Projects Coupe to truck to tub build thread

Nice progress. For a shrinker stretcher with a deeper throat, I have these from Princess Auto (for anyone not familiar with this store, it's the Canadian version of Harbour Freight, if it had a bastard child with Tractor Supply Company). If you wait for them to go on sale, they can be had for a bit more than $200. I find they help when you need to get a deeper bite on the shrink/stretch.

https://www.princessauto.com/metal-shrinker-and-stretcher/product/PA0008623159

 

Very cool. Great forming skills. I'll be watching.

 

Great thread. Watching progress on some very nice metalwork!

 

Yes, yes, YES!
Just saw your thread, @40ply
I'm watching intently and I'll continue to, cuz I've got a 1929 Chrysler Roadster cowl and a 1926 Dodge 4 door sedan that I plan to use to do almost exactly as you're doing... but rather a bucket-type roadster body with a turtle deck.

The other main difference is that my project doesn't have the deep meaning that yours does... having been your father's.
That's really neat.

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the encouragement and attaboys! I'm going try a get a bit more done and posted before crop season starts (it's a late spring here this year) and the tub gets to collect dust.
The 40 Plymouth coupe you see in the background is a running driving project I picked up at the beginning of the year. I wasn't looking for it, the previous owner found me and asked me to buy it. It's going to be more of a mildly hot rodded restoration and while I'm excited by what it will end up as, it's basically a paint by numbers build and doesn't fill my need to be creative or scratch the "roadster bug" itch like the tub.
The tub is sentimental to me because dad was never much of a "car guy" and of all the cars he had over his life, this was the only one he modified and parked in a shed when he was done. Most of his cars were pulled out to the back 40 and left to become part of the earth. He often comes to the shop to check progress and tease me say he should have pulled this one out there too with the amount of time I'm wasting on it. As a side note in about 88 or 89 my family went on a "driving" holiday (one of only three we had in my entire life at home). Usually they were kinda rambling trips but on this one it seemed like dad had a destination in mind ( how else do you end up at a farmer's yard in Viceroy Saskatchewan at 7am). In the farmer's barn there was a 1927 Chrysler business coupe that dad had seen in a farm paper classifieds. He bought it and had it shipped home and asked me if I'd help restore it with him as a father/son project. It was delivered in the back of a cattle truck and we started working on it but he lost interest. I kept going on it and he'd come check it out often but when it was done he drove it once and signed the title over to me.

 

I get that. A friend with a '32 Chevy asked me to install a spare tire wheel well in his front fender. I pointed out to him that his frame was bent from an earlier front end crash and the frame should be straightened before I put the tire well in. He said to just install the well and disregard the frame damage. As I laid out the opening to begin cutting I began to think that I did not want my name to be associated with this car that truly needed more than a cosmetic change.
I told him to take the job elsewhere and our relationship has not been the same since. That's OK - I still sleep at nght.

As a builder of my own tub with a hand built body I applaud your build. Mine used '16 Maxwell doors and a '46 Ford deck lid as the rear wrap around.

 

Luckily for me, the couple that was having me do the work were easy to work with and agreeable to spending the extra to do it right. Actually the hardest part was getting them to finalize a color and layout. I did more Photoshop concepts for them than I can count..." Let's see it tan with brown fenders....ok how about green and gold instead....red and cream?...."They finally settled on a design and colors and gave me the paint codes but when I went to the paint and body store the codes were no good and I had to get them to meet me there to go through the fleet colors book to try and match the colors they had already picked out and when they saw all the choices in the book they started again, "what about blue and orange...." Thankfully I was able to keep them on track and they stuck with their original choice and are very happy.

 

You missed the point on the Chrysler Business Coupe..... he didn't want to do it, so much as he wanted to do it with you, and get you interested in it. He succeeded!! Nice job on it by the way.

 

The driver's corner done the same way as the passenger. I was able to reuse the hammer form, both corners are the same that way. I was able to make the top part of the corner a little easier this time but it still required some relief cuts to get it right. Before welding this corner in I decided to take some time and level up the frame (I know... you're only doing that now?) I probably should have have done that first but sometimes I don't think I'm going to start doing things until I'm already well into doing it. With the frame all leveled up I could then use a level to "rough in" the placement of the other corner and use my eye to make it look right. I know that seems backwards but I live in a house built in 1925 and I've learned through many renovations that what "is" level is not as important as what "looks" level.


