Projects Truck into a coupe- My next pet project

For some reason I thought that I could get both sides done today.
However that didn't happen but I did get 1 side's 1/4 window almost finished

 

I ordered the roof stretcher but its on back order
Guess this is going to get done the traditional way.

 

Details details details.

It's not "brown dog" welding but I like it and I'm happy

I really thought this was common knowledge, since I found it in this car it might not be so common. just incase its not ill go over it.

When chopping cars and sections with taper, its nice to make sure they line up in 3 dimensions, especially when its a glass seating surface. Ill guess some have heard the phrase smooth as glass, so where glass sits should be close to smooth as glass.

If the taper is chopped, the taper needs a new trajectory. A simple slice and clearance, reweld is usually all that's needed. Maybe a 15 min job total start to finish if you need to hunt down the cut off wheel and wait for your compressor to build up. However, if this pesky little detail isn't done & it gets painted & someone puts glass in the hole,,,, well it's a God awful mess and you'll need to tear into the paint work to fix it. Also building up the low spot to match the part not cut is not a good solution especially if nobody welded the B pillars.

This is really close, close enough that the glass seal won't look like its negotiating a slalom course. If its really tapered the narrow side will need to be widened.

Here's 5 pieces, it is the door gap, it needs to follow the body line, establish the location of the 1/4 window, establish the height and location of the rain bead considering all the cures that come into play and be just about perfect because every time the door gets opened, somebody will be starring at this. There's a couple more parts yet to go on this. The rectangle section needs added and the bead for the roof needs rolled into it.

It goes here

 

I'm toying with the idea of really changing the rear roof line and looking at 33 willys coupe for inspiration. I've always liked the lines around the rear windows and into to the decklid on
those cars.

So here's a willys nice and smooth.


Not really feeling this roof line at all - it's a mess, the flow is off, and it keeps me up at night.




This is looking a lot better to me.

 

Wow, and I thought I had my hands full!

Great job!

 

Lookin' good.

 

Well I think I'm stuck without a deep throat shrinker.
Anyone want to rent me theirs for a while?

 

I'd sure would like to see this moving again. How about you guys?
Need to borrow/rent/lease/trade a deep shrinker

 

It's been a couple of weeks.....did you find a stretcher? How deep does it need to be?
I'm liking the proposed roof line,something tells me you will have major changes to show us when you post another update.

 

Vicki: I noticed back in 145 you mentioned making the deck lid. I made one for my cabrio but it ain't pretty. How did you make yours? I made a wooden buck and I guess if I refined it a bit I could maybe have a better product. I've had to build the entire windshield structure, it was cut off when I got the car. It was also shortened and sectioned. I have undone some of that so I know what your up against. I'm not fond of cutting/welding/grinding like I was before this project. Keep after it man your making a difference and you'll get there before long. Tim

 

Man I wish I could have got one to borrow ! $ prohibitive. The 5-1/2" or 6" but they look identical.

But I did get my pullmax type machine finally running. Not that it will help much because I don't have the shrinking dies for it. But I can cut Louvers like a mofo with it and run the beads into my floor pan.

I made some tucking forks and hollowed a stump, and made a tucking puck. Ill try this mid evil style for practice. Now With these tools I've made a lot of scrap, beautiful pieces that don't fit. Getting the metal into the general shape and direction is pretty easy, accuracy is another matter.

 

When I opened this, I was expecting 10 pages of trans case polishing! Big job, keep on chuggin.Looks good so far.

 

The decklid was actually pretty easy to make.
I fucked up the first skin but quickly learned.
I started with a piece 4" bigger than the opening and wheeled the crown I wanted into it. That takes 2 people. Lay it flat onto the opening and just keep checking and wheeling. Way easier to sneak up on it than go too far and have to go back ( hint hint) Some careful measuring and calculating the distance from edge of crowned sheet to to opening including the gap tells you where to tip it , not a straight edge (hint hint). Get your marks for the flange depth, tip line, and cut off extras. Tip it and then you can shrink the flanges. I had to raise my shrinker stretcher heads above the pedals, an easy temporary modification.


The inner structure I made from 1" square tube I ran thru the ring roller. It's 1" smaller all around than the deck lid skin. Then I added some flanges off of tube from 16 gauge that make the rain edge and and out to the skin. Those flanges need a little crown too. Glued the skin to the tubes.

My 34 5w deck lid has a boat load of crown when measured. It's like big droop and the high spot certainly isn't where you'd think it is.

