Projects 1930 Buick Wood removal. V-12 Sedan Build

great job buddy

 

Thank you nunattax.
Next up the door jambs. The driver's side one was welded in already, but as the car had been in an accident, the right hand one casued a bit of sheet metal work. The bottom part was badly out of shape, and the part where the lock strikes was cracked.

Here's a before an after image of the striker backing, and the whole jamb part lying on its side below. I didn't think of taking a before pic of it, but it fits the B-pillar nicely now. The repaired and still misshapen hole wont show when the striker itself is mounted, so I don't worry about that.

 

The door jamb rosette welded to the B-pillar.


Now the inside of the B-pillar could be finished (black arrows)


Strips of sheet metal was welded to the wheel tubs too, for attaching the inside panels and upholstery (white arrow).
The new sheet metal actually started turning brown, so I sanded everything and squirted on some primer.

 

Nice work! I did similarly with my ‘34 Chevy about ten years ago now. Some day I may finish it, ha!

 

The latch strikers had to get something to attach to, so long nuts were cut to an angle and welded to a piece of 14 gauge sheet metal. These were then inserted into the little hole visible aft of the lock in the pic above, between the black arrows, and the strikers were mounted using counter sunk philips head screws.


As the B-pillars were done for now, it was time to beautify the A-pillars. After removing the door, The welds from welding the cowl to the pillar and the pillar itself was ground as needed, and the old sheet metal cladding pieces were drilled for rosette welds, and welded to the pillar.


This made for a much more finished look. It's nice to finally see some details coming together. I work slowly, and it finally feels like I might see some light in the end of the tunnel. Regarding the body contruction and wood removal, that is.

 

Thank you cactus1. I doubt that this build will ever be finished, but I hope to drive inside a few years,though.
Great looking truck, very nice work on the details too, thumbs up!

 

I am in for the progress My friend.

Getter-Done

 

Wow excellent job! Thanks for sharing!

 

Good to have you on board, Getter_Done! And thank you 66gmc.
As this is thread about my thoughts on removing wood, I'm wondering if I'm soon done, of it I could (should) continue this thread also when I start working on the frame...

 

Anyway. Continuing on the front side of the A-pillars.

The original wood pillars were dressed up with some kind of cast alloy outer cladding (white arrow) The sheet metal parts that continue the cladding of the A-pillars don't fit anymore, so new ones had to be made. I tried a couple ways to make these, but they had to be scrapped. This is version 3, and they will stay (blue arrow). The solution was to continue them all the width of the windshield jamb.

 

The piece of sheetmetal was bent on a brake, and one of the sides was stretched to make it curve to match the cast part.

This was then rosette welded to the windshield frame, keeping in mind that this is not a structural part.
After looking at this for a day ( Who doesn't go look at the lastest things done in the garage every day?), I decided it needed a rounded end to finish it off.

As I don't have a windshield frame, and will have to make one, perhaps I can mimick this rounded end on the frame in some way...

 

Document as much as you can! It helps someone with their project.

 

Thank you TFoch for your input.I'll just continue for now. Progress feels slow now, making more of the same on the other side. I guess we all feel it at times, it's not fun to make the work the second time, on the other side. Anyway...

Here's how I made that rounded detail at the bottom of the windshield. A piece of 1" square tubing, a bit more than half cut away, and bent with the stretcher. Lots of work for a little detail, and of course, I had to do it twice, once on each side. It does add a bit of nice detail, thogh.

In this pic the piece above is already welded in, and the A-pillar is otherwise finished for now, the original cast pillar piece taped in place. The little frame/edge on the inside that will hold the windscreen seal is also done now.

 

The driver's side pillar has gotten a bit of detail work done to it too.

The sheet metal that tucks in behind the cast pillar cladding has been extended, as one could see ugly welds and a bit of the actual A-pillar here. Now the door gap is tidy. Well, it will be a door gap when the door is mounted back onto the body, of course.

 

The A- and B-pillars are done for now. One thing still left before I'll call it good, and pull the body off the frame, and that is the roof structure.
Here's a sketch, it gives you an idea of what I'm working on.

There will be three more roof bows that will be attached to the framing above the rear windows and above the door openings. One bow has been there for some time, to keep the A-pillars from bowing in or out from eachother.
A lot of parts to do.

They were cut with the plasma cutter, but the result was not great, so there was a lot of grinding to do. The twelve pieces are ground as pairs, so they'll go together square. The straigt pieces were also cut, and welding these up is next on the 2do-list.

 

You have given me a great idea for my coupe to replace the wood in the roof insert

 

Nice work @Essex_29

 

Nice to hear, Guy Patterson.
On the Essex I decided to make the roof entirely out of wood. Making a roof out of sheet metal for this kind of car, where there is nothing at all above the door tops takes a kind of expertise that I don't posess. Here's a few pics taken as I worked on the roof:

The whole roof was built up using 1/4" thick spruce sticks of different widths, on the edges, where the roof is more rounded, the width were about 1/2", if memory serves. After sanding the roof smooth, a fiber glass rowing cloth was laid on with polyester resin. Same material that canoe builders use, only polyester is way cheaper than Epoxy (what they use) and it held up for many years. I "painted" the inside with resin too, to minimize warping.
It was sanded and filled with body filler to make it flat, and then painted like the rest of the body.

