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 the plan almost since the beginning was to shave the gas door. Hadn't really decided how to do the filler neck. Really wanted to put it behind a hinged tail light but the opening for the tail light isn't exactly large. Fuel nozzle would easily fit but would be interesting getting a cap on and off. The other night an idea popped into my head. I could use one of those capless filler necks off a newer ford. I could build the hinge and lock mechanism myself
I believe tanks Inc offers that sort of cap as well if you want to look at more options. I’ve considered it for my apron tanks on the model A. An old style cap would be on the apron put the filler threw it and poke the “capless” cap on the tank
Tanks does indeed have the cap you are talking about. That's what I used behind the taillight on my 52 Chevy. But they are kinda big and you may not have a lot of room behind the stock taillights. I ended up putting it behind some Kaiser lights and its still pretty tight. The attached image was one of my prototype hinges, but you can get an idea of the size of the cap and how much room you may need.
I may be better off doing the junkyard route then. I know cars like a Ford fiesta have fairly small filler necks. And they're steaming piles so therefore easy to find in a junkyard lol. I'm definitely sticking with 54 Chevy tail lights as I particularly dig them
Me burning holes closed instead of the other way around lol. Highest hole near door jam I probably should have used an actual patch
So I've been thinking more about the 55 rear bumper swap. It's definitely a permanent part of the plan. Just thinking on details. Something I'm thinking to make the car match the bumper profile better (want to use an unmodified bumper) is using 55 rear lower quarters to match the humps in the bumper and extending the tail light mounts to match. Still planning stock 54 tail light bezels with Lee lenses. I have to do a good bit of work to the driver rear quarter anyway. I'll likely also graft a 55 tail panel into the stock 54 panel after a few modifications
And I'm not too snobby to run a free set of acdelco plugs with 10k on them. Iirc they're supposed to last around 75k. So that'll be 65k before I have to spend $50 on plugs lol. They had literally zero wear
This showed up today. Spent a bit getting it sort of on four wheels. Third pic shows the damage it was originally junked over before I got it. Rare a car actually looks better after you pull it out of the brush. But that's the case here. Even the tail panel was in good shape
I'd hoped to have worked faster and have had it in my storage unit lol. But by the time I sort of had it on four wheels and had it positioned there I ran out of time and steam lol. And I still had to go home and weld that perch on the 53 and put the u bolts in after warranting them. Which I did lol. 54 should be inside tomorrow
Oh Thursday I also decided something else. It is currently sitting with the rear spring eyes sitting against the frame. It only had the shackle for one side and I couldn't get it to reach the frame bracket. Like nearly everything I get of @fastcar1953 the rear springs seem to be in great shape. So despite an earlier thread where I said both my 53 and this 54 would get posies springs I'm thinking I'll just go the adapter route on this one and use the original springs. Lowering blocks I have work as adapters anyway. I'll just need to get better u bolts. Springs on the 53 are still going to get replaced at some point though
The Jalopy Journal
