Robert,I sound like a broken record but your attention to detail has raised the bar,not only for guys building wagons but any rod or custom. The time spent fitting, fabricating and massaging the panels will pay off when it's time for color. HRP
I'm late to the party! This thread could be a tutorial! You've improved my technique already. I've subscribed and am looking forward to your next update. Thanks so much for taking the extra time to photograph and document your skill in such detail. It really helps me learn.
Thanks guys, appreciate the comments! Today we worked on hood and gap alignment at the front of the car, the passenger side is all but done, so we started around to the driver's side. The windshield cowl showed a high spot behind the fender and door, that was bulged about 3/16. Good ol' factory fit! So we made a vertical slice behind the fender and door, bumped the high spot down, and welded the joint. We had a blowout near the leaded seam due to some rust that had collected on the back side.. Forgot to take a picture before slicing and dicing, but here's the culprit. Also had some porosity in the vertical weld that got cleaned out and re-welded later... Fitted, tacked, and finished Gaps... Much better
Thanks! I've had my Mig welder for quite a while now, and thought I'd downsize a bit. Most of the work I do is sheet metal, and the occasional 1/8 or 3/16 plate. I had looked at the Miller 211's online and on eBay, so I had a price range in mind. I stopped by my local Welding supply and was pleased to find that he had those prices beat by a good bit. So it came home with me.. First order of business was to test it out and do a comparison to the coupon I had done with the old machine. I still had the 11 lb. roll of .023 EZ Grind, so that was used in the new machine. Here are the results... Both versions, .023 EZ grind and the .035 ER70S-7 in the old machine had very similar results. Good wetting, nice flat weld for minimal build, less grinding, less cleanup. Back to the front end of the car, the hood had been giving us fits when opening, it was dragging the cowl vent in a few spots... Removed the hood and altered the angle of the rear flange for better clearance to the cowl vent.... After refitting, the problem persisted, but was not as pronounced. We did notice the center of the hood was sagging a bit. So I jumped inside the engine compartment with the torch and did some contracting of the rear brace to give the center a lift... Cooling off the hot spots with a damp rag did the trick. Next we worked on getting the hood's rear edge to match up to the cowl. This is something that the driver will stare at continually, so it needs to be a whole lot better than it is now: Further refinements included this and others: After taking the hood on and off about a dozen times, this is closer, and the outer edge adjacent to the fender needs to "droop" a bit more. We're running out of time this evening, so we'll try our luck next time with the rocker panel roller to see how well it addresses the edge.
Thank you for all the pain staking time on this body, I have a 2 door post that will take a lot longer and will be so much nicer from this build. learning so much..Thx
Thanks! A bit more progress last night on the front end fitment. We've taken the hood off and reinstalled so much that one of the captive nuts came out. Once we fished it out of the hole, it still looked intact, so it will get reinstalled. It was proving difficult to pull back up into the hole, so a bolt was threaded into the nut and the fancy dent puller clamped onto the bolt head. One pull and it was back in place.. It was tacked in place, and to prevent a reoccurrence with the other three, they received tack welds also. Next, we were working on the hood to cowl gap. We noticed towards the ends of this gap it tended to tighten up. The highly calibrated gap feeler gauge was used... Here the gap tool had no chance, we need to reform the rear fold on the ends... The wedge anvil was used, along with a x-large cold chisel that had a radiused edge formed for the more curvaceous profiles, to reform the rear fold inward for this tight area.. Gap looks much more consistent there, a quick look at the passenger side shows it needs reforming as well, but not nearly as much. Getting late, so we'll finish this up next time...
More progress today, part of our hood fitment has been hindered by the hinges. When closing the hood they didn't want to close properly and the back corners of the hood had to be pushed down by hand. Don (acardon) on Trifive website suggested replacing the original shouldered rivets with some bolts and sleeves. We hadn't heard anything promising with the reproduction hinges, so what did we have to lose. First to come up with a hinge spring removal tool... Now to disassemble the hinge and remove the rivets.. Some 3/8-16 rivnuts were used to make some spacers, and used the lathe to trim them to size, allowing a few thousandths clearance. All of the rivet holes were drilled out for the spacers.. Here are the results, click on the pic for video Thanks much to Don for the suggestion!
This will certainly be one of the straightest, best panel fit '55 wagons on the plant. I'm curious what the final surface treatment for your metal finished areas are to give such an even colored and textured appearance. Is that just a few passes with a DA and 80 or 120 grit?
Thanks for the comments. Yes, 80 grit on a DA and then 120.. Tonight we worked on some more front end pieces. The drivers side inner fender extension had been slightly mangled, looks like perhaps a tire ran over road kill or something and threw it up, breaking some spot welds. Kyle had already worked on straightening the lower bracket, and after I re-welded the broken spot welds, he got into some metal bumping to repair the rest of the mangle in the sheet metal. Meanwhile, with the hood fitment about done it was time to weld up the rear corners after the rear flanges in the corners had been persuaded forward to provide consistent gap across the back edge of the hood. The Crud Thug was used to clean out the inside corners for welding.. A copper flat bar was trimmed to fit the inside corner snugly to help manage weld penetration where inside cleanup wouldn't be needed. Welded and dressed.... Then the peak on the hood was addressed, after peaking the front of the hood awhile back I had yet to fix the low areas. A consistent crown would be essential on provide good support for the hood, and there were a few low spots along the peak. To be able to match up the low areas, a magnetic rule was placed on the underside and top. After sighting the peak and finding the lows, they were marked and the measurement notated. Flipping the hood over, the same dimensioned areas were persuaded downward. A screen door tool was used, but proved to be rather ineffective. Time to break out the heavy duty implements, a rounded/radiused cold chisel and a dead blow hammer, along with the small shot bag held against the opposite side.... That worked better, and showed dramatic improvement. Still a bit more to do, but we're running out of time this evening, so we'll finish this up on Saturday..
