Projects My 51 Shoebox build thread

isn't it great to get out from home from time to time? i couldn't find one or two companions to share the fuel costs for one weekend, damn, i think i missed a good weekend. and, damn, i missed to meet you, but one day it will work! some fantastic cars there, i know several of 'em from the osw, but each of 'em is worth to take a second look!
Glad you arrived back home!

Cheers, See you, Carsten

 

Yeah,its good to get out of home(or country)now and then.Its been awhile when i travelled at last time out of country.I guess that was the only trip to the foreign country at this year,but it was really worth to go.There was four payers for the gas,so the gas bill wasnt bad at all.We were there with a '64 Buick Wildcat.It was more like a daily driver than a showpiece,but it really made the travelling cooler than it would been with some modern shitbox.
And now a small update:

While i was in Sweden,the gas pedal arrived.I tried to pick the less street roddish looking pedal and i think that will do:



Its a kind of tight fit because of the transmission tunnel,but i think there is enought room for the foot.



And there is enought room for the throttle cable too.I just need to clamp the cable,so it doesnt hit to
the column's shifter lever:

 

Looks good with the pedal, good choice!

 

I like the throttle pedal.I have a spoon type that is even smaller and I can just barely get my foot in there.Likely because I have a size 14 foot! What I did was trim a little off the side of my (square) brake pedal.I had thought about moving the pedal pad an inch or so to the left by modifying the mount on the arm.If you do have trouble that might work.

 

Thanks guys!
I have size 10 foot,so thats not an issue with the pedal operating.But i think there's enought room for the "bigfoots" too.
Nothing special going on with the project.I tried surface rust removing trick(wallpaper glue and citric acid mixture) and looks like it works too.



And i sprayed some temporary paint on the quarterpanels,so i dont have to mess with issues like this again:



I picked up 1200 kgs of sandblasting sand,so my plan is to sandblast some parts again.
Well,half of the sand went for a friend of mine,but i guess i can get something done with the 600 kgs...

 

I should hope you could get something done with 600 kilos of sand! Looking great as always!

 

Blasting is the best way to get all the impurities out of the metal. Good luck


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Thanks guys!
Just get rid off around 250 kgs of sand.I think i could have get it done with a less of sand,but it started raining in the middle of work,so i had to redo some of the blasting at next day.



So the fenders are done,they look pretty solid after the sandblasting.Only some rot on the lower parts of the both fenders and the lower parts of the both fenderbraces looks like someone shot them with a shotgun...
Just few dents and minimal rot to fix,they could been a lot worse than that.I dropped the fenders for my friends garage,he'll spray primer on them.
Looks like its going to be a rainy week,but i'll blast an another batch for the powdercoater when the weather is good again.

 

Its been raining when i've had day offs from work,so that batch blasting plan has backfired a bit.
But at yesterday was a nice weather when i got home from work,so i decided to do a quick sandblasting job.I blasted the Merc grille surround,most of it.I didnt want to waste any sand to the areas that i'll cut off,so i left them alone.It was pitted,but luckily there wasnt any pinholes on it.I made an another roadtrip to my friends garage after the blasting operation and drop the grille surround there too.The timing was perfect at this time,it started to rain pretty heavily when i was heading back home...

 

I would move the brake pedal pad to the left. Good progress, keep it going!

 

Thanks!
I would like to do that too,but its out of the question with the powerbrake unit.I modified the powerbrake unit and put it so much on the left than it was possible.I got it moved around 2-3" to the left by modifying it.Bolt on parts my ass...

 

Those front fenders look mighty good! Antti could you move the brake pedal pad to the left by making the mount piece at the top of the shaft a little longer?

 

Think it looks fine with the pedals! I belive the reson they are a little tight is the wider transmission tunnel right? Not mutch to do about that.


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Thanks Kurt!
I scored the fenders from Hamb.Friend of mine picked them up and sent them to me,when he was staying in LA couple of months.The merc grille surround i found from the classifieds too.
Well,i have thought that too,to modify the pedal arm and move the pad to the left.I guess i could get it to the left around 1" or something like that.1" is not much,so i think its not worth effort.

You are right,the transmission tunnel is wider and it looks like tighter fit because of that.The brake pedal is pretty much on the same spot where it was originally.I guess only way to fix it,is to get firewall mounted brake booster.But i am not going to do it,i think i can live with that.

Not much progress with the build,scheduling sucks heavily at now.My shift working period is over soon and i think things go back to normal at then.

 

Still nothing special going on with this build.Few weeks ago i got the '49 bumper brackets and the front gravel pan from Shoebox-central.It took around 4 months to get them in here.But that delay isnt Shoebox-centrals fault,its my shippers.They also lost a front swaybar that was a freebie from steinauge.
Kurt is a great guy,i cant say same about that shipper at this moment.Hopefully the swaybar will pop up somewhere.Btw.does anyone have an idea is the rear bumper valances same at every year or are they different on every year like the front gravel pans?
I booked flight tickets to LA for the end of january.Plan is to go to GNRS and see what else is going on there.That'll be only a 5 weeks away,just cant wait to get there!
And merry christmas to you all!

 

Merry Christmas to you Antti! If you dont have any luck with finding the swaybar I have another one you are welcome to.

 

Daeng Antti, not much fun hearing stuff dissappears. Who was the shipper,there has been quite a lot mishaps with one famous that used to be trustworthy?