Next step was making the piece to go between the corners. The reason I built the driver's corner instead of continuing along from the passenger side is I wanted to make sure I knew where I was aiming for across the back. If the top of the body started running down or up hill by the time it gets to the driver's door it's not going to line up.
Same process for building the filler between the two corners. Cut a piece of sheet metal, run a bead along the bottom edge ( in this case with a slight upward curve) and put it in my press to roll over the top edge. The reason for the slight upward curve in the bead is I think it might be more pleasing to the eye than dead straight. Also I staggered the cut joints, I'm not sure why... for some reason I think it makes a strong joint but probably not.



This is where I ran out of shielding gas so I decided to work on the dash. I picked up this gauge cluster at a swap meet pre covid, I believe is out of a Chrysler but a little newer and a lot higher line. The were no gauges with it but that'll be another project. A lot of cutting and filing and filing and filing and filing later.

And we went from this...

...to this.

That's all for now! Thanks for looking.

 

I guess it's time for an update. The weather has been the shits for doing crop work, sunny for a couple of days and go like hell then rain for a week so I've been able to get a bit more done on the tub. I decided to start making a piece to finish off the top edge of the body and return into the interior panels. Again due to the size of my equipment ( no jokes please) I had to make it in several sections. First set was to break a 3" strip at 90° then I decided to beadroll a flange along the bottom edge so that the inner structure can lap and sit flush when I get to that park. The corner pieces went through the stretcher to form a corner and I used clecos to attach it to the body. The plan is once all the welding on the outer skin of the body has been done (it's just tacked right now) I'll scribe the edge of the body and trim it to weld these sections in flush. Kinda wordy and hard to explain but the pictures should show what I did.

 

Very nice job on that top rail!

 

Great job . Amazing metal working skills

 

Cruising Canadian content this morning instead of working on my project. I'm a sucker for quality home built Hot Rods. I build high end luxury homes for a living (3-4 years per house). I spent a good portion of my early career doing Reno's on older 1900's vintage houses. My overused line was there's plumb, there's level and there's what looks good. You have a good eye. Looking forward to your progress.

 

Some how I've missed about a month of updates. Excellent and elegant. Atta Boy!

 

@40ply ,no updates so it must be better cropping weather now. Down under on our dairy farm the wettest year on record. Very cool build.

 

Thanks guys for all the "likes" and comments. I guess it is time for a bit of an update. The weather has turned around and we're busy in crops, not the wettest year but definitely all the water at the wrong times! This stuff was done before I got busy, I just didn't get around to uploading it. That said, here I go to build the driver's door.

I built the passenger door about three years ago. I found out I probably should have done the drivers at the same time because my memory is obviously short and I had to spend an awful amount of time studying the passenger door and trying to figure out how I did it before. I had the door skin already made from the 4 doors that I cut down and spliced.

First step was hanging the door to see where I was going.

This blurry picture is the start of the inner structure of the door. I took measurements off the passenger door to mark out where the latch and handle mechanism needed to be, as well as the knock outs.

I used my bead roller to recess the areas for the latch and handle. The latch and handle mechanism is actually original Chrysler that I had laying around in my parts bin. The biggest problem with my bead roller is the depth of the throat not being deep enough to spin the entire panel which I overcame by flipping the dies and the panel. You have to stay pretty concentrated or you can make a mistake doing this...ask me how I know.

Here's the relief for the latch and handle and rod.

Set the dies one way and roll all that you can reach, then invert the rolls flip the panel and finish the beads.
View attachment 5472880

 

Cont'd



And here's what happens when you loose concentration...


Oh well I can fix this. This is the bottom dies from a set of tipping dies that I put together to flatten my mistake.

There! Kinda fixed. Doesn't matter that will be trimmed out and not show when completed.

All bead rolled and cut out. I made provisions for an arm rest by drilling holes and welding nuts to the back side as well as nuts to hold the latch and handle.

The panel is the right width but I left the height long so that I could brake the bottom edge and I decided to try and press roll the top edge this time instead of making it in a separate piece. Here's the panel in my home built press roller.

