Projects Finally My '26 Chevy Roadster Build

Well, It didn't go well. At the beginning the results were disappointing. Then it got worse. The sand would not feed right. The line clogged. After a few hours of messing with it I got the sand to feed by putting it in my old air blaster tank so I could draw from the bottom of it. I put the tank in the tractor bucket over my head and got the sand to feed. I could feel the sand bouncing back on my hand but not enough force to remove anything. I think the pump on my pressure washer took a dump. At the end the water coming out of the handle with no wand attached only went about 6'. At one point the water line got pretty hot. I can get another pump for about $100 if I need it. I'll do some more tomorrow. In the first picture the two light areas are one layer of paint removed, each spot took a couple of minutes when the thing was sort of working. It did work well enough for a while to clean the winter's mud off of the tractor.

 

Bummer that it’s fighting you but glad to see some progress

 

I just got back home after making a stealth secret mission out into the world of certain death and brought back the three sheets of Baltic Birch plywood that I ordered Tuesday. My cabinetmaker friend got it from one of his suppliers. It is full 4'x8' sheets where I expected the 5'x5' sheets I read about on line. I got one sheet each of 1", 3/4", & 1/2". It is actually metric and slightly smaller than fractional detentions. This is quality stuff. We made a few cuts and I did not see a blemish or separation along any of them. It's not like other plywood at all. The cuts are smooth with no chipping or tearing. It is exterior grade with very few plugs on the back and none on the front. It is HEAVY!

We cut four 5"x 8' pieces from the 1" sheet and two from the 3/4" sheet. Some of these will be the sills which need to be 1 3/4" thick. With the Baltic Birch a 1" and a 3/4" together come out 1 5/8" And two 1" pieces are 1 7/8". I'll use the two 1"s and trim the extra. When it gets to some of the smaller pieces I don't think the difference will matter. It tested what's left of my manliness to get the two big pieces in the shop. It looks like we are in for storms for a few days so it had to be inside. My clean workspace is gone again. The new pressure washer pump is here and so are most of the table saw parts. Just got to find some time......Oh wait I have at least a month now that they'll be tracking us by our cell phones. They let the criminals out of jail so there is room now for people who don't stay home and protect them from the criminals they let out. Are these really the best people to handle this ****?

A couple of pictures. The dark spots are just dark spots and not spaces. The stack with the tape would be 5 1/2" if the thickness wasn't metric.

 

Nice!

 

It's been a long time with little progress. I did get four 8'x 5"x1" pieces glued up to make two 8'x5"x 1 7/8". 1 7/8" because thickness of 1" sheets is really metric. They are for the main sills that are 1 3/4" thick. I haven't cut them yet. My work space has disappeared again.

My son has been busy with work and his own stuff so we haven't done the flywheel or the header. I did however find a flywheel from Jegs for $75 and ordered it. It should be here Wednesday. I looked everywhere for a 14" 168 tooth flywheel for a 10" clutch and found nothing, then all of a sudden it was there?

There's been a lot of time eating **** going on and ****py weather. Maybe it'll settle down. We lost a good old dog a few weeks ago and got a new one Friday to be with our other dog. It's not good to have just one dog up here. So far it is working out very well. A Pit Bull/Border Collie and a Boxer/Pointer both females. Lots of brains, brawn, and energy.

I'll try to work on the pressure washer blaster tomorrow and sort that out. If it still doesn't work the next thing for rust removal will be a citric acid bath.

 

Six Ball, good to hear from you! Sounds like that flywheel was meant just for you! It's great to have something happen like that. Sorry about your old dog, but sounds like things are working their way through with the new one. And, you have progress! SILLS! I know, they are not done yet, but they can still be called sills. Stay safe and have fun!

 

Yes, I'll call them sills. They are holding up the frame work. Once I can bolt them to the frame we can make some changes. With them securely bolted I can get the whole bottom wood structure done and build up using our measurements and pictures. I think the Baltic Birch is going to be easy to work with.

I've also been following Tim's Model A build thread where he is having great success removing rust with citric acid and water. It looks much easier than blasting of any sort especially on odd shaped and medium to small parts. I'm thinking of ***embling a trough from s**** lumber and plastic sheet to dip my frame, springs, axles, drums, ..... Probably the body panels too.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/timm-builds-a-model-a.1011601/page-50

 

I'm Glad to see your back at it.

 

I went to a small local car show yesterday. Only about 50 cars. Some very nice cars. It was a nice day until the wind came up and started blowing the shade canopies away along with concrete blocks tied to them to keep them in place. No cars were hurt and I was able to dodge the block that was coming for my head. Most of the cars disappeared in a hurry and I had waited too long to take pictures. Just three were left. The ones of the guys who took down what was left of the canopies. So here's Ralph's roadster #106 originally built by Marvin Webb and run at the first Bonnivelle speed trials in 1949, Leroy's Cad powered Topolino that he build in the early 60s, and my old pickup that I've been driving since '73. Have to say that Leroy' son Mike was driving the nicest '36 Ford coupe I have ever seen and Leroys lady had just taken their 390 Ford powered Metropolitan home. It was the closest to the flying blocks but I didn't see damage though I heard some bad sounds.

