1954 Nash Rambler light re-commissioning

Today was paint day. Was windy, so I circled the beaters to try to block the wind a bit.



Trying to blend 30 year old single stage metallic with no paint code using paint mixed up from old bodyshop leftovers is tough, doing it in a gravel parking lot with an $8 paint gun doesn't make it easier.

The final result is dry and blotchy. But I think if it buffs out OK, it will be p***able for a very low budget driver. The bodywork is pretty decent, if it doesn't buff out well, it wouldn't be hard to respray it with something that hopefully matches better. But I'm hoping that isn't necessary. Ill give it a week to dry and then we'll give the buffer and go and see what we get.

 

Looks good from here
Dan

 

From over here in Indiana it looks pretty good!

 

Looks GREAT from WV. If it does not match the roof you could paint it an off shade of white and two tone it.

 

Thanks. I actually saw pictures of one of these with a black painted top and I really liked that. I would definitely consider that. Still hoping to just give it a buffing and get back to re***embly and brakes though, we'll see.

 

Crazy how unseasonably warm the weather has been around here the last few weeks. Glad it worked out to your advantage, paint looks good from here, too.

 

What a cool little survivor, I love it!

Good save

 

I had a few hours today to experiment with wetsanding and buffing and the results are encouraging. Seems like it is possible to wetsand this flat and buff it without taking all of the new paint off (I don't want to lose the "blend"), and buffing seems to help with the blotchyness more than it exposes it. Can't see much from this pic in my shop (space is tight) but I buffed out the front fender and it goes from original paint on the top of the fender to full-on new color at the bottom and it doesn't seem obvious, I think it's going to work.

 

I'm starting to think that the number one export from Canada now is automotive TV shows (Between Cold War Motors and Fitzee's Fabrication). Really enjoyed this thread. Thanks for sharing.

 

I've been distracted from this project for the last month, partly with trying to get my '65 Tempest project out of paint purgatory, and partly with this sign pole. I bought the pole from a friend 4 years ago and another friend who does concrete work was able to make me a m***ively-overkill base for it (just what I wanted) so it was finally time to put it up.

That did mean that I had to build a sign for it though and rework the top hanging arm, which took some time. The steel part of the sign is a '65 Oldsmobile hood skin and the frame is from an old dinette table, hung from some 49-54 Chevy U bolts. It's an 8 sided pole from a local Shell station, the pole is probably pre-WWII.





He also made me a little concrete "island" pad where I'm going to mount a gas pump and some other **** I found but that'll have to be next year. That I can do myself, but I needed to get the sign pole up while heavy equipment was available.

But today I got a little more time on the Nash, I put it back up high on cribbing blocks, buffed out the tail pan and bolted up the rear bumper. Mostly because the bumper is big and awkward and took up a lot of floor space in the shop. Looks good though, and the mounting tabs that are built into the rear quarter sections I grafted in lined up with the brackets perfectly, so I must have everything in the right place.



I'd like to keep going with the buffing and re-***embly but I'm going to try to get the brakes done first. The buffing and ***embly is the fun part, and I've been dragging my feet on the brakes (no pun intended), so that's kinda the carrot on the stick to get the brakes done so I can see what it looks like back together, on the ground and with all the skirts on. Nice to get this bumper out of the way for the time being, though.

 

Didn't have the energy or time to tear into the brakes today but I wanted to get something done so I painted the rear door jamb areas and the underside rocker panel lip that didn't get paint when I sprayed it. Just brushed it in, nothing fancy but it's all green at least.





Also I got this neat aluminum awning at the junkyard the other day but it was taking up a lot of space in my workshop so I decided to put it up right away on the back of the shop. It side-tracked me for the better part of the day but I like it and I'm glad it's out of the way now.

 

As the frog says; "It ain't easy bein' green!"

Now you need to get a "KERMIT" vanity plate.

 

Can I ask a dumb question? When you brush in something like that door jamb do you do anything special other than tape off and brush it? Is there one brush thats better than the other? Do you reduce less or anything?
Im asking because Id like to do this same thing. My car is simply a driver and this would help me vs trying to mask all that off. Thanks again

 

Not dumb at all. Answer depends on what kind of paint you're using. I recently did some brush painting with acrylic enamel and in that case, I did mix it with hardener and a little reducer, but I didn't use as much reducer as I would if I were spraying, it's much easier to brush on if it's a bit thicker. But if it's basecoat, you can pretty much brush it on right out of the can, it doesn't need an activator and it doesn't need reducer either, it'll air dry just fine. Looks better with clearcoat put over it but just to touch up some little spots and make the color match, not necessary.

