bought myself an 49 chevy in boxes, the rumor says the car had been in a fenderbender in the late 60`s and someone tryed to repair it in the 70`s as well as welding rust, somewhere along the way they gave up, cause they fucked up the car even more, and left in a garage and forgotten until 2009, when a young guy found and bought it, he welded in a mustang front clip and bought alot of parts, but when it came to the bodywork, he realized it was way to much for him and he gave up and sold it to me, so now it`s my turn. the good thing is that the car is 95% rustfree, the bad thing is thata the previous owner in the 70`s cut the car so much up without stiffening the body that is has sucked in and colapsed over the frame, they realized the doors did no longer fit the door gap, to tight, so they cut the car in 2 across the floor have bought alot of repairpanels from chevysofthe 40`s and will try to make a car out of it. this is the car in 2009 taken for the first time out of the garage p previous owner trying to repair it the frontclip he welded in here u can see the tight doorgap and the cut in the floor, i had do make the cut even wider to make room for the door here u can see the cut homemade floorbraces that doesnt even fit on to the frame, to high, so the brace is above the inner rocker here i have wident the gap so i have an opening around the door i have meazured and meazured thrying to find where it has sucked in but no idea, so i have to bolt the rearend on to the frame and stretch the front part to it feels right started to weld some holes while waiting on the parts from the US allmost finished even here its to tight, you can see how wide the opening is supposed to be just testfitted the parts to see how "of" the panel is
I love those Chevy coupes and bought a really nice one for $50.00 when I was a kid. Wish I still had it of course. Looks like you are doing it right, so keep up the good work. Tom
thanks Tom, doing my best, but it`s not so easy when i`m struggling to fit new parts and nothing seems to fit
tesfitting new floor bought myself some new toys for this job )) the inner rocker panels didnt fit right, the ones i ordered is to small, missing an inch or so, had to make new ones see the diffirence? you can see the height diffirence on the floor, the rear brace is pretty stock, but the middle and front is totally wrong testfitting here you can see that the inner rocker doesnt line up with the quarterpanel, new floorbrace, if i do that it`s to low in the rear, i have uset two days, cutting meazuring, cutting some more and meazure, and struggling to fit the parts
At least you named it correctly "Mission Impossible" I hope that the previous owner feels so bad that he refunds all of your purchase price.
he he i dont know who`s feeling sorry for who, the previous owner put more money in new parts and a donorcar than what i bought it for, hopefully i will not be the next one giving this car up
Replacement parts seldom fit like they're supposed to, but as long as you have a mig welder, you are golden! Tom
thats true Tom, but i was hoping since the chassie was so far off that the new parts would give me a guideline of how it`s sopose to be, but i was hoping way to much, he he
Wow, I've seen some butchered cars over the years, but YIKES! Looks like you are off to a good start.
i hope so, i think the passenger side will go so much easyer and faster, the biggest problem is nothing is in line, so much of the building time is going in meazuring and comparing to the other side of the car
Thumbs up to you, you're saving a car's life! and this car seems to have had really hard times, and you're doing a good job in being the prince coming to rescue! i'll follow your build! greets from deep down south, Carsten
I ran into the same problems when I traded my International truck for this 50 c hevy sedan delivery. Not only was the bottom 4 inches of the car gone, it'd had been hit so hard in the right side it buckled the floor all the way to the transmission hump! Not to mention it also got blasted in the left rear some time in it's life Took a donor 49 chevy 4 door, aftermarket body panels [which didn't fit right] and a lot of time and effort to get it back in shape. I had the local sheetmetal shop fabricate my inner rockers rather than trust that aftermarket inners would be right....none of the other aftermarket parts were right. Finally got it....mostly right.
thank you for those cind words doing my best, but its early in the rebuilding, and i hope the good job will ceep up
nice car you have there sounds like you had a bigger rebuild than the one i`m trying to do. that gives me hope ;-) it`s only a handful of 49-52 chevyes in norway so a donorcar is impossible to find here, but a couple of weeks ago a saw a 49 fleetline drive by close to my house, i was so suprized that the only thing i did was giving him the thumbs up, instead i should have stopped him and pulled out the measure tape and checked his doorgaps among other things, he he
i just have to take my hat off for superb service from ems automotive. the tech guy (didnt get your name) called me, (a nobody from the little land norway) to give me tips and triks on how to do the restoration in a better way, love it so mister tech guy, i did take your advice and started pulling and line up the door gaps and trunk lid, not so much on the doors because i have been doing just that for a couple of days now, jacked the rear fenders out so it made an even gap around the trunk lid and welded in som support, next in line is starting to fit and weld in the panels not easy to see but the door gap is even down to the straight line on the doorskin, its just getting wider from that point, so that i have to cut and fiks pushed the fenders out to get an evern gap around the trunk lid and welded in some support dont know the english word for those wooden things i put between the frame and chassie, but it pushed the doors upwords for alighment and a little pulling to help out with the aligment of the doors
glad youre posting this! its you sharing this kind of information that makes the hamb such a great place
i have learned from people like brerhair, that post so detailed threads, i think everyone stumbles upon diffirent problems in theyr restoration and by adding the diffirent threads and theyr problemsolving you`ll get an pretty good idea of how to dive into a problem and how others have solved it, thats why i also think the hamb is such a great place too ;-))
Keep up the good work! Mine was "just about" that bad. Poor chop, no bracing, ect. It will get better if you keep after it, good luck Thom
Yup, here you go http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=390824 Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Great work on a tough start to a project...but it looks like you have it well in hand. Good luck, and keep us posted on progress... That is one cool looking body style! Cheers.......
loved it thom, nice car you got, way much better flow after the change. now i know who to turn to for advice when it`s my turn to chop the top
Honest Jetslide, what is it with you guys in Norway? Are you all love-children of Ron Covell with an inate knowledge and ability to turn any steaming pile of rusty crap into works of art..... or what? You all make me feel so inadequate. Good work by the way! Cheers.
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