Rough Mock Up

I haven't posted anything in awhile on here so I felt the need to do something.      We have been steadily working towards our goal of completing this car so I still have some updates to list.  For now I am just going to add one picture, it is a composite of a few drawings I put together on what I would like to see this car look like when complete.  My vision.  It is rough but you should get the idea or at least some of them.  I am not an artist so please look past the quality of the computer aided drawings.

 

Oct-Nov, 2012 Outer Wheel Houses

Oct-Nov, 2012

Rebuilding the outer wheel houses and trunk close out panels.

 To help facilitate the fitment of the 12” wide tires in the back we have already rebuilt and added 2” to the inner wheel houses and now the outer wheel houses must be dealt with. Actually cutting out the old outers and welding in completely new sheet metal from Trent’s generous AC unit contribution.  Again, I have to say this metal is perfect for all this fabrication work.  Another aspect of this particular project would be to add some close out panels to those areas in the trunk that drop down into no man’s land into the space at the bottom of the quarter panels.  This should make the trunk a more pleasing visual experience.

Part of the quarters had already been cut off in preparation for their replacements, but that will happen later.  This allowed ample access to do the work on the outer wheel houses.

Dad worked on drilling out the spot welds on the braces that connect the outer wheel house to the sail panel structure while I was busy with the cutting wheel, slicing and dicing the outers right on off, out, gone.    Off to the scrap pile you go outers!!  Included in the scrap heap were the trunk drop offs that had to be removed to make room for the new close out panels. 

For the trunk close out panels I used the edge pieces of the AC unit since it had a pre-bent 90 degree flange of 1”, this let me clamp it right up to the trunk drop off area for welding.  I cut this piece to fit tightly to the tail light panel so I could weld it up there, and just left it big towards the outside with plenty of material to trim when the quarters are fit in.

The original outer wheel house bends down in a rounded fashion towards the quarter panel fender lip which would cut into the outer edge of the tires so the game plan here is to rebuild this panel making it run straight out to the quarter panel.  In this fashion it will not impede the round rolling rubber of the rear tires.  In retrospect after doing all the mini-tub work I kinda wish we would have just built complete tubs, but what we did do definitely served the purpose and works great.

I measured for the length of material I would need to reach from the trunk close out panel all the way up and over to the front of the quarter by the back of the door, I also left plenty of material towards the outside here to trim when the quarters were fit in just like with the trunk close out panels.  

I took my time to weld these in as I did one side one evening and the other side the next evening.  Then I ground down the welds to smooth them out and dad applied a coat of POR15 to seal everything up.  Now this area is ready for me to weld in the quarters. 

Driver's Quarter semi hacked out.

 

 

 

Driver's trunk drop off area into no man's land.  Rust city here.

 

Passenger trunk drop off.  Nothing but rust.

 

Passenger side quarter semi cut out.

 

Driver side after drop off and outer wheel house has been removed.

Driver side trunk close out panel mock up.

 

Passenger side after trunk drop off and outer wheel house were removed.

 

 

New sheet metal mocked up, clamped in place. 

 

New sheet metal mocked up, clamped in place.

 

Driver side after removal of outer wheel house and trunk drop off area.

 

Passenger side after removal of outer wheel house and trunk drop off area.

 

Passenger side welded in.

 

Driver side welded in.

 

Support bracket welded in between new outer wheel house and sail panel structure.

 

POR15 applied.

 

POR15 applied.

 

Comparison views.

 

 

 

 

Engine Bay Smoothing

Sept, Oct, Nov, 2012

Fabrication of the engine bay close out panels.  There has been some work completed elsewhere between the front end weld-in and these engine bay panels, but I thought I would talk about them now since I just posted the new front end.   The TCI front end kit came with close out panels to fill the void where the shock towers were cut out.  These panels are bolts ins, and wouldn’t look bad at all but I had a better idea.  

When I first started the engine bay smoothing I was going to use the provided close out panels from TCI, and just weld in a small flat sheet of metal to repair the rotted out battery tray area.  That’s an easy fix there, and they wouldn't have looked too bad.

I have to mention my son Trent because he has procured for me the sheet metal that I have used for these panels and other work I am also doing.  I very much appreciate his contribution to this project.   He does heat and air work so every once in a while he’ll yank a rooftop unit off of a building and he saves me one of the large panels from it.    This is perfect sheet metal to do this type of fab work and just about any other sheet metal repairs needed on the car.   So, just include that in the several other mods that’s happening to this car, it’s gonna be part AC unit as well. 

