Termites and Bowties- Early Chevy Group

It honestly wouldn’t be too bad, my best friend is a firefighter in Bryan. I may have to take you up on that. CS is about a hour away

 

Very sound advice here. Did a bunch of research on how people were building these termite traps with or w/o wood and starting with your main sills, then cowl, then doors then body definitely is the way to go. Once you get the sills made and cowl squared/leveled you can cleco the door skins to it* to make your a pillars.
*you’ll still need some support and I’ve been using some square tube to make L brackets to clamp/tack to the frame to bear most of the weight temporarily

 

@Jay Altemus that's great advice by @tb33anda3rd Here's the only picture of mine I could find. I had the original wood sills and copied them. I also added cross pieces that I could mount my seats to. Keep up the good work!
Tom

 

Tom, Are the front pillars wood?

 

No I copied the wood ones I had that were in rough shape and made them out of sheet steel.

 

You are GOOD!

 

Yesterday was “eat humble pie” day. I had a really nice time yesterday making deck rain channel. Got to use my shrinker/stretcher. My plan was to make an exact duplicate of the rusty channel I had. (Bad idea). What I made doesn’t fit.
I need to install the pieces inside the car individually FIRST, and only then should I join them. Oh well. I cut what I had in half at diagonal corners for a test fit anyway. My assembly plan was not thought through and as a result I’ll probably do this all over again. I know I shouldn’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good enough” but I now have a plan that will give a much better result and the cost of materials was $10.

 

Here is pictures from my 1933 Chevy Master Town Sedan "A" and "B" pilars duplicated in 16 gauge sheet metal boxed to match contours. Very pleased with results after finishing all wood replacement in the car !

 

Anybody can build a Ford.

 

Doug, nice work on reproducing your wood parts to steel! You need to delete all of the duplicate photos. When I responded to your post, I can see that you posted 2 photos - 6179873 & 6179874. Let's see more photos of your build!

 

Really busy week and nothing accomplished on the 34.
There are factory holes in the rear fender well (circled). The rectangle of rust is where I had placed a brace while I was media blasting the body interior.
Question. Was there a bracket there that mounted to the wood framing (now steel)?
I’m thinking that a bracket there would help support the wheel well and weight of the rear fenders. Clearly the rear fenders mounted to the wheel well using the holes at the top perimeter of the wheel well.

 

Got my outside door handles in with a little work https://youtube.com/shorts/uPtd0g-WLDs?si=_wXdhA-DbxYvibHz

 

Snoop,
Nice work. I have my original 1934 door latches for the B pillar but I imagine there might be other, possibly better options for door latches.
Can you share details about what latches you used?

 

I ended up just using the speedway bear jaw latches. Then I think it’s like Carolina customs makes the spring loaded mechanism for the shaft. Which I had to cut down to fit my inner door a bit and relocate the spring

 

Big day. Screwed the rockers in place using metal straps. The 5/16” rod (incorrectly said 3/8” in the video) is the top of the rocker at the sill plate and it lines up nicely with the floor beam.
I also finished the top radius of a rocker patch panel I made. That 5/16” rod was welded to flat bar and used as an anvil to roll the top edge over to finish off the top of the rocker like the original was. The original sill plate fits like a glove. VIDEO LINK

 

I was looking on the net to see if new reproduction rocker panels were available for your '34, to no avail. The work you're fabricating so far is very impressive Jay!

 

Nice work - times 2!

 

Thanks, hadn’t decided if I should put inner door handles or just reach my hand out. I’d have to figure out some pulley system for the inside

 

I was asking on FB about these holes in my rear wheel wells. Sensible answers were few but it seems to be a hole for a brace connection, perhaps the cross brace labeled B3 that goes across the frame, or the diagonal (mostly vertical) brace just a few inches forward of B3.
Anyway, someone contributed pics of some rear wheel wells that were not rotted at the bottom.
It looks like the bottom edge of the wheel well had a flange that nailed to the underside of beam A at the rear of the car. Since that area would stay wet the longest, it would rot first. Mine are completely gone of course. Here are some pics if you are interested.

 

Couldn’t pass on buying this brake press. It’s probably 30+ years old and seems to missing a 2” wide finger, but the price was a bargain. It can bend 36” at 22 gauge mild steel. It can do 20 and even 18 gauge if the piece is not too long. Pics 2 and 3 show a finger that is different on the end than the others. Any idea why?
My friend has a really NICE 48” Grizzly brake (last pic) that does 18 gauge that I can use whenever I want but he’s 30 minutes away. Mine will come in handy when I need to bend smaller pieces.

 

@Six Ball did you ever recall what the thread was about the fish mouth splices? I remember the posts but not the title and I’m hoping to find it since I’m getting closer and wanted to research some.
Thanks

 

No, I have not been able to find it. I'm sure it is on this site, but I have not been able to to put the right words in a search. It was a video probably from Youtube? I'd go ahead and use what has worked for others for a long time. Keep in mind that this is largely a Folklore site with some sound advise scattered through it.

 

Things are making more sense now. The main floor beam from the firewall extends back and stays parallel to the rocker. The main beam from the rear frame crossmember extends perfectly parallel to the rear wheel well and the flange on the bottom of the wheel well nails to the underside. I should be able to reproduce the shape in steel. Today was a good start at doing so. VIDEO LINK
Here are a few pictures from today.

 

@Jay Altemus I think it's if you want to bend a small hem.

 

Yeah it was definitely on here. I just didn’t bother following it since I don’t think I had an account when it popped up. Thanks for the reply and I definitely take advice with a grain of salt since it’s my ass that may die from bs.
If I stumble across it I’ll post the link.

 

Body work is for the birds…

 

Found it! At least the one I was thinking of.
It is on Oliver Wasteland's build thread. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...rly-chevy-group.323303/page-131#post-15369530

 

I have no particular interest in settling my mind or changing the opinion of others with my comments here.
I appreciate you sharing the link. I watched the video. Without an eduction in engineering I will have to take his word for it.
If it was in the video, I missed his discussion on frame TWIST stress on the chassis flange at the region of a single vertical weld line. Also, I’m not sectioning a chassis, I’m boxing it. So some things are different than his examples.
I was told that a vertical weld of a boxing plate would increase stress to the upper and lower flange at the point of the weld and it would eventually crack the flange. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps the vertical weld line is more stiff than the native steel and does not twist as well?
I’ve done what I’ve done. I drive like your grandmother. It’s not a race car and won’t be subjected to abuse. I have no doubt it will be fine no matter what.

 

@snoop74 I tried to dig around this thread to find my answer first, as it looks like you are mainly posting the updates here, but couldn’t find it.

My question is if you have any photos of the inside of the car when you first got it that would show the cut lines to the roof and door tops. There’s a couple little things on your chop that just make me curious how they went about it.

thanks for any help