It looks like all the wood has been removed from the body. You might want to start thinking about building a new metal or wood skeleton structure for the body this will help in your alighnment of doors and body panels and also give you mounting points for the body in the future. This thread has some good info in regards to restructuring fisher body cars for strengh. (29 chevy full sheet metal kit car) Or I have a few threads in my profile that might help with your buick. Nice car and good luck with it...John
Hi John, Thanks for the response ya about 90% of it is gone we have a temporary frame in place but I do need to replace it with something permanent. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try and go with a metal skeleton, which thread were you referring? I've seen a couple here and there, my concern is making sure I know where the body is going to sit on the frame so the skeleton doesn't interfere with the Z in the back of my frame, and also deciding how to attach the skeleton to the panels, in relations to body work ie if I weld in a skeleton before I do the body work how do I fix a uneven or wavy panel behind a skeletal point without going the filler route.
Looks like a nice project and a nailhead will be a real cool powerplant for it, although a big straight eight all detailed out would be neat too. . I was gonna ask why the rear wheelwells looked giant compared to the tires but this link explains why. They had 30 inch tires on em' from the factory. Wow. http://1929buick.com/models/index.html?id=00003
That's pretty cool! I never noticed that, and that link is great! I've been wanting to compare my wheelbase to stock. I was milling over straight 8 vs nailhead, but after seeing some really cool 6x2 setups on nailheads and reading about how they stout engines I was sold on, my buddy though is trying to sway me to go straight 8. .I just think it elongates the car a bit much.
I was gonna ask was your car a 4 door shortened and converted to a 2 door. I ask cuz I see the welded panels, where it looks like a door was that might explain why the wheel wells look larger. and the thread I was refering to was (29 chevy full sheet metal kit car) lots of info on metal structuring a skeleton for your car. Just type this in on the search area...John
Hmm, ok so this is interesting. The wheelbase stock for my car should have been 116", my current wheelbase is 109". Now The distance from my firewall to my current radiator support location is 39", while the size of a buicknail head is approx 29", I was thinking of cutting an additional 10" from the frame as I have 14.5" from the radiator support to the front of the frame so the entire length of the frame from the firewall forward is approx 58" so over half the car, is in front of the firewall...that just seems odd, or am I off base? Unfortunetly, though if I do take any metal out of the frame that means the wheels need to come back making my wheelbase smaller, as I understand 109" is a pretty good/popular wheelbase would cutting it down to 99" wheelbase be to small, and make a really sketchy handing car?
I was told no, by the previous owner, the guys at sdrc when fixing the chop thought it was. I'm not sure, the 4 Door version of this car has 6 windows and 2 full size doors, or so I thought, but according to the link above it very well could have been either of these. The only reason why I think it would be is the seems are still in the center of where the second set of doors would have been instead of at the end where they would have welded it shut.. I'm not sure to be honest. I do have a VIN tag on the firewall, and on the frame.. I'm not sure how to go about looking it up. While messing around with the frame today I found another seem, where it had been cut and re-welded (much better then before), so I'm not sure how much they could have taken out, I also am pretty sure that even if the frame lenght is correct or close to it, the wheels are not in the stock location. Oh ya, I know which thread your talking about, I've flipped threw it a few times. I need to buckle down and read it all. There is some great work going on in that thread.
Big update for today, not in terms of progress work wise, but I made some huge progress of the wallet thinning kind. Thanks again to hamb, I found a good price on a miller211 w/cart, 80c bottle, helmet, ect ect.. via Indiana Oxygen, so with that said I'm going to be sticking with the frame I have and fixing it up the best I can, vs building a custom frame with ce, or sw suspension parts and using the welders, and equipment at work. I'm looking forward to finally having a welder of my own that I can gunk the tips of up, knot the spool, and burn holes in my shirts when I throw down some of the ***iest booger welds this side of the sierras. I still have a lot of tools that I need to purchase to get this project going, but this was (I hope) the big dollar one. I originally was going to put off this purchase and just use the equipment at work until hobby nites are done for the winter, which would have been fine for doing some of the stuff that I could drag back and forth on my snowmobile trailer (ie a new frame), but very limiting when it comes to anything that I would need to reference things located in my garage (ie body work, skeleton, brackets, ect) as I can't store what I'm working on at work past the weekend. I have to admit, I was hesitant spending this much $$$ on a welder.. Something about spending over twice the amount of the cost of the car.. on a single piece of equipment (and all the components needed to go with it) to build said car seemed a little odd at first. I also waffled quite a bit on wether to get a really cheap mig, and an entry level tig, or just go with a good quality mig. After much reading (thanks again hamb!) Going with a Solid Mig setup seemed like the best choice for me both for my current skill levels, patients levels, and budget, as even after the cost of the machine I had to purchase an additional 500-600$ in misc ****ola (helmet, bottle, wire, tips, brushes, gloves, cart, ect ect ect) I didn't want to skimp when it comes to a welder hopefully this won't be my first & last project of this nature, and I'm not over buying tools for a one off project. So with that said.. as always here comes my question of the day! What other tools should I budget for..looking at some of the builds on here, I see a plethera of stuff used that I don't have, and would rather budget for and buy now then get stopped mid project as I pretty much have to order 99% of anything I need over the internet, since there is only a tiny do-it-center in my town. In terms of hand tools I have everything I've need to do all the mechanical and electrical work I need. In terms of power welder (on the way), angle grinder, drill, dremil, and of trusty DeVILBISS gun. On my list of need to buy... Cut off Wheel Hammers and Dollies Sawzaw levels, those cool magnetic tringle shaped things that I don't know what are used for but I see at every ch***is shop. More vice grips of different natures... and of course zipties of various lengths and colours.. haha Is there anything obvious I'm missing, and should budget for?
. Is there anything obvious I'm missing, and should budget for?[/QUOTE] A couple of magnetic degree wheels and your good to go.
Alright, welder showed up today.. gas shows up on friday.. need to get some s**** and take it on a test run this weekend out side of that not to much to report progress wise started grinding on the frame and taken things apart.. lots of inspecting and pretending to sit in it and day dream.
no progress on the car persay, but I did spend a bit of time this weekend get acquainted with the new welder and a pile of s**** metal, I have to say I'm impressed. I want to log a couple more hours before I start going at it on something that I care about, but so far so good! Made a nice little 6' extension cord for my 220v outlet.
just some small progress, did a bit of welding on the body really haven't had much time lately, actually moved her over to the side of the garage with winter fast approaching i've really been focused on the snowmobiles, hopefully after I'm all caught up getting those ready for winter I'll be able to get moving again on the buick.
The Jalopy Journal