 

Part 3 cont'd


I don't have a very big sheet metal brake so, edge of the bench and a hammer works. Again it's best to fold it slowly a little at a time working back and forth than just beat it over.



Hammered over and pressed in the roll. I'm not sure this is going to work.



Back in the press again.




Door hardware bolted in. That's all for tonight, be back tomorrow to finish the door.

 

Ok, back at it again. I'm thinking of making a bit of a cage inside the body of the tub between the outer sheet metal and the inner so with that in mind I way over built the doors. There is a plate inside the original doors to stiffen the hinge side but because I cut these door from a 4 door sedan I ended up with extra stiffening plates which i welded to the latch side as well. I then added some box tubing going from the front edge of the door to the rear.






Ok time to attach the inner panel.

These doors are now really heavy, I guess I'm going to have to add more horsepower.


Well I tried.
The rolled over edge for the top of the door, no matter how much hammering, could not be made to fit so time to cut it off and make it fit.

 

Love builds like this. We need more of these on here. Taking something that is nothing and turning into something really cool. Keep the updates coming.

 

^^^ Thank you! Quick and easy update today. Just out patching some rust on the lower cowl.

Step one, mark area to be removed


Step two, make patch.

Step three, cut out rust, tack and weld patch in place


Step four, weld in fully and grind down. Done

 

I’m enjoying this...

 

Well, if anybody was waiting eagerly for the next installment and expecting to be wowed because of the time between updates, sorry you're going to be disappointed. Not much has happened on the tub in the last few months. I did a lot of farming, some resting on the porch and a little get together and cruise with some friends I hadn't seen since before COVID. If you want to see those going ons, check out mrwstory and his "Poly begets a Hemi begets a Model A" build thread right here on the Hamb. Check out Bills project too, he's a great builder with an awesome eye for detail!
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...egets-a-model-a.1194565/page-14#post-14645502
This is just a little update to show I haven't completely disappeared and that I ain't no quitter. I got so excited last time making body parts and tacking them in place that I got waaaayyy behind on finishing the welding so I've been slowly working on that. Normally I would buzz everything up with the Mig but I've decided to slow it down, enjoy the process and try this new fangled thing called the Tig. plus I hate grinding so figured this would make it so there was less of that. Here's the start, there's room for improvement but I'm definitely happy so far.

 

Not a huge update but I do have a better cell phone now so at least the pictures will be nicer. Just been catching up on the welding so not a lot to see. I noticed that things were starting to shift around a bit so I decided to go back to square one. So I leveled the frame again and started measuring. Another thing I noticed was that in my excitement to get started on this project, I used a couple of 2 1/4" nails for hinge pins which is good in a pinch (maybe?) but not so good if you want to start setting door gaps while you're building the rest of the body so I made a set. I cut the back portion of the body off again to reset everything in anticipation of starting work on the floor. Here are those pictures. They aren't really exciting but they are of better quality...I hope.

 

You're rockin' it Ed!

 

Thanks!

 

That's wicked cool...I appreciate your patience and endurance! A lot of work, but will be worth it. Look forward to following.

 

Good job bud! Your commitment to doing it right is commendable. Many others who only see the labor involved, can't fathom tearing out something so tediously conceived. One of those things that if you don't re-do,...it'll be something your eye goes too every time.
Question,....in the photo below, is the trailing edge of the door more vertical than the area that would be the "B" pillar? Is that gap actual or just an optical conclusion?

 

Thanks Bill. That's what happens when you cut all the bracing out. The rear section is actually just falling off the back of the frame since I had cut those braces off to start aligning everything again. I know that the cowl is even on the frame and the doors are gapped to the cowl and adjusted to the frame as well, so that was just the result of cutting the back end loose.

 

Two for one update this weekend, though not huge progress, mostly just straightening up some things that have been bugging me. Because I'm using the back half of a 4 door sedan and eliminating the back doors to make the back of the phaeton I got a bit of a kink in the lower body between the doors and the wheel arch. I guess the 4 door body must taper off more. I decided to fix it by slicing through the wheel well and welding a piece of tapered sheet metal in place.











Tig welding this area wasn't going as well as I wanted so I decided to quit for the day. It's a hobby after all.

The issue is fixed. Just have to revisit the welding a bit.