 

Happy holidays Antti! Maybe Santa will find you a sway bar or gravel pan

A trip to LA sounds good, GNRS is on the bucket list of course. Isn't the Turlock swap around the same time? Might be a good opportunity to fill up your carry on bag.

 

Merry Christmas Kurt and thanks for the offer!
I guess i'll wait if the swaybar pop up from somewhere.I have a bad itch that the swamp hillbillies who work for the shipper have made a gator bate rod or something like that from the swaybar...
I let you know if i dont hear it soon.Thanks again!

I have bought a lot of parts during last 10 yrs and i can count one hand fingers what has gone lost.
I dont throw the shippers name in public.Throwing shit just causes drama and nobody likes it.
I'll hit you with a PM.

Happy holidays Andrew!
The gravelpan and the bumper brackets arrived safely,there was just couple months delay with the delivery.Yeah,the Turlock swapmeet is on the same weekend than the GNRS.It is tempting,but i have to think is there time for both events.My plan is to grab some bike and car parts with me on that vacation.So that will be going shows,swapmeets,buying parts etc.No time for Disneylands,outlets or for other that kind of hellholes where normal people go on their vacations

 

Jealous as hell Antti! Hopefully you'll have time for the Peterson Museum?

 

Yeah,the Peterson museum is on my where to go list too.I am going to stay 2 weeks in Cali,so i am sure that i am not going to miss it.The guys who are coming with me,are hardcore car guys.So we dont have any disagreements about going in places like that.
I have planned this trip over 6 months,so its not an extempore journey like i do usually.
Its -4 in fahrenheits in here at the moment,i am quite sure it was worth to save one week of my summervacation for this trip

 

I'm copying your inner fender well blister on my bagged 50 shoebox . You weren't kidding when you said it took forever, I'm running 6.00x16 firestones, how deep did you make your blister. I don't want to cut the blister in half yet in case it needs to be deeper it's kind of hard to put it in place to determine if the depth is enough.

 

Be aware of what kind of temporary paint you put on sandblasted parts as I have read that other paints do not react favorably . In other words use base paints that work with your finish paint.

 

If i remember right the blister was around 2" deep.I cant get any measurements for you,because i am in Cali at the moment.I think you should slam the car down and check out how deep the notch should be.
My wild guess is that the blister needs to be a little bit deeper in your case.

The fenders and the Merc surround are painted with same primer(only the color is different) i used on the floors,i think they will work fine.The smaller pieces that i cleaned with the citric acid,i have to blast them before i'll take them for the powder coater,so i guess there wont be any issues with them either.Thanks for the hint!
Its been pretty cool in here so far.We have visited at speedshops,Petersen museum,Donuts derelict and i have bought few parts for this project too

 

I'm at about 2" deep with it now so I'll go some more. I wanted to leave the other piece of the inner fender in place so getting the blister in there to double check the clearance before splitting it in two is impossible. I'll probably have to split it.
Just to let you know I really appreciate you sharing your rebuild here. This is my first project of this magnitude. I notched and bagged a 51 frame to put under my chopped 50 body. I put a torque arm suspension, drop spindles and tubular control arms and a rack n pinion for the power steering that's going in. I bought the car already chopped and drivable but decided to remove all the rot (Yikes) and take out the 302 and put a flathead back in it. I also have a new AOD tranny for it and just fitted up a new moser 9" rear end with wilwood rear disc brakes with E-brake, no front brakes yet. I had a hell of a time trying to stuff the 6.00x16 firestones into the rear fender wells because the studs were in the way so I removed the studs and used wheel bolts, it solved the problem. The chop of the car is what caught my eye so I decided to dive in head first. Not having done this to this extent before it's really nice to have someone whose basically doing the same thing that I can use as a reference. I'm replacing the passenger side quarters, door, rocker and some rust spots at the bottom of the A pillar at this point. Everything is pretty much tacked in place so I'm just going to bolt everything back together (+ fenders and inner fenders) to check that the gaps are good and there are no major issues and start to weld stuff up and carry on. Thanks again.

 

Thanks for your words!
Its good to hear this thread has been useful for someone.The chop that was done to my car,is one reason what caught my eyes too.I guess i hadnt bought it,if it had the stock top.
That project of yours sounds pretty interesting.There is never enought build threads,so how about starting one?
Good luck with the build!
And a little vacation update.We visited at Limeworks at monday and i picked up a Crestliner steering wheel from there.I asked about the wheel from Steve month ago and there it was waiting for me.So here it is:

 

Pretty steering wheel Antti! I hope your trip is going well.

 

Thanks Kurt!
Yeah,its been going well.I've visited in cool places and seen things i thought i am not going to see never.
So far its been one of the coolest vacations i had.

 

Sweet. Nice wheel. Those Limeworks wheels look great, not in my budget though.

Glad your trip is going well, I might try the same trip myself next year.

 

Thanks Andrew!
I dont know have you ever been in GNRS,but i can recommend it.Its a really cool event.
Well,buying stuff like this makes me glad that i am not married.My wife would beat the living shit out of me,if i come home with that wheel
I thought what was a best way to get the wheel.The originals are pricey too and most of them needs to get restored.So i figured out that picking it up locally is the best way for me.
I also bought a pair of Smithys mufflers and 12 volt wiper motor.
Just need to figure out how to ship those mufflers home,they are just too long for my luggage.
I guess via USPS,we'll see...