Made a flange on the side of the door jamb long enough to use the shrinker. This will leave a formed edge rather than a weld. The shrinker couldn't quite make a tight enough radius, so I cut the flange back to the final height And formed it over the wooden buck. Fit is good enough for now. I first bent the crease in the piece using the vise and flanging pliers but the crease was not crisp enough and I had to chase it from the back of the panel. Spot welded the left piece in place. I have to weld the fender nuts on the middle piece and do some final adjustments before welding it in. I always want to have at least one solid reference point from an original body panel so I hopefully won't be off much in the end.
I was missing the two caged nuts for the fender to continue and weld the piece in place. The caged nuts are 5/16-24, but are available from Mac's etc. Instead of waiting for a week I decided to make a few from scrap. I flattened one of the old ones to use as a template, the made the square nuts from stainless stock, and copied the template in 18 gauge steel. I made a tool to serve as a buck and help form the cage. Clamp a flat piece, then fold the short sides down, and start flattening the longer tabs. To finish, force the longer tabs between the jaws of the vice with a hammer, the progressively tighten the vice and repeat until sharp corners are reached. Finished cage nuts!
Peanut1959, My sentiments exactly! Does Lauren ever come out to the garage, to see all this genius in action??
Nice work, it's cool to see you doing a lot with non-fancy tools. You're using the most important tool, your brain. Good work man! -Chris
This is my kind of thread with lots of shots of the steps it takes to make all of the little pieces. I am enjoying your posts and learning new little tips each time.
Making the door jamb piece with a lip to be able to weld on the flat rather than a corner edge. The flange will eventually be spot welded to the subrail. Made a small angle piece and bent it using the stretcher, then welded in place. Here is the middle piece with the new caged nuts welded in. Everything tacked in place. Took me several tries and a lot of swearing to get the first couple of tacks in place without pulling the pieces out of alignment. Didn't help that I had the welder set too high. Everything will be welded solid next and the the only piece left is a cap at the bottom, with a flange going under the subrail for spot welding. Profile seems to match ok. I really hope everything will line up with the doors in place.
Wow, been away from the HAMB for a little while and missed a bunch! Great work, thanks for sharing your progress.
i bought a set a while back for my merc, i contacted the guy i got them from and will get you the info when i hear back.
I also bought repro hurst caddy motor mounts from a guy on ebay he makes them,real nice quality im working on a 53 331 caddy engine that will hopefully wind up in an early ford
Thanks everybody. Will have more updates this weekend. I bought my motor mounts off eBay from probably the same guy. They are nicely made and great price.
All welded up. Ended up with a low spot at the top. Might cut out a strip and make a small patch, or just fill it in. But now let's move on. Bottom of B-post: made a template, transferred to quarter inch plate and tacked to sheet metal piece. I always use a hardwood block to shape the edge. The trim the edge so the weld will be in the middle of the jog. The mating piece will be formed on the stretcher, the trimmed to the correct height. Same with the last piece... Welded from B-side.
Starting on the lower quarter by making a wooden template again. Used the break to make the first bend, then used the English wheel to give it a 1/4" crown. Then needed to do an opposite bend, which was hard to do because of the crown. I'll probably only use the wheel after this step on the other side Starting to take the general shape.
I made several bucks to hammer the contour after hand bending a slight radius into the panel. Because of the stiffening effect of the bends, it is hard to get the curvature all the way to the bend, that's why I had to hammer shape it with the wooden bucks. Long side of the panel coming along Using different buck to shape lower side Still has a few lumps, but almost there. That's all for now...
Trying to post, but it's not uploading pictures, hmm... Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Jalopy Journal
