Projects 1930 Buick Wood removal. V-12 Sedan Build

When I was starting on my new project, I tried to find some info on how to make some kind of steel structure inside the body and get rid of the rotten wood. I didn't find anything that wasn't really works of art, and being a relative beginner when it comes to metal shaping, I wanted to keep it fairly simple.
Here's my take on how to make a door.


The doors are as much a wooden structure with an outer sheet metal skin, as the rest of the body. When trying to remove the wood, it's evident that the wooden structure had been built before skinning the door with sheet metal. Some screws were screwed in from the outside with no way to get at them in any other but to saw them off, and some of the wooden parts had to be cut into pieces to get them out.

 

All this wood came out of just one door. Some of it really took some persuation.
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With all the wood gone, the door is only a flimsy thing, just able to keep its own shape.

 

The first piece of the inner structure trial fitted in the door. It's 10 Gauge (1 mm) sheetmetal and the holes were cut with the plasma cutter. The plasma cuts thin sheet metal easily and the result is surprisingly clean and leaves little grinding work..



Now that the door is painted with red oxide primer, it's obvious how empty and simple this thing is.

 

The door all done in this pic, the window crank and door lock mechanisms work. It's very rigid and fits in its opening too.
The small rubbersnubbers on stems in the bottom part of the door are there to limit the downward travel of the window.

The front edge of the door, where the hinges are, is pretty rigid, and the window goes right up to it, so not much doing there. The top and rear part of the window frame was made by cutting suitable size pieces and using a sheet metal brake. All sheet metal is about 19 gauge (1mm). Channels for the widow was made from strips of sheetmetal. The part where the mechanisms are mounted to is made up of two pieces of about 5/8" (15x15mm) square tubing with a piece of sheetmetal welded to them. Care was taken to ge the window mechanism and door opener handle in the same places at they had been. The door latch mechanism was welded to these tubes, and screwed to the jamb side for looks only.
The bottom part with the hols in it was welded to the bottom of the door. Actually the door skin, as it is bent in at the bottom edge. The ends were, of course, welded to the roor jambs. The top of this part is NOT welded to the doorskin, but has a bead rolled in to keep a bit of rigidity. Finally strips of sheetmetal bent to get a 3/4" flange were welded in to have something to attach the door panels to, when that time comes.
The doors are both doen now, and they are very rigid, and Weight wise I guess they're about the same as they were, maybe even lighter. Oh, and I painted the door gloss black on the inside to make water not stick very well to the doorskin.
Hope this can be of any help for someone wondering how this can be done. This is my take on it, you can obviously do it many ways.

 

Nice job...

 

Looks great!

 

That looks great,
What are your plans for the door post and how do you plan to mount the door hinges. I have a 35 chev pu that would probably be a driver but the wood is all mush. Trying to get jacked up to work on it.This post has provided some inspiration

 

Nice work. I replaced the wood with steel in my 33 Chevy. Here are a few pics.

 

I redid my 34 5 window chev with steel tubing
Nice job on the doors ,will post some pictures when I get to the computer

 

iron trap garage has a vid on doing b pillar in a 32 5w coupe good. best wishes on the chevies

 

First the shape of the A-pillar was traced onto a piece of thin plywood and cut out.

This piece is then used as a template for the plasma cutter to cut the 1/8" thick sheet metal that the pillars will be built from. This is what I call my Plywood CNC Plasma cutter Low tech, but it works. I'm really happy that I bought plasma cutter right before I started on this project, I had no idea that it would be so useful.

Here he new piece is trial fitted into its place, with oversized holes drilled for the door hinge bolts to provide adjustment.

 

After tack welding the piece to the cowl, the sheet metal moldings are trial fitted. So far so good, so next up will be to build the rest of the pillar into a box shape.

When the parts for the A-pillars were laid out on the floor, I realized they could have been built before welding to the cowl.
Annoyingly enough, too many spotwelds had been done to cut the first one back out, so the box structure was welded in situ. The second pillar was welded fist, and mounted to the cowl afterwards.

 

The right hand side pillar welded to a unit before mounting to the cowl. I didn't expect it to warp as badly as it did, and had to do a lot of shrinking by heating and cooling to get it reasonably straight.
As I worte earlier, the holes for the hinges are drilled over size to accomodate for a bit of adjustment. The nuts for the hinge bolts were welded to a piece of sheet metal, which in turn sits in a pocket of sorts, making them movable.

A piece of square tubing, functioning as the bottom of the windshield opening, was rolled to a curve and welded to the cowl, and a new reinforcement piece (the sheet metal part with rosette welds along the top) was welded to the A-pillars. This piece has a 1-1/2" flange bent to iton the bottom, to provide some additional rigidity, and will also hold the bottom rubber gasket for the windshield..
The piece of square tubing between the A-pillars, right above the steering column, is acting as a brace here, and will be removed when the floor structure is welded in.