 

Thanks buddy !
This one makes me chug a lot
I think lots of folks think its just a trans case

 

I'm welding and filling the deck lid on my coupester, ala Kenny Smith Model A, and re-working the back of the bucket to look more like the Anderegg car. The tulip panel looked too tough for me to form (compound curves in all three planes!) so I bought a re-pop roadster tulip panel from Howells. My wife had a 2006 Corolla at the time. So I have the tulip panel in my hand, and I'm figuring "ok, I gotta form a decklid that has the same crown as the trailing edge of this tulip panel." I'm in the front garage with the toyota, looking at this panel, look at the roof skin of the toyota, looking at the panel, back to the roof skin...HOLY SHIT! You dont think its..." Laid the tulip panel on the roof of the toyo, PERFECT match. My wife was pretty pissed when she came downstairs and found me cutting the roof skin out of her car...




just kidding, I went to the wreckers and snagged one!

 

Sneak peak at the next update

 

So y'all remember this ?

Then i have a need for a deep shrinker, maybe you saw my thread on trying to rent one from one of you hambers.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/anyone-want-rent-me-their-deep-throat-shrinker.931769/

This happened yesterday-

So, I figured I'd break down and just order one from Balliegh because I can't be screwing around here on this for another month. Talked to Shane and he said they are back ordered till the end of August. Another month anyway ugghhhh . Sells them like hot cakes.
Actually he's got 50 on the way and 45 are sold already. Really? Everyone has one I guess.

If I had one I'd let you guys use it.

So, I have one of those venting conversations with my girl. You know "how was your day honey?" Well I told her of my frustrations. She hops on the computer to amazon, and finds they have some in stock with free shipping with her prime membership. I was confused as to why amazon has them while Shane is telling me they are out of stock. So she calls amazon and verifies the availability does in fact exist ready to ship and that free shipping is true. Then Tells me this and says "run up to the grocery store and get 1100 in amazon gift cards, you'll get 132.00 in free gas with the fuel perks".

I get back gift cards in hand and 5 mins later the order is placed and it will arrive on Thursday. No alliance discount but free shipping and 132.00 in free gas was way better !
She really is the best!!!

Should get really rolling again on Friday!

 

That's all I have got for today for 21,000 looks

 

Open the damn thing already!

Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Ok ok lol.
Needs a repair brand new fresh outa the box. Easy enough fix but really?

 

go easy banging that down, you don't want to bend the work bench,

 

That's just.........................Absolutely fooking BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

P

lol, yeah bench looks thicker than just an inch in that pic. Maybe that's because you'd expect that bent base plate to be thicker than 10 ga and the tube to be thicker than 3/4 ?

 

Yep, she's pretty damn sharp

 

Moving along with the top of the quarter

 

WOW! On a few levels...

I just read through this whole thread and like FalconGeorge I thought this was a trans polishing How-To.

Really nice work on the rod lots of detail and attention. Congrats on your lady. Not only does she encourage the project but she is helping on tools runs AND finding the deals!

Subscribed!

 

Smooth. Other than the initial curve, is that all done with the shrinker? No banging or wheeling?

 

Thanks :$

 

Thanks

Lots of banging my head on that table but not too much on the panel. Lol

Started with a flat square blank.
Layed out the "frame" of the panel on the blank which is a tapered curve.
Loaded the top wheel with a rubber band cut from an inner tube and rolled the radius that goes from the bead to the deck lid. The rubber band on the top wheel acts like a break so the blank stayed flat but bent.

Then with the deep shrinker, shrinking the edge, and stretching above. Check and repeat. The first few rounds of this is ok and goes pretty easy. As the compound curve develops the jaws make oval shaped flat spots every time & Those need wheeled out.

It's a mind fuck for me because the steel don't do what I think it will, exact opposite sometimes. Really the steel does what it's supposed to, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do to get the result I want. This is a strech of my skills and I'm learning lots.

Should have put a pedometer on the shrinker, its a lot of strokes.

 

So I had to break down and move this out of the quicky project spot over to the long term project spot. Not real happy about the status change but it provided a good photo op. There more room to really get after it here but ,,,,, it's "long term" now.


I've been studying the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence. Pretty interesting stuff and the secret to great proportions.



Here's a couple radii based off of them.
Pretty familiar looking curves I think. Take them out a bit further and you'll see some more familiar curves. Like a lot of the lines of the 33/34 cars.
The blue one is based off the sequence numbers as radians with their points in the golden ratio. The other is based off of the Area of rectangles in the golden ratio nesting together with a curve drawn around them.