apparently ol' George from KY had a different idea when it came to "patch panels".. makes you wonder if he just tents news paper over dog shit when fido accidently goes in the house. that's funny stuff right there!
Few updates.. Stripped the roof, previous owner had a tarp or something on the top of it for a while so it held water and moisture up there for awhile. Lots of random pitting .. just used a stripping wheel .. did a few passes with the flap disc and they will come out. They're not too deep but its definatly going to take awhile.
Also lowered it a bit .. Also got my $20 mexican blanket seat cover in today, should hold me over until i can afford upholstery.. hopefully the flea-bay seller can round me up another one for the back seat. ..aaannnddd finally, started uncovering body damage on the passenger side. Who ever the hell did the body work on this thing was a ding dong. Looks like anything that was damaged they tried to use body filler to hold together.. good god. Used the stripper wheel around all of the spots that had rust forming or poking through, some of the findings were surprising .. and this is just a 1/3rd of the car. .. no patching here .. just cram it full of body filler and paint over it .. bottom of the door.. you can see here where they were using the filler to cover their rivets.. ok whatever no big deal.. just wait.. .. front fender. And heres where the shit got thick.. literally.. i guess body filler is one way to keep a rear quarter from falling off.. as we move down the panel it gets rediculous not sure if you can gauge that .. but its deeeeep holy hell
im fairly sure the bottom of this quarter was hand crafted out of bondo a half inch thick.. So thats where i stopped today.. Stripped off all the bad areas i could see for now on the pass side. Unfortunately i wont be able to take the body off the frame til next year due to the wedding so media blasting wont happen til 2013. Ill be fixing as much as i can find now .. painting it for the wedding and tearing it down and doing it more thoroughly later. As of now im thinking this quarter is getting cut and ill just buy a replacement piece cause there's an awful lot of metal work for a $50 patch panel. Til next time .. Luke
Thanks.. its a three inch bock in the rear and trimmed coils in the front for now. Got some more progress made ill post up some more pics tonight. Luke
Below are some updated pictures. I got bored waiting for parts to come in so i decided to redo the dash.. getting it stripped wasn't too bad but since im not replacing the windshield unfortunately i had to mask it all off.. what a pain in the ass.. good god. I would NOT recommend this to anyone wanting to keep their sanity. I suppose if masking doesn't bother you than its not biggie .. but i cant stand it .. takes forever and always is a pain. In any case below you can see some before and after changes of what i wanted for the interior. Going with a gunmetal/white split on most everything with black carpet and other accents. Their will be some blue-ish turquoise accents here and there as the new exterior color will be more blue than the faded greenish it is now. Its hard to tell from the pictures but the dash was all sanded down .. then primed sanded again .. painted .. sanded .. painted .. masked .. painted .. sanded .. painted .. good god theres too many steps for painting!! I have zero patience too so it kills me .. im the kind of person who stares at it for 5 minutes after spraying it and wants to put it back on the car. Got a lot of chrome polished up nice with fine steel wool .. i was impressed how well some of the pieces actually came out. The clock turned out awesome. With it in the dash the blue is sooo understated but when the light hits it it pops and is going to go great with the "seat covers" i will be running to keep everything flowing nicely. Anyway .. enough rambling .. here are the pics! -Luke .. did i mention i f*cking hate! masking .. .. more to follow
Oh, and cause i haven't posted it yet .. Here's a picture of me and my old man the day we picked up the car. Hes where i get all my enthusiasm for cars. Hes got 3 old 40's ford pickups, a 52 dodge, and two old willy's flat fender jeeps and a slew of flat head ford motors in all sizes. Needless to say the apple doesn't fall far.. anycase hes a trooper, got up at 4am to make the trek that morning w me so i had someone to talk to during the 3 hour drive. It was pretty cool to pick up my first rod project with him. Some day ill redo the old ford truck he has had since i was little. Ive got a picture with a passifier in my mouth peaking out the passenger window (about 2 years old) that will go on the dash when its all done. For now though hes basically told me ill have to put him in the ground myself if i plan on getting it anytime soon .. lol
Nice score.I think that some people own stock in the Bondo(R) company the way they get so generous with the use of it. Good luck.Have fun.Be safe. Leo
Thanks, Hopefully i can get some good progress here in the next couple weeks. Im ready to work on some welding. Luke
So I've been banging away on the floorboards. Didn't have any access to a bead roller so i ended up making some "V" shaped channels for the under sides of the pieces to help with structural support. Everything ended up really sturdy which was nice, took forever to weld but whatever its done now. I also made some new body mounts from 2x2 steel. Really its not the way i had originally planned to do the floors but they're more than likely getting re-done in a year or so when i bag it and have to tunnel it anyways. For now its sturdy, and i don't have to flintstone it anymore so it will do, its all getting covered with the new carpet i have sitting in garage waiting to get installed. All that's left for the floors is to go around with seam sealer over all of the welds top and bottom just to be safe Also started restoring the steering wheel a bit.. had some inch sections missing from it and some cracks so i jb welded them up and have been sanding on it to get it back to one piece. Not done yet but its coming slowly.. On with the pics.. Drivers side piece all cut out.. Welded some 3/16" plate to the floors so i could run through bolts with nuts for the seat brackets and have it nice and sturdy. Couldnt stand it .. had to through the front and rears in the car and throw the blankets on to get an idea of how it was looking.. so far so good! Chrome center section will be sanded down and painted white and the steering wheel has a few more layers of jb weld to be sanded and smoothed before i can paint it. Til next time.. thanks for looking! - Luke
Thanks guys, they were a part i was dreading .. im just glad its done. Now its on to body patches. Next nightmare is repairing the bottom of the drivers door which is complete crap. Anyone have a pontiac drivers front door they can sell me? or at least cut in half horizontally that i can weld to the bottom half of mine? That would be nice .. lol - Luke
I'm planning on doing my floors over this winter, new trans tunnel and all. I hope they come out this nice!
Congrats on the Poncho!! Looking good so far so keep it up!! And congrats on the coming wedding!! Hope she is a car girl!!! John
Thanks, Im just glad that theyre done. Im typicallying welding steel from 1/8 in to 1/2 in so spot welding that cautiously and slowly makes me impatient. Yep shes a keeper, she even mentioned last weekend maybe finding something i can build for her down the road. Definately going to be milking that one for all its worth! Haha. Made some progress in the last two weeks ill post some pictures as soon as i can get them loaded up. Luke
Hello there from central Kentucky. Looking forward to seeing your work on your Poncho. Seems your '51 is in the same shape my '50 Plymouth is in, floorboard wise at least. Mine were made from old round furnace ducts that had been flattened then nailed with roofing nails to 2x4s in the rocker panel. Rest of the car is fairly solid though, including the door bottoms.
The Jalopy Journal
