Once i finished the door handles i realised that i would need some matching door mirrors, found some the right shape but when i drilled the mirror arm the die cast was aweful, so decided to make some. First a piece of 10mm stainless bar was drilled for the tail scallop, then it was cut in half so each half had a semi circle in it. The upright is made from 6mm plate, all stainless is 316L Next the basic shaped was cut and ground with a 1mm cutting disc and a flap disc in a angle grinder. The other parts were cut out, drilled and turned ready for welding together, the parts were polished before welding so only the welds needed blending and fettling. Next the edes were chamfered several times till a 50p shape was acheived, then the edges were soft sanded till smooth and radiused. The reverse side had to be hollowed out as this sit on a swage line so again the back was ground away to suit. 2 x 6.8mm holes were drilled and tapped 8mm for mounting studs, the long bolts are temporary and for holding during the polishing process. All the parts were then TIG welded together, a fair bit of rod was used so i had something to get a nice radius with. The finished Mirrors. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Rich thanks for the compliment but anyone can do it but it takes a while to learn and patience is a must have, It always astounds me the amount of talented people we have here on the HAMB, I'm just a small cog in a huge Hotrod wheel just trying to do my best and have a car unique to me i hope.
Well there is another thing that would have come to my mind. What if (not saying it will happen) but what if, the guy was in an accident and some how (not saying it would happen) but some how, his head collided with the bullets? That would suck. I am only pointing this out to bust your balls.
Finally decided what to do with the brake backplates so i polished the outside rim and got my mate to chrome them, I will flake the centre bit, I think it will look better than a mass of chrome and give a bit of contrast. The other night i had a few hours spare so decided to pull the Tropic Aire heater apart that i had picked up at a swap in the states. First job was to take it apart for modifying and then off for media blasting. These things had massive fan motors in them so i chopped off the motor mount as i will be using a 6" fan/motor from a Gileera motorbike thats nice and slim and will reduce the heater thickness by half. I polished various bits and sent them to my mate for chroming. The body after blasting was primed with 2 coats of black epoxy primer and will be painted flake later with various other small bits. tabs were made up to held the motor assembly and the long tubes on the matrix cut down to a shorter length. removing the rear section also removed the support that held the matrix tubes so 2 small tabs were made and fitted with a grommet to support the tubes and were bolted to the heater body. Chopping the tubes down meant losing the small beaded ends which stop the hose from blowing off so as i couldn't find my small beader roller i spun up a couple of brass rings on the lathe and soldered them in place. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Well Langy youve gone Fricken nuts havent you.Polishing everything and Drilling everything. Is this a customers car,or this a car for yourself. Its going to way a couple of tons with all this stainless in it,LOL. Fantastic workmanship though,tipping my hat to you. Great to see someone else who cant stop making things shinny.Its a bit catchy,if you polish the chassis why not make a polished BODY.
Its my own car mate, Shouldn't be that heavy Tony, stainless is no heavier than steel. Thanks mate, you make some cool stuff also
Seeing as i hate installing window mechanisms i thought i would get this job out of the way early on The doors came with a crude Mini based system that didn't work that well to be honest and the window didn't go full travel due to the height of a tall T window. I thought i might be able too reuse the runners but once i got into the door itself i realised they wern't great either so the door was stripped out, while there i removed the complete inner bottom as it looked like somebody had chewed it out On inspection the doors wern't as accurate as i thought This isn't a dig at the mould maker as he probably hadn't a decent body to start with but nothing was really very square and there are dips and wobbles on virtually every surface the easy way out would of been with an electric kit but I did not want electric windows as i feel its more old car with windups and i like them Here's the door stripped out but still with the window runners in, The runners came out easily as they had been glued in with Gripfill but i then spent ages sanding out the Gripfill with a finger sander Here stripped completely Firstly i put in a 20mm x 20mm x 3mm box perimeter frame to keep things square, this is made in 2 pieces as it needs to be removeable, this is secured to the grp inner by various contersunk bolts that thread into rivnuts in the box section. When i removed the runners i found a void in each corner so i managed to get inside and rough the glass up and filled them up with good old strawberry
The body came with horrible surface mounted locks that you get on landrovers and looked aweful so were resigned to the bin I tried a multitude of different locks but none would work due to the T doors being thin and nothing would clear the window. Gomez appeared one day clutching a pair of 1/2" thick locks that had double latching and were really smooth operating and were perfect for my doors, thanks mate The lock was mounted temporally in the right place, A slot was cut into the steel box for the lock to sit into. I have been installing window winders in project Fordson and i was using VW beetle mechanisms that were perfect for it thanks to advice from deudetuor & Mark Bull (thanks guys) While installing i thought they may work for the T but were a little short on travel The main problems with the T doors is they have really tall windows that need 20" of travel, also they are pretty narrow so any mechanism needs to be quite slim. After a bit of thought i decided that if they were extended on the bottom they would maybe work apart from not having enough inner cable length, this was solved by moving the handle gear along the runner, this came out great as it now also put the handle in a more convenient place Before doing anything i had to sort out the top of the door itself as it was all over the place dipping and uneven so the glass was ground for a key and a couple of lengths of steel clamped in place as guides. Then the surface was built up with chopped mat and resin till level with the steel guides. this also stiffened it all up as it was pretty thin. Here's the mechanism laid in place. The bottom stock brackets were cut off and replaced with pieces from some spare scrap runners, they are extended 5" here. Securing brackes were made and welded to each end and bolted via rivnuts to the framework.
I now had the mechanism mounted centrally in the door so next job was to move the handle gear along the cable runner. The gear was secured together with rivets so these were drilled out and will be replaced with 5mm bolts and nuts, The gear operates the cable through a slot 25mm wide so another slot was cut 5" further along and reasembled. I now had a mechanism that had 22" of travel next job was to make up a winding hanle mount, this was made from a piece of 2mm steel sheet and bolts in place again via rivnuts installed in the box section. Next a window was cut from some 4mm ply as a template for the glass, I'm using flexible window channel so that was countoured to fit and placed in the door. Here's what i have so far Next job was to operate the locks some way, luckily a mate came up with a pair of lock regulators so these were modified to fit and installed (thanks Paul). the handles themselves were made from 8mm stainless and made the same way as my exterior handles. An operating rod was made up and fitted and it all worked really smoothly and perfectly Apart from a bit of cleanup it all works really nicely and smoothly.
Someone asked me how i got the square hole in the handles, so here goes I used a piece of 2.5mm stainless sheet, bent it to a tight 90 degree in the vice with the aid of a hammer, then clamped it around a square shaft and tack welded the 2 corners, then i fuse welded the 2 sides, this was then dressed to slide into a 17mm hole in the handle stub. once welded into the handle stub the face was dressed and the handle welded to the stub, Then polished the weld out.
as the owner of a 27 t coupe that needs to be built, You have very much have my attention on this one...the mirror looks nowhere close to homemade. Amazing build.
Love the color and the flake. Different is great. and i am enjoying this great build. Thanks for posting. Oh and the caddy light and impala bezel combo! Priceless!
Very nice work, amazing actually. If there is a place that a car can be too shiny, too perfect or too detailed, then you and your cars have found it and are living there Honestly, I believe you should be making jewelery, not hot rods.
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