I'm going to use this method on the Buick too, in its case also because a standard sheet of metal is too small for the insert, so it would have to be welded in as two halves, which would absolutely guarantee warping. I already have the wood, this time it's 1/4" x 2-3/4" as the insert is pretty flat.

 

Just a pic to show the end result. You wouldn't think it's wood.

Fun thing with building a hot rod, you can do it however you want, as long as nobody's watching

 

Thank you TFoch.
Continuing with the roof bows. The parts that were plasma cut previously are now welded and ground.

Only four so far, The rest might have to be changed or maybe even omitted. time will tell.

They were then welded to a 1" square tube, that has been rolled to a slight bend

 

Since I was going to weld to the inside edge of the roof, and the surface rust had been ground off only on the inside, it was time to bring out the grinder with a wire wheel.

The result was a pretty awful fog. I guess we all have been there. Always fun to work on a rusty project car...

After this the longitudinal 5/8" square tubes could be welded to the edges of the roof opening.

Apparently symmetry hasn't been a top priority in the early thirties, as the roof didn't look the same on both sides.
The left hand side rear of the roof was over a 1/2" higher than on the right side, as can be seen here:

After some slicing, hammering and welding, the both sides looks a bit more similar to each other:

The left corner was lowered almost 3/8" and the right hand side was brought up a bit, so probably now, no one will notice the difference, if they're not looking for it.

 

Finally, today two bows was welded to both the structure above the doors and rear windows, and the longitudinals.

It's fun to notice how much sturdier the body gets every time some structure is added to it. The awful flimsiness is but a memory now.

 

Thanks for the kind words! Sorry for the late response as I just saw this. If you put an “@“ in front of the screen name the member the mentioned will get an alert @Essex_29. Really nice work!

 

Thank you for the tip @cactus1 I didn't know about that one. And thank you for the nice words too

 

This is a great thread. I've never replaced wood with steel on a car before, but after seeing your work I feel confident to tackle the wood in my Austin Ruby when the time comes.

 

Good to hear, @goldmountain , very nice if I can inspire anyone!

A lot of welding has been done on the roof. Along the inner edges where the original roof insert was, there were pretty large holes, maybe 3/16"x3/4" that were filled with weld. Not difficult, since the longitudinal square pipes were rosette welded through these holes, but nevertheless a lot of welding and cooling, at least four smaller welds for every hole. On monday I had used a ten lbs spool of mig wire for the interior structure. Imagine that. And all that welding hardly shows.
Anyway, two more roof bow ends were welded and ground, after slightly tweaking the shape, to fit the into the rear corners of the roof.

Here the bow is tacked inot place. This time at an angle, to follow the rounder rear part of the roof. The longitudinal tube can just be seen in the upper corner, tacked to the transverse roof bow.

Finally in this pic the straight vertical shape of the bow ends show, and the idea behind thses is that some kind of interior panels can be attached to these at some point.

As can be seen here, the top part of the door jamb is still missing. Speaking of which one is actually missing, but some previous owner has acquired one from a four door version, so it's just a question of lengthening it..

 

Since the body can hold its own weight now, it was dinally possible to lift it off the frame. A dolly was made from some elictrical shelving console profiles and castor wheels.

The frame is a bit higher in the rear, hence the small "blocks" in the end closer to the camera.
After the doors were removed, the engine hoist was pushed into place.

The body lifted off the frame surprisingly easy. Seems not much has kept it onto the frame but gravity.

 

With the help of two buddies to keep the balance, the body was moved over to the dolly.

The body is now secured to the dolly with some clamps, so it wouldn't be pushed off by mistake. The whole thing is surprisingly light, and easy to move.
A bit of work with the grinder and some wrenches later, the frame is pretty much bare.

This is so inspiring. Like a blank canvas, the possibilities are endless.

A couple calls were made, so maybe next week it will be off to the sandblaster's. It's -4 F out, so he said there will be no sandblasting outdoors this week. Damn timing. It hasnt been this cold in November in many years, and he won't do it indoors where the sand is recirculated as there's risk of old grease coming off an old frame.

 

While waiting for the weather to warm up a bit to get the frame blasted, why not work on some details on the body. A ton of welds were ground on the roof on saturday, and on sunday it was time for some work on the sun visor. As it's going to be mounted higher than it originally was, it also needs to be lengthened about 1-3/8".

In this pic it's "mounted" to the side, so this look is what we're aiming for here at the A-pillar.
As it was still going to be cut in half, it was going to get a bit of a detail in the center.
A press form was made from 3/32" thick sheet metal, and a piece was pressed with hte vice, and a few blows with a sledge hammer.

The result was not too bad, so after some grinding and adjusting a second version of the midsection was formed, and cut to size.

This seemed to have potential, so on monday (today) the visor was cut in two, and the new piece was fitted in between the sun visor halves.
Finally, after a lot of hammering and adjusting, the new detail was welded in. The visor will be angled more upward at some point, but now at least it's the right length.

I recently bought all that's needed for using body lead, so maybe this will be my first leading project. Got to get all welding done on the visor first, of course.

 

Nice work on the visor!