Projects '63 Falcon, and '39 Chev gassers

I have had issues like above but also caught in time to be able to go on done the road. Lucky, maybe but more so paying attention no doubt helped. Oh and while I think of I can't open any past pics, especially of the Falcon build. I'm sire I've seen them but a refresher to my old mind would be nice

 

The issue of those past pictures disappearing was they were on Photobucket, and all of them disappeared when they held our pictures hostage for a huge fee. I closed my account, and lost them. I have all the images on a flash drive still, but haven't loaded them to my newer Imgur account.
Here's a few I do have on my Imgur account. In no particular order.

 

What is that seat out of? The one stored in the cargo area?

 

The one sitting in the back of my '69 Suburban is the same seat as in other pictures; just after I had it recovered.
They are mid 70's Mustang II buckets that I had headrests cut off, and padded, then new upholstery done. Once he finished them they had the right old school look for my gasser. Wish I could find more of them!

 

@1971BB427 , Thanks, looks like a good size and shape to suit a lot of cars.

 

Yeah, a friend found them at the local Pick N Pull, and was going to use them in his '35 Plymouth coupe, but his brother wanted more modern buckets. I have a tough time finding old seats that aren't crazy prices. The last two sets I found that were OK came out of cars from the early 2000's and I did the same headrest removal, and reupholstering. I've purchased an old sewing machine, so able to do them myself now, and keep the cost down.
The newer seats look decent, but I'm not fond of the plastic parts on them.

 

New front leaf springs, to raise the stance 2" in front. Reused my main leaf to make the swap easier, and just stacked the other 5 leafs under it. Longer 3/4 ton U bolts, but had to shorten them by 2" to keep them from hanging below the axle. The 1/2 ton U bolts were 1" too short. Reworked the shock mounts to raise the mounting point 2" higher, to avoid topping out.



Changed my chrome spoon pedal to a Moon checkered aluminum pedal. Had to make a floor bracket, but it was a quick swap.

 

Got the old '39 washed up and ready to head to Portland Transmission Sat. morning! Sure glad the weather cooperated, and suddenly turned fantastic!

 

My friend who sold me the '39 project back in 2019 at the April swap meet gave me a copy of an article from the 50th Anniversary Portland Roadster Show. The article highlighted the Dukes Car Club display the club did for the 50th Anniversary.
I looked over the 2 pages he copied and immediately spotted a '39 Chev coupe under construction in their display. I asked who it belonged to and he told me it was the same '39 he sold to me!
Sitting beside the right front wheel ha said was the old 303 Olds engine with Tripower that was going into the '39 back then. After selling me the car he sold the engine to another friend. Always wondered what V8 had been in it before.

 

A little sad update to the '39 Chev coupe. I stopped at a local grocery store on the way on Friday and was inside maybe 5-7 minutes. When I returned to my '39 I found someone had hit the passenger side front fender! Put a good dent in the fender, but also hit it hard enough to crack the metal in two places, and bow the fender out on the side about center of the wheelwell opening! Of course no note, or anything left.
It appears the vehicle that was parked nose to nose in an adjacent parking spot maybe thought they were in reverse and hit the gas to back out, but jumped forward instead? Pretty good hit, but not like they were moving fast enough to do major damage.
So I'll put it away for now, and begin massaging, and working the fender in hopes I can bring it back without removing it from the car. If not I'll take it completely off and work it out off the car.
I ordered another quart of the same Wimbledon White paint, so once it's fixed I can either paint the whole fender, or blend it in.
Couple pics of the damage to my fender. Took these after I pushed on the dent and popped it partially out.





You can see where something black touched the fender above the dent. Looks like a bumper pad or some sort of black strip above the dented area?

 

That sucks…

 

Sure does. But turned out it's not as bad as it looked at first.
I took some time yesterday to look closer, and discovered the big crack wasn't the metal cracked. I had welded in fillers to eliminate the rectangle bumper bracket holes, and right behind that area is a fender brace to the frame. When the fender got hit the brace held the fender, and it bent right alongside the filler I welded in. So the cracked surface was the skim coat I put over my filler, not metal. Still going to need to be worked and repainted, but it's not going to need welding.
The dent is another issue. I was carefully dollying it out from the backside yesterday and getting it almost invisible. But I didn't notice the fender had two screws that had once held the license plate bracket and someone ground them off on the outside, but left 1/8" of screw inside! I happened to hit one and it popped the paint on the outside. So it needs to get a small tack weld too, along with the little 1/2" long crack at the bottom of the fender. I knew there'd be paint work anyway, so just a little more now. Still hoping I can blend the new paint in, and wet sand and buff it so I wont need to paint the whole fender.

 

Dang, that sucks but at least it is fixable.

 

The end of the car season isn't far ahead, and I've sort of neglected my old Austin gasser this year, so I'll drive it more as long as the weather holds. Put the '39 in the shop and begin the bodywork and paint the fender before the weather gets too cool.

 

Finally got the repairs done to the '39 front fender. Some dolly work, some welding of crack and an old hole for license plate that somebody filled with Bondo. Got the finish sanding done yesterday, and shot primer/filler on it.
I've always thought flat panels were tough to work, but trying to shape a rounded panel like this fender, and ensure it matches the original shape is even tougher for me. I used my shape finder pin gauge to check the shape on the driver's side, and then held it against the passenger side to check shape vertically and horizontally. It seems to be as close as possible and closer than my naked eye can tell.
Of course now that it's ready to shoot paint the temps here are around 100 degrees for highs, and I don't want to try rushing to paint it early. So waiting until next week when highs will be low 80's and paint it then.

 

Shot paint on my '39 Chev coupe repair this morning! It was going great for about 4 coats.


Then I gave it a couple more coats to use up the last of the paint I mixed up, and got a small sag in the paint. Not a huge deal, but means a little more wet sanding when I cut and buff it to blend it in.

 

I figured out why I don't do much painting! I bought the same exact paint from the same supplier I got the original paint from. But when I removed the masking tape I quickly discovered the latest batch isn't even close to the first! Much darker, and more yellowish than the original paint.
If I knew what I was doing I'd have put a drop on the fender to check for a good match, but I wrongly assumed it would be very close, and obviously it isn't!



Already began wet sanding the whole fender when I stopped to take the picture. A friend had a new can of PPG acrylic enamel white for his Chev truck, so he let me have a small amount to tint my remaining paint and get it closer.
I'm going to shoot the whole fender this 2nd time and hope it's a close match. I put a drop on to check and it looked good. Hope a half quart is enough to do it!
Contacted TCP Global to ask about the color difference and they apologized and said different batches have "slight" differences. They asked for a picture of the difference, and I told them it was more than "slight".