As for a brush, again, depends on how big of a spot you want to cover. I had a 1" cheapie hardware store brush to do this stuff and I threw it away after I was done, but when I touch up chips or small areas, or for sign painting, I like to use artists brushes, like you'd get at a craft store.

It also helps to practice the first paint dip on a piece of s****, see how much paint your brush holds or how much it spreads when you put it to the surface, having too much paint on your brush can really get away from you if you're just trying to touch in one little spot.

Overall it's super easy though, this only took a few minutes and it's green and covered and good enough for rear door jambs, way easier than prepping the whole thing just to spray those little spots in.

 

Thanks for your response. Ill be using some single stage so I won't have to worry about clearing it.

 

Back on the Nash for some more boring but necessary work. Wanted to finish up the rear brakes but it seemed the rear axle seals were leaking. Bought new seals off of eBay (which were totally wrong, of course) but once I had it apart I think the seal itself was never leaking. The seal is part of a steel plate that faces another steel plate, with some shims between them, no idea what the shims are for. One side had one and the other had 4.

Anyway, the shims were rusty and oily, and I think that's where the leak was. Looks like over the last 70 years some moisture got between those shims/plates and grew a bit of rust, and I think the rust jacked them apart just enough to seep some fart oil (gear lube) past. So I sanded/s****ed the plates and shims shiny clean again, put a light film of thick grease on them to keep them from getting rusty and hopefully create a bit of a tighter seal, and bolted it all back together. Not sure if that was the actual issue, or if this fixed it, but we'll see.



^^ The grease seal, part of a plate.



The rusty shim in between, and the back of the seal plate which was just as rusty but already cleaned up in this pic.



The rusty axle face that also had to be cleaned off. There's no gasket between any of this, so that face needs to seal metal-to-metal to keep oil from getting past. A truly odd design.



Good opportunity to use the huge Snap-On torque wrench I got at a rummage sale for $5. The center hub nut is supposed to be torqued to 165 lbs and my other clicky torque wrench doesn't go that high.

Rear wheels are back on now, shoes are adjusted and lines are on, ready to finish up the fronts.

 

The really big news is that my '65 Tempest project made it out of it's 10 year paint purgatory last week, which was keeping me from focusing on the Nash. But I'm really truly thrilled to have this car back, safe in the garage and with paint on it. Still needs to be cut and buffed and there's a few areas of paint I'll end up redoing but it's all stuff I can easily handle here, overall I'm thrilled.





Couldn't help but swap out the dry rotted paint roller wheels for my sweet vintage Kustomag wheels. It'll be a while before I can dive into this project but it's nice to have matching wheels on it that all hold air and don't look so rough. I do plan to use these on the finished car, I love the look.

 

That plate is already taken in WI by someone named Kermit.

Looks like nice weather for this Saturday to get some things tidied up.

 

Maybe "RIBBIT" is available.

 

We got brakes, baby! Finally, after so much work, the brakes are all back together and working. I could have wept, it was a huge job and I'm thrilled to be done with it.

Here's some info that's useless to anyone who's not working on one of these but I'm going to post it as always in case someone in the next decade or two stumbles on this thread and it's useful.

First off, the front wheel seals I got from RockAuto do fit in the hubs, but they are a totally different design. The originals stood proud of the hub, where as these sat flush and actually contacted the bearings.



So I bought a pair of NOS ones which appeared to be correct, but are just slightly undersized. So they didn't fit tight in the hubs, they were loose, and the center hole was a bit smaller too.



I ended up re-using one of my original seals which was in OK shape, and the other original seal I had to straighten out, then dig the cork out of the NOS, wrong one and try to pack it into the original seal housing. It went in there but not super pretty, I'm going to run with it and see how it does.

If someone out there is working on one of these cars, don't throw away your original wheel seals, you might have to reuse them.

Second bit of interest, Centric makes a new replacement master cylinder that is a direct fit for this car, even though no one seems to list it as fitting. Its a part for some early Jeep, it's also listed as fitting 58-60 Rambler American but it's not listed anywhere as fitting '54 Rambler. A super oddball, there's no flange, it bolts on through the sides, and there are no ports for brake lines, just a big hole up front for a banjo fitting that holds a distribution block and the brake light switch.

