areas. This is the part that I was most dreading fixing. The part right above the wheel well, where the outer wheel house is lapped on held rust pretty bad. Also the lower flange for the floor joint also was non-existent.
I had the local welding shop brake some 4' long 18 gauge since my sheet metal brake is too small. I purchased a shrinker/stretcher and was able to easily make the radius of the wheel well, I'm actually surprised how accurate and easy it went. I figured the best plan of attack, and mocked it up in place. When I was happy I sheet metal screwed it to the inner quarter. I did one side at a time, and braced the body as you can see in this picture, with a 2x6 at the rear of the doors. Hoping to keep the weight off the rear rotisserie.
Once the upper radius was in place, I attached the tubs (real steel widened versions) with sheet metal screws to the radius. Then I removed the whole thing, made some transitions at the ends, and started cutting and butting. Once finished I hit it with my small planishing hammer to clean up the stretcher marks and to round the transition at the weld in a few areas.
After the tubs were complete I fit them for the last time and cut and butt welded them into the inner quarters. Lots of patching and transitioning to get them to flow a little. These tubs though sold as 55 tubs, are way different than my factory tubs. I'm not sure if this is a early 55 to late 55 change or not. While I was at it I patched the rest of the trunk. I really wish I had a one piece trunk, after doing all this work.. But a 6 month wait and $1700 I'll just cover it with some sound deadener so I don't have to look at it. lol. Still a bit more finishing to do, but its close. I just welded the tubs to the floor and didn't bother building a flange like factory. I did rebuild the bottom of the inner quarter at the back and trunk edges to have a factory style flange.
Now all that's left if to finish up the spot welds on the bottom for the main floor, clean up the old rust/undercoating on the trunk., seal the floor, attach outer wheel houses and I think the floor can be painted. I really want the body and the frame mounted together again to take up less room in the garage. Making progress though. Last pictures of the full thing. The underside is not that pretty, it needs a lot of cleaning up. The push is on though, the days are getting shorter and the temps are falling. I really need to get the bottom in paint before it gets too cold, so I can have all winter with the two mated together going back together.
Looks good no light coming through the holes LOL. Clean it up, paint it and buy a new rubber mat to throw over it.
Test fitting the quarter patches, should fix most of the bad stuff. This gives me a good idea on installing the wheel houses to make sure the seal is right against the quarter. Also the wheel wells will have a radius cut into them again after.
Nice work brother! Making me excited for the start of my build. I ordered up rockers and front floor pans from Danchuk. I was going to order from RS like you did but big difference in cost and the shipping was terrible. best thing about the sheet metal work is know if you screw something up, cut it out and start again! Tubs look good. Now I just gotta convince you to go a different path on the motor...
It's the only way that I can afford to buy one, that and the snowball effect. lol. It also has a lot of redeeming qualities, the roof is great, the firewall is great, the pillars are great, etc. Enough there that make it worth it in the long run. It has been a lot of work, but anything solid would have cost me an easy 15-20k more initially, so if I can spend 5 on panels and patching I should end up with a solid car for low entry price... hopefully lol.
I'm certain in the future it'll be swapped out, but I need a driver for a few years. The next car after this will be a nice cruiser impala or rivi, along those lines. I could see the drivetrain better suited for that car than this one. Then I'll hide this in the corner and build a blown big block with a high tower, stick a roll cage in it and have all sorts of different fun with it. lol. In reality this would have been a better car to build in a few years, and a nice cruiser now, but if I didn't buy this when I did who knows how long until the next 55 came along. The Real steel pieces were stupid for shipping, I wanted panels that didn't need to much monkeying around. They are awesome pieces, probably worth the extra, I hope lol.
Ya i get it. Life, budgets, timing, it all plays a part! Good to know on the real steel quality. I know Danchuk has been around forever. The floor pans were actually back ordered so i am only getting the rockers to begin with. if I'm not happy with the quality then I'll give RS a shot. Happy building!
I think I bought my rockers out of ontario, that classic chevy place. They had a sale on, the "complete factory correct" rockers were a really good price at the end of last year so I scooped them up from there. Took awhile to get them but they are also really, really nice pieces. I haven't ordered anything from Danchuk yet, but I'm sure I will shortly. Also summit racing is starting to get more body pieces in, and with free shipping to canada it hard not to deal there. That's where I got my Real steel tubs from, shipped free to canada.
I finished the metal work, all the welding, braces, spot welds, etc. Somehow I wrangled the kids into scuffing up the floor to get ready for paint. After hours of wire brush, sanding, stripping discs etc I used Picklex 20 on the pitted parts of the trunk. Hoping it works as good as advertised. I used Eastwood epoxy primer, coated inside the trunk, inner roof, floor and bottom of the car. I kind of have to do this in stages based on weather and it getting cold here soon. The plan in to get the body back on before winter permanently. After the epoxy was ready I painted the bottom with Eastwood chassis stain black.
I glued and riveted the seals to the outer wheel house. Should stay in place. to get the right distance for the seals to firewall I had to patch the front quarters. They were a bit of a mess. I cut access holes to hammer and dolly the best in trim holes. Cut and butt to weld the patches in. It works pretty good though seems to leave a little indentation at the weld seam. Nothing worth getting excited about though. I originally bought complete outer wheel houses but separated them to get the best fit. to get the right quarter fit I had to make sure the rocker was right and line up the bottoms.
The Jalopy Journal