There was a guy there with his 5 year old grandson who took a shine to my pickup. He said it was his favorite car at the show, don't know why. He asked if he could sit in it. He pretended to drive it for a while then I got in and started it up and he revved the engine a few times. He asked if he could turn it off with the key. All smiles and a very polite little guy. The bar owner who runs the show took him inside and in a minute he came out and handed me a trophy. It was for the "Off Road " cl***. The bar owner said that in the last 47 years my old truck has more miles in the dirt than any off road vehicle in the area. A quick look under it will confirm this. First of all it's a truck. When the work is done it can pretend to be a hot rod if it's not too tired.

All in all a fun day. I was also able to pick up my 10lb bag of citric acid for the de-rusting. I found my large sheet of plastic this morning and will get the trough ***embled a dip the frame & other parts. Need to get back on this.

I also figured out how one old guy can move 5 half ton pieces of rail road rail.

 

Great story and I am glad nothing an No body got hurt..

 

Cool truck! Wish I got to see it when we had a beer in Virginia City!

 

Something was wrong with it that day. I don't remember what it was. I had to air up two tires yesterday and I ran out of gas in the driveway. I came very close to not going. Glad I did.

 

Cool truck!

 

Thanks, It's pretty rough now but maybe I'll get through it one more time before they bury me in it.

 

how come you don't use it to haul stuff around??? LOL

 

I'm afraid I'll scratch the paint or mar the wood in the bed. (3rd set) I should paint the whole thing with bed liner. You should see how I treat my truck.

TFOCH, Do you recognize the bar in the last picture?

 

This is the best stuff for fixing punky wood.

https://www.abatron.com/product/wood-restoration-kit/

 

Thanks Tman!
My son was here on the 4th and helped me stack some 14' 6x8s for the citric acid tank. I figured how much water it would hold and how much acid I'd have to buy. The answer was lots! so today I put the new pump on the pressure washer and gave the blaster attachment a second try. It worked great! I did the big stamped front crossmember in 10-15 minutes. It works about as well as a dry blaster. It seems to use more sand. The sand does travel so what you don't want sand in needs to be moved or covered. It didn't make a big mess. There is no dust and I think with a big plastic tarp I could recycle a lot of sand. You don't need to suit up though goggles and a long sleeve shirt would be good. You have to keep your mouth closed. I ran out of sand so I have to get more tomorrow. I estimate that it will take from 1-2 hours to do the frame and front axle. Depending on how that goes I may still use the acid on the springs, drums and small stuff. But I am happy with how it is coming out so far. It takes no time to set it up and cleanup consists of pulling the suction tube out of the sand a rinsing the area with water to get rid of the sand. This is Nevada so there is no sign of flash rust yet.

 

Boy! That came out really good! How much sand did it take to do the cross member that well?

 

NICELY DONE!!!

 

Hey I recognize that crossmember. Glad its going to a great car. Ron

 

Yeah Ron, thanks again. It will make it yet. Its in great shape.

It took about a 1/2-3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket. There is no adjustment for the sand and the water is just the engine speed. I may find out more as I use it more.

Thanks Mac!

 

The local building supply didn't have the right sand so I had to go to Home Depot in Carson City. When I got back to the Suburban with my 6 bags and opened the back and saw 2 bags from the last purchase. I probably could have finished the frame yesterday. Oh Well, There's always tomorrow. And now I have enough the do the car hauler.

 

just a quick mention here...on one of the other threads about citric acid I seem to recall someone saying you can’t put hardened metal in it such as springs because it can ruin them. I don’t know the details but just thought I’d mention it so maybe you can look into before dunking your springs. Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks for the tip. Tim has used a lot of it on his build thread. Someone showed springs he had done, but I don't know if it hurt them.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/timm-builds-a-model-a.1011601/page-49

The pressure washer blaster wasn't as friendly today. It kept clogging and used 3 bags of sand to do about 1/2 the frame. It's not cleaning the rust as easily as it did the paint. It will work but I Im thinking of a couple of mods that may help.

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/citric-acid.1191440/page-3#post-13658686

Here’s the thread I was referring to. Apparently it’s been fine for other people so might be nothing to worry about

 

That's the trouble with so much on these threads, you don't know what to believe. I don't know why removing rust with an acid that won't remove paint or plating would harm the temper of a spring but there is a lot I don't know.

Yesterday was a terrible day with the blaster. Clogging every time I let off the pressure using lots of sand and not removing the rust nearly as well as it did the paint from the crossmember. When I went out today I had to replace a leaky Ring on the wand. I modified the connection between the plastic sand line and the metal one by cutting a taper in the metal tube. While getting the O ring out of the parts kit I saw the instructions for replacing the ceramic nozzle and noticed that there were two pieces. Mine had only one installed when it came. I put one of the spares in. No clogging in the wand today. I had a couple in the sand line between the bucket and wand but they were easy to clear. It doesn't remove the rust as quickly as I'd like and I used 6 50lb bags of sand in about two hours. It's clean enough that a wire brush on an angle grinder quickly and easily gets the rest where I can reach. Smaller tools and chemicals will do the rest. Get more sand tomorrow and finish Sunday.

Still some to do but it's getting there.

 

Acid won't harm the heat treatment of steel, that's ********.
If you have springs that are already pitted to the point where they have holes or cracks then they are screwed already, so no big deal.

 

That's what I thought but that is a pretty good thread anyway. If I can save the main leafs in my springs I'll be happy.

 

If you are at all worried use mol***es. You can put thin sections and sheet metal in and not work about it dissolving