Appears I have big hammer project ahead of me. On a shoebox page a guy posted where he was starting on repairing his shoebox after a wreck. I got to wondering if I could straighten and repair that 54 Pontiac grill bar. Way things ended up he's mailing it to me. Wants me to post before and after photos regardless of if I'm successful. And I have motivation to succeed because if I do I end up with a free 54 Pontiac grill lol. I'll still get it free if I don't but be a lot cooler if I succeed lol. I honestly have no doubt that I have it halfway presentable at the very least
https://www.koolrides.com/s/cart So now that mooneyes apparently no longer carries Lee lenses I'm getting kinda paranoid. Thinking once I get out of the winter financial slump I'm going to go ahead and order stuff like the lakes pipes just to make sure I'll have them in case they decide to stop selling them. Not sure how the company in the link is but they show Lee lenses. May take a gamble on them
So when I get back to this .....not sure yet. But I think I'm going to cut this out and weld in a piece of metal. Still for sure going with a frenched antenna. But I'd rather do it in the rear quarter. And I was never quite happy how this turned out. Advantage now is I have my own welder at home and can take my time. When I did this I was sort of being rushed. Main reason I originally tried it in this spot is there was already a hole there
So I should have the 54 Pontiac grill bar this week sometime. Guess sending it to me sent me pics of it being packed for shipping. From this angle it doesn't look all that bad. Here's hoping lol
And to further the education of @The Creature I brought home the driver fender for my 54. Going to strip it, fix the dents, weld up the trim holes, do the 55 Chevy headlight, weld up the few rust spots and epoxy prime. She'll actually do the finish paint on the inside. Told her worst case if she messes up and it has runs etc it won't matter as it'll be hidden by the wheel. If she lays it out nicely she'll be able to brag the first time she used real paint it came out nice. In either (or in the in between) case the whole point of inside paint is to protect against rust. So as long as she gets paint everywhere where it's supposed to be it'll be a success. Mainly wanting her to get familiar holding a paint gun
Which as to how I'll fill the holes on this fender I think skip the goober weld fill and weld and use the broken trim hardware as the waste filler metal. Might make a bit more sense to a beginner panel beater.
And after actually getting a look at this fender in the light it's actually in really great condition. Story on the fenders for this car is I originally wasn't supposed to get them in the deal. As we were going around pulling out the parts we could haul in my buddy's pickup I asked about the inner fenders. Anyone whose heard me talk will vouch that not only do I talk kind of low I also have a bit of a hive to my talk lol. So he thought I was asking about the actual fenders. And happily threw them in. Last year I started working on the passenger fender. Welded trim holes, started the frenched antenna, and started welding up a lil rocker rust. Just realized this fender actually has no real rust.
And aside from needing a skim coat of filler the dent is gone. And @The Creature now knows how to identify highs and lows in metal and the direction to work a dent
Also I was thinking on the walk home from buying the padded disc for @The Creature da. Thinking the 55 headlights will come later down the road. That will mean we can get this fender to paint much sooner. Also the patch panels to do one fender are nearly as much as a full carpet for one of these cars. And as part of the negotiations on this car I ended up with a nice spare set of 54 bezels. May start welding up the trim holes tomorrow. Already have a new flap disc
Need to look up my pics of 55/56 Chevy dashboards in these cars. Curious how they got the ends to look good. Thinking I'll chop the corners of the dash and integrate them along with pieces of 55/56 garnish mouldings into my factory 54 garnish mouldings.
Managed to get a lil work in on this fender before dark. Welded up the trim holes. Threw a coat of gloss red on to protect the newly bare metal and to use as a guide on distortion. So far I don't see any noticable distortion. Instead of my usual take the clip hardware out and slag fill the hole I just welded the hardware itself and flap disked smooth. Did go a lot faster
And both sides ground. I didn't feel any distortion but still gave each weld a few taps with a pick hammer to make sure no high spots. After we sand the paint and rust off we'll get to the mud lol
So Carter auto restyling on YouTube is encouraging me on starting a YouTube channel after I asked him "what if I'm working on starting a YouTube channel because I LIKE what you're doing" in response to him saying to start your own if you didn't like what he was doing lol. Tried to upload a short video on the grinding of the welds on the fender but ended up with several 30 seconds to 2 minute shorts when neither my phone nor YouTube would let me link them together lol
The Jalopy Journal