I started with a large piece of cardboard to size the pieces in, marking, cutting, test fitting until I was happy with the fit on the cardboard.    I then transferred this pattern over to the sheet metal Trent had gotten me.   A few minutes later using a cutting wheel and I have a roughed out section to start test fitting for the engine bay.  This took several test fits before I was quite happy with the final results.  I first started with full sides, all the way from the radiator support to the firewall and had both sides fitting very nice and snug, following all the contours.  I left the tops long by about 4” or so because I wasn’t quite sure what I was gonna do for the top edge, roll it over, cut it, or something else.    The issue with having the panels run all the way to the firewall was the hood hinge mount areas.  These areas are recessed and mounting the hinges to the panels in an angled position would cause problems with the hood mounting.  To remedy this, I just cut the panels back to the edges of the recessed area for the hood hinges and blended the welds into the radius in each area.   This is not quite as nice as having smooth sides all the way but still a very much better look than factory in my opinion.

For the top treatment I decided to cut and lay that piece down flat on top of the inner fender and weld it to the top of the side panel.  This will tuck up under the fenders when they are installed.  The reasoning on this instead of having the panels bent over the top is because there is a front to back radius built into the inner fender top edges.  This area is not flat, it does have a slight bend to it moving from the firewall to the radiator support.   So, I cut the two edges straight for a good fit where they come together in a 90, and welded the two edges which made a very nice corner once grinding of the welds was completed. 

These side panels run all the way down to the frame rails and I ran welds along the bottom of the panels into the frame rails which made for nice looking radius when the grinder was applied there.   The welds where the panels run into the hood hinge recession areas worked out well also, these welded up very easily and blended in smooth for the desired effect of one piece.    To stabilize the panels they were spot welded from the outside every few inches along the edge of the shock tower cutouts.  This stiffened things up very nicely.  These panels are quite solid in their new home and look really good with the welds smoothed out. 

 

Original front end before any work being done to it.

 

After cutting out all the old, and welding in some new front end components.

Notice the battery tray panel in the upper right of picture, all but gone.

 

This is what I was going to do for smoothing, using the TCI shock tower close out panels and a piece of sheet metal to patch the area of rusted out junk where the battery was.  Then, I changed my mind.

Mocked up with the TCI close out panels.

 

Here is what I came up with for full close out panels all the way to the firewall.  Passenger side.

Driver side full close out panel.  Notice how I left the tops extended until I decided what to do up there.

 

Common vantage point view.

 

This is how I remedied the hood hinge situation.  Cutting the panel back to weld and blend in around the recessed area for the hood hinge.  Passenger.

 

Same thing over here on the driver side.  Notice the recessed area is larger on the driver side.  This is to accommodate the master cylinder and the metering block for the brakes among other things. 

 

Common vantage point.

 

After welding in and also cutting the tops off and welding them in place.  You can see the burn through areas where I spotted the panels in from behind on the shock tower cutout locations.  Also the welds along the bottom where panels are attached to the frame rails.

 

Same thing on the driver side.

 

This is the top corner where I welded the small top piece to the inside closeout panel.

 

Other side.

 

Common vantage point after all welding is done.

 

 

 

 

 

Adding 2" to inner wheel houses

July-Sept, 2012

Cut and fab minitubs.      Based on the tire size that I want in the rear of this car there needed to be some work done to the wheel houses.   At the moment I am looking in the size range of 305x45x18 or about a 12” wide by 27” tall tire.    Somewhere in that zone anyway.    We took a picture with a 31” tall truck tire crammed inside the wheel well, and I do believe it is a little too much tire.   J

The first thing I did was to cut out the inner wheel houses so I could weld in two extra inches, taking the wheel house all the way back to the rear frame rail.  Yes, there are companies that sell pre-fabbed oversize inner wheel houses for this very purpose, but why spend $300 when you can just cut out the old and weld them back in place with an added 2” strip of metal your son has given you????  (Roof AC Unit)  That is a much better plan if you ask me.    Besides, you have to save any money you can especially when your so-called "friend" has ripped you off for $4,800 on the project.

Cutting them out was very easy, I just used the cutting wheel attached to one of the Harbor Freight grinders that I push to the limit almost daily. The torture we administer on these cheap $10.00 grinders almost make them worth their weight in gold.  (Almost)  Most of the wheel house could be cut from the inside of the car, but a few inches had to be cut from below.  The portion where the package tray support ties into the wheel house could not be cut from inside, and was cut from outside the car.    Once out, it was a simple matter of cleaning up the edges for welding.  I also notched the flange lip and turned it back into the inside of the car as a base for the bottom of the wheel house.  The cutout pieces fit quite nicely when slid over 2” and I was excited to see the finished product.  I cut two long strips of sheet metal that were 3” wide.  (1/2” for each side to overlap and weld and then the 2” added space)  

Working slowly with the pieces, clamping them carefully to keep the edges straight I moved around the length welding them together.  Once the strip and inner wheel house were welded, I test fit and adjusted as needed into the car.  There wasn’t much modification needed here, they still fit pretty well.  When I welded in the pieces I started with the top area or the new strip of sheet metal where it attaches to the outer wheel house.  I welded this length all the way, then using clamps and a little bit of weight to hold the bottom section down flush I started welding this area to the floor of the car.   It all sealed up very nicely and is quite solid.