Was really glad to get it. If you need one of these, look them up for an early Jeep, or maybe for 58-60 Rambler American, you'll find it, this is what it looks like. Even the boot that was included with the new master fit the Rambler perfectly.


Having completed my "crawl around under the car" work, I finished the wetsanding of the new paint, then buffed it out and rubbed it out with a hand glaze. In the right light, it looks really good.



But up close, it's pretty blotchy. The old paint was blotchy to begin with, and trying to blend/fade single stage metallic enamel is tough, then sanding and buffing it can do weird **** too. This trunk area is probably the worst, especially in harsh light.



This is as good as it's going to get though. It's all green and it's no longer made of tinfoil with bondo layered on top, good enough. I'll be putting the trim back on and cleaning it up over the next week and then it's getting put away in the big garage for the winter. Next spring I should be able to drive it and start shaking it down and working the bugs out. Would have liked to have done that this year, but that's life.

 

Just saw Tony Angelo fit one of those master cylinders to a '53 Stude. He said it was a Jeep part. Looked identical to what was on the Studebaker.

 

Looks good with the wheels and hub caps too.

It's better to be a "fountain of useless information" rather than a fountain of misinformation.

 

Yesterday I worked on some of the trim, first off was this stainless molding with a hard dent and some long scratches. Got it pretty straight, couldn't get it perfect, and the very deepest scratch still shows a bit but overall I'm happy with it, it's certainly a lot better.





I had also found these awesome mirrors (one last fall and the other this spring) and they cleaned up really nicely. Initially the chrome looked really baked off but they were mostly just dirty. I think these would have been late 50's at the earliest but they're still period enough and I love the look.





I mounted them way out on the front fenders. This look was popular for a while, plus the stamping on the tops of the door skins and the position of the A pillars meant this is also the most functional place. I really like it, adds to the wackyness, and I get a really good view out of both sides. Often with door mounted mirrors, the p***enger side becomes worthless.



I got the tail lights, trunk handle and gas cap emblem back on too, along with the license plate and a cool stainless pencil tip I've had forever and could never use because I only had 1 and it was too small for anything else. Nice to use that up finally.



I'm waiting on some molding clips and push nuts to arrive so I can mount the fender skirts and the stainless side trim, which holds the tops of the skirts in place so I can't do one without the other, plus the front fender emblems. Once that stuff is on, it's done for the year and it goes in the big garage until spring. Very excited to see what it looks like on the ground with the fender skirts in place and painted to match, I've yet to see it like that.

 

Wetsanded and buffed the fender skirts today, had to ratchet strap them down to a table to keep them from flying away while I was running the buffer. Just waiting on molding clips so I can put the skirts and trim together and then it's getting put away for the winter, parts should be here by Monday for sure.

 

Kinda freakin' out here, went to a junkyard today with a couple buddies, a place I'd heard of but never went to. I've been looking for a nice used front bumper for this Nash since the day I picked it up. My current front bumper is peeling off in big sheets with rust underneath, I think it's a ****py re-plate from back in the day. I thought about having it re-chromed but I think it'd look too shiny and make the rest of the chrome look "off". The dream was to find a nice used original, that showed a bit of age but wasn't peeling off like my current one.



I can hardly believe it, it's perfect. I was considering buying a whole complete car that's coming up in an auction, just to swap the bumper off of it and then try to flip it or part it out or something. But this is way, way better. Plus I found a TON of other awesome **** at this place, and bought it all very reasonable, I'm over the moon.

 

Those outside mirrors cleaned up great. And I just spotted that "way too cool" gas cap you have as well.

 

Is that a wagon?!!

 

It is, and I'm going to be back there at some point (either in a week or two, or next spring, depending on weather) so if you need anything off of it, let me know and I can check it out, it's in Antigo. Also, there's a couple of early Ramblers closer to you, I'll send you a message with some details in case any of it is of interest.

 

Nice work on the side trim and mirrors! It’s very satisfying to bring beat up old parts back to life, isn’t it? And boy, that was lucky finding a good used bumper. If nothing else, they are usually tweaked from someone using a bumper jack in the wrong place.
I swear, every time I look at that shot of the back of the car I think, those taillights look like they are upside down. lol

 

You need to locate these fellas......