The windshield opening is slightly slanted for now, which I don't really like, so I will probably cut out and move the bottom of the windsheld opening rearwards maybe 3/4" to get it to look right.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, that the A-pillars have a beauty cover cast from some light alloy, so the pillars I built don't need to look great, just provide ample support and structure.

 

My B-pillars are still under construction, but will probably be made a bit like in this sketch, that shows the plan for the driver's side B-pillar seen in a top view. 1mm is about 19 gauge, and 2mm is 14 gauge sheet metal. Tubing is 1" sq.

This is what we need to replicate.

New B-pillar under construction.

I'm working in this area right now, so I may be able to post the results in few days.

 

Just as a reminder as to what we're up against:
All the wood from the rear of the body is out. It's not just a matter of going berzerk with a claw hammer inside the body, as everything is very thorougly nailed and scewed into place, and the sheet metal is thin and soft.
It's much more time consuming than anticipated, as most nails had to be pulled out with pliers one by one, some drilled out and some ground away.

 

Thank you all, for posting comments. I really appreciate that. It shows that at least someone has taken their time to look at my "thoughts on wood removal"

Cheers!

 

Here's the 34 chev truck I removed the wood from A and B pillars

 

thin mdf would be better for templates no grain to be fighting,sands easy,just shitty dust.go buddy go

 

Nice work, wood remover, Neatly done. Looks like we've been thinking in a similar way, only your result is really good looking. The door looks similar too, though I made the bottom thing bigger.
I'd love to make all the insides look really pretty, but with my limited skills it would take way too much time. I have to accept that if I manage to make my build reasonaby structurally sound, then use paint and upholstery to hide my ugly welds, I'll be good.
Mdf would probably be a good material to work with, nunattax, Thank you for the tip. I just happened to get my hands on some thin plywood. I assume mdf is a bit stiffer, and that would be a bonus, I had to keep the plywood straight by clamping a strip of wood to it when making the templates.

 

I got the rear side windows framed and done. Now all the cranks work. There are a few alterations from the B-pillar sketch I posted earlier, but it's not done yet, so I might still use some bigger square tubing between the B-pillar and the wheel tub.
As you probaly can see a hint of in the pic, is that there is no wheel tub yet, so there will be a bit of work before this area is finished.

 

Your limited welding skills look good to me .
Any steel you put in is going to be stronger than the wood . Upholstery covers most of it for sure ,you are doing a great job , this is the third wooden car I have done .

 

You are a braver man than me. I avoided a car because of the wood inside as I didn't feel I have the skills to rebuild the whole structure. You are doing great

 

Thank you for the kind words, wood remover. My Essex didn't have much in way of upholstery at all, it took me a few years of driving to get even the doors done, and never got anything else upholstered. I glued some sound deadening material in the roof, and it moved the rumble of the little V-8 backwards in an amazing way.
Here's a pic of the wife, and the door upholstery she sewed.

I sold the Essex in 2014, figuring there was too much I wanted to do better, so I would be better off building a new rod.
Guy Patterson, Thank you, but I'm not that brave. Oblivion is bliss, as they say, I think I'd have continued searching for a better car to build my new rod project on, had I known how much work it would be to build a whole new inner structure for the body. Though, to be honest, I like off brand hot rods, didn't really want a Ford, and really like the look of a sedan. The Buick that I finally brought home was the first (circa 1930) two door sedan I had ever seen for sale, so I just had to go get it. Incidentally, the Essex was a four door six light, that I shortened and made it a two door coach.

 

Moving on to the rear window, pieces were welded to the seam, where the roof and lower body connects together. These parts have been held together by nails that were driven from the outside into the wooden structure, and are now welded. The pieces were cut out of 2mm (14 gauge) sheet metal to a shape that conformed to the outer skin, and gave a suitable shape to later attach the upholstery to.
I put the shriker-stretcher to use making the bent parts from 19ga sheet.

It's fun to be able to make this kind of shapes, the shriker-stretcher is pretty new to me.
1mm (19 gauge) sheet metal was then used to build a frame structure around the rear window, that is connected with the seam I mentioned above, and by the bent shape pieces to the rear side window frames.

The rear end of the body never really was that flimsy, but it feels significantly firmer now anyway.

 

Nice work!!!

 

Looks great man , Really helps you to think 6 steps ahead all the time .I really like the challenge of replacing the wood in these GM cars and trucks .Has the Mrs's got the Upholstery picked out yet !!!
Kudo's to her as well, great to be involved and some great work as well !!

 

There is (was?) a product for boats called "Get Rot" that uses a syringe to inject resin into soft wood basically turning it into wood reinforced 'glass, Might be a possible for those w/o welding skills.

 

@Essex_29

I am almost speechless. Your skill, talent, foresight, is very impressive. Very impressive! Thanks for sharing your journey with this project.

Ray

 

Don't sell yourself short here, what you're doing is amazing! Nice work..


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You no longer have a 1930 Buick. It can now be called a Essex_29 legitimately. Beautiful saving of a termite ridden body.