In moving the wheel house over to the rear frame rails we had to remove the axle bumpers completely but I will replace them on the inside of the frame rail with a different sort of axle bumper.  Next will be some work on the outer wheel houses and trunk close out panels.

Stock passenger side before cutting.

 

Stock driver's side before cutting.

 

Driver's side after cutting.

 

Passenger side after cutting.

 

Test fit before welding driver's side.

 

Test fit passenger side before welding.

 

Welding strip onto inner wheel house, and still learning to weld sheet metal.  It ain't easy!!

 

All welded in here.  Welds were all done on the outside surface of the tubs.

 

July 31, 2012 Checking tire size

You have to start with the infrastructure and work your way out.  You can't build the thing and then decide later after it is almost complete you want a larger tire squeezed in under the fenders.   So, I did a little measuring, a little playing or test fitting and I came up with 12" wide x approx 27" tall and I plan on using 18" wheels.  So anyway, here is one of the test fits just for fun.  I am pretty sure a 31" tall tire is not what I'm looking for.  This is a spare from one of dad's old trucks that was laying around.  What I want is something that will fill the wheel house up, look thick from the rear and all be tucked up inside the fender lips.  I think with the work we're doing we'll be able to meet that goal. 

Yeah, this is a little too much rubber.

 

Height looks pretty good but way to much front to back.

Raising the shell onto the working cart

August 12^th, 2012

I have been considering making a rotisserie to raise and rotate this car for much of the needed repairs and work to be done.  I found a few designs online that looked simple enough to build and still be effective for easy access to all body panels.  Then one day dad says “Why don’t we just put some wheels on the bottom of that steel rack out there behind the shop and set the car on that?”    Hmmmmmm…. So we took a look at it, did some measuring and it turns out the rack would make a great cart to base the car on and have it at a good level to do most of the  work we needed, plus easy to roll around. (Including rolling it outside to do some sandblasting)

The rack was missing one of the top stabilizer bars between the upright corners so I welded in a section of steel and this made it sturdy again and ready to go to hold up a car.  Dad drilled and bolted on some casters he had laying around the shop for awhile and we had a cart.  Now all we had to do was lift up the car and set it down gently onto the cart.

By this juncture the rear end and leaf springs had been removed, the engine, the tranny, all of the bolt on front suspension and brakes, the interior were all gone, and the floor pans had been cut out, also the sub frame connectors had been tacked in.  Basically the car is almost fully stripped to a shell at this point.

We need an idea to lift the car onto the cart, and as always dad has a great idea.  One of us will be using the little Ford tractor’s bucket with a strap on the front of the car, and the other will be in the rear using a cherry picker to lift.  Then we’ll just roll the cart underneath the car when we get it high enough. Sounds reasonable, yes??  

Actually yes, it was that easy.  A few moments were a little frightening, going up with the body, higher and higher was kinda scary.  We each had one strap connected to the center of the front and rear of the body so there was a pivot point which allowed the body to spin if we were not holding it, keeping it from doing so.  Once the body was high enough, we rolled the cart in under the body centering it as best we could with what we thought the weight distribution would be and started to lower the body back down.  We had placed a couple of 4 x 4’s on top of the cart to let the body rest on and these made contact with the new sub frame connectors and the front frame rails which turned out to be a perfect fit. 

Before un-strapping our lifting devices, we pushed and pulled on the body testing the balance of the whole structure hoping it would not tip.  It seemed very well balanced and quite sturdy.  We used tie down straps to secure the sub frame connectors to the cart so it would not try to slide around, setting the body in a state of unbalance.  I will have to say that first few days when I opened the door to the shop, I nervously looked inside to see if the body was still up on the cart, hopeful the cart had not given out and tumbled the whole thing to the floor.  That was three months ago and the body is still up there, the cart is still holding strong.

It has made it so much easier to work on and access areas that would otherwise be difficult at best.  Rolling the whole assembly around has been very handy for different causes.

Here's the cart, ready to support.

 

Nice balance point, seems to be holding pretty good.

 

 

Dad    :)

 

Straps holding body shell secure on cart.   These just needed to snug the shell down onto the cart so it wouldn't slide.

 

Balanced...we have been told by more than one person we are quite brave for trusting this thing up there like that.  It has been a great device for taming the tougher jobs. 

 

Yes, I trust it.   :)