I don't think I've ever seen a hood close like that ... amazing! Is mig welding what you use for all of your sheet metal work? So many of the pros on this board seem swear by tig.
Thanks Mark, I have both Mig and Tig here in the shop but have run into so many cases on a car where it was inconvenient to use the Tig, so I guess the Mig has been my go-to. I also have O/A here as well, I need to get out of my comfort zone and start using that...
This thread is absorbing. Wish I'd had it back in '06,7,8,9---could sure have used it. Thanks for posting.
Thank! More progress today, some of the factory hardware for the inner fender and inner fender extensions used sheet metal screws and clips that had been spot welded on. We plan on using machine screws, so the clips were drilled out for 1/4-20 rivet nuts. Kyle used the BF Goodrich installing tool. First the rivet nut is threaded onto the tool for full thread engagement.. Next, the allen wrench is held stationary, and is also held to stabilize the tool perpendicular to the work piece. The ratchet wrench adds the rotational movement where the "jack screw" draws up the rivet nut, similar to installing a pop rivet.. While he was doing that, I used some transfer punches to add the holes to the recently repaired inner fenders for the grille hardware... Then we knocked off early and made a speed run to Annapolis for Jalopyrama. Here are some of the sights: We got to see Cody's beautiful creation up close, it's even better in person. The attention to detail is amazing...
A slight diversion, as the Migmaster 250 has left the building..... Sold it this past weekend on CL, time now to consolidate, where the old machine was a two-story deal, the new one will be a three story. In order to take up less floor space, I need to incorporate the Miller 211, the Hypertherm Tig, and the Snap On dent puller, and two bottles: Starting with the base, some 1-1/2 square tubing makes up the frame. This stuff was free, and as with most free stuff, it isn't. Kyle spent most of the time in the shop this evening media blasting rusty square tubing that has been sitting outdoors for a number of years. He also learned a bit more of mig welding.. The Tig will go on the bottom, and it has some mounting holes on the bottom side... So some 3/4 square stock was used to make some rails for the Tig, along with some holes to tie in the front end.. To be continued....
Picked up a new shop clock at the auction today.. This is a vintage neon Ford clock, looks to be a dealer only item as near as I can tell..
Worked some more on the welder cart tonight. Started by adding the front casters..... A cross brace was added under the center line of the 2 bottles... 12 gauge will be used to form a tray under the bottles... Support bracket added for Mig welder: Next time we'll add the bracket for the dent puller...
This thread has provided countless hours of entertainment, as well as, the obvious teachings of a master craftsman. Nice touch showing your fab job on the weld cart. Reminds me of my days in professional motorsports. Each team trying to out-do the other with over-the-top pit equipment. Unsure if you touched upon this, in a prior post,..but do you have a color chosen, to cover up all this fantastic metalwork?? (black????) Would be a good candidate to hit the show circuit in the flesh, before lathering on the finish. JT
MP&C says, "this is what I got done out in the shop today , post up what you guys did today" Well uh...we uh.... nothing much
Actually as Kyle (my apprentice) had gone with me, we did compare some of the fitment to that we have been going through. More progress on the welding cart tonight, the rear axle was made from a piece of angle and two 3/4-10 bolts.. Rear bottle tray made from some 12 gauge, and welded on using about 3/8 diameter plug welds.. Top shelf added along with some gussets made of 12 gauge.. Bottle relief and pull handle added....
More progress this evening on the welder cart, these studs are added to make use of the bottle bracket that came off the old welder. My brother in law had borrowed it at one time, and it came back with the fancy bracket. He retired the ratchet strap I had around the two bottles. This worked pretty well, so rather than reinvent the wheel.... Reminds me, I have some other things needing finishing I should lend him... Then a bracket for the clip is added to hold the Mig torch.. Holders for the various cables.... .....and a test fit before we throw some paint on it... Looks like I have some room left, may have to add one more....
Kyle worked this evening to repair the remaining damaged threaded holes in the inner fenders. A couple of the ones for the core support were stripped, so he changed those out to 5/16-18 rivet nuts. For the welded on clip nuts for the sheet metal style fasteners, we had drilled them out and installed 1/4-20 rivet nuts to be able to use machine screws instead. A couple of them popped off while drilling, and these were welded back on with the Miller spot welder to keep a good backing support for the rivet nut.. While he was working on that, I got busy adding some color to the welding cart. It was a toss up between some bright red (HD color) which was acrylic lacquer, or a bright yellow (H/K Lemon Yellow basecoat). As I didn't have any lacquer thinner in stock for the red, yellow it is...followed by clearcoat Along with the purple E-wheel, this should help to brighten up the shop!
Just wanted to say how much your detailed and instructive posts been appreciated. Because of this thread my sheet metal welding has improved tremendously. No where near as good as yours but much better than previous. (I'll keep practicing!) Thanks! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The Jalopy Journal
