Thanks again for sharing Robert. Any chance you could give a peak at the anvil on that planishing tool?
Wow, I just found this build and all I can say is Wow. You have definitely taken the bar to the next level with this one. After seeing the work you've done and your attention to detail, I'm not sure if I should start my project over or sell my tools and send it to you. You truely are a craftsman and I have learned a ton just from this thread. Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work.
Thanks for the comments! They are dies from Hoosier profiles, was using the 1" die shown on this page... http://hoosierprofiles.com/Hammer_Dies.html .
Thank you Robert. With the skill you've displayed I wondered if you hadn't made something just for this task. This thread still teaches me something nearly every time you post!
Glad to help! Got a care package in the mail yesterday, we had the hood hinges rebuilt at Wilson's Antique Car Parts.... I had talked to a couple dealers about the reproduction hinges and did not hear good things, they indicated they had replaced a few sets due to the gears jumping teeth from being too loose. A member on one of the forums had recommended Wilson's rebuilding service, and I gotta say, this is top notch work. If you're having hood hinge issues, I highly recommend their services.. Kyle was looking for something else to weld, so on to the dash. Here he's prepping for welding the seam, bumping the panels a bit for better alignment before welding.... Checking across the gap using a 6" rule... Next on the agenda was to shave the radio holes... Weld, planish, grind, repeat...
Kyle got some more welding done and we noticed the patch he made didn't quite have the same crown as the dash next to it. He had left the patch flat, so the difference was becoming more noticeable the more it was welded. So the Watervliet planishing hammer was used to add some crown to the panel, and also to planish some of the weld while we were at it.. An 8" radius lower die worked nicely to duplicate the crown: Planishing welds... Two holes to go.. rear view... both sides still need sanding with the roloc, we'll get that once the radio knob holes are done and ready for sanding as well. Tailgate is blocking out pretty nice, did have a few low spots to address that still need feathering out....
So much good work in this wagon ... I seriously can't wait for the last blast of paint, the last whiff of polish, and the last snap of the rag. I know I will be wrong saying this ...but there is no way, that the finished product can be as fantastic as all this metal work. I'm quite sure ... it will be a stunner, while I sit here continuing to be stunned.
Thanks for the kind words! Finishing up on the radio holes... Shaving the other seam, here bumping the panels to get a consistent height across the front... The upper section would prove to need a bit more persuasion... Tool modification... A chunk of 3/4 square stock laid in dash void to use as fulcrum... Heat applied... Results... before.. After... This view from the back side of weld dot penetration shows Kyle has pretty good consistency in weld dot sizing.
Today was the Spring Fling car show in Leonardtown so we took the opportunity to do some "window shopping" for vents to fit in the dashboard. With all this nice real estate now: .....our plans are for some rectangular AC vents in the radio's original place. I always thought the "up in your face" vents do a better job of keeping you cool than the under dash ones that freeze the knees. So in no particular order, here are some sample vents.. 1940 Ford "ashtray replacements" by VA... Although small, thought these may work toward the outside in the same "band" area of the dash... Grand National... Lower dash vents for a 65 Impala... I like these and the dual parallel deflector vanes over the 55 factory, which is a ball vent with a wide open hole. These next ones are the ones I'm leaning toward for the dash center as they are an easier install than most of the GM ones of the era. The GM vents have a solid pivot shaft at either end that would require making a saddle and clamp deal to hold it in place. The Fomoco style shown here has the pivot pin on a tab that springs inward for installation/removal, so it requires two simple holes. A much easier fabrication of needed ducting.. if we need to fabricate.. This had no AC vents, but was a super clean ride, and still sported the Straight 8 under the hood, so consider this complimentary eye candy! More VA pieces, these are nice and compact I like the rectangular for the center of the dash but worry these round style vents may "clash" with rectangular ones. So the 40's small rectangular may be a good option for the side vents. Thoughts, personal choices, ones we haven't shown (with pictures) are welcome. This build really isn't a billet type, so black and chrome are a preferred option. Thanks in advance for any advice/pointers..
You may have been looking at the cars for styles & asthetics. I was browsing for vent & defroster options to go with the cars heater to find that Vintage Air has some vents at reasonable prices. http://www.summitracing.com/int/search/brand/vintage-air/part-type/interior-vents
First, thanks for the input on dash vents. I'll have to agree that these shoebox cars lend themselves more to curves, but given the long, flat, rectangular mounting surface in the center of the dash, it seemed that two round vents would not begin to fill the void. Thus we were leaning toward the rectangular vents to fill the space. Dana wanted to keep the outside vents round, and mount below in the factory location. So these are the ones decided on, Vintage Air pieces... for the corner locations..... for the center of the dash....... Of course, something told me to keep looking, and as someone had suggested to do the Google image search on "dash vents", I skipped the catalogs this time and looked at installed vents. Then it hit me, how could I have not seen this before..... Three wide in the round vents vs. only two did a better job of filling out the dash and would give us matching vents all around. So, with only two round on order (and two rectangular that will likely go back), we plan to see how "tight" these 2-5/8 round bezels look on a 2-3/4 high flat area, and make the final decision from there.. The saga continues.. Now with the dash seams all welded and waiting for gauges to be delivered, the moment I've been dreading. Installing the Rocky Hinge fuel "door". First thing noticed was that some of the holes on the weld-in mounting plate were off by half a hole.. So Kyle cut out a fresh piece of 14 ga crs to make a new one, a bit oversized to trim later. Used some transfer punches to get the bolt holes lined up a bit better on our version of the weld-in plate.. Attachment screws fitting better already.... To provide the proper "pressed" countersink, we broke out the tubing flare kit... Redneck press... Our lower "die" was a 1/2-13 nut, centered over the hole, perimeter marked, and then taped in place before locating this into the press. Hey, it wasn't pretty, but it worked! Some trimming of the hole to provide room for the weld-in mounting plate.... Test fit of the tail light housing showed the opening was a bit wide, especially to the inside towards the tailgate. So some glancing blows with too large a hammer provided a bit of stretch in this inner valley to persuade the panel over to the left, tightening up the opening.... A bit better here, but more tweaking will be needed on the outside before the mounting plate gets welded in place..
Received a couple of care packages today, first was some of the tailgate hinge trim rings, shown here after Kyle media blasted them. So to all the guys that were watching the ebay auction for these, sorry.. Next, we got our AC vent samples in.. Here is the test fit with tape... Only have two of the round ones to show, but if we go with these there will be three in a row here in the center of the dash. Any thoughts on the vents now with them mocked up? Then Kyle tried his hand at block sanding epoxy on the inside of the hood..
The rectangular fit the space so well, but they don't match the style of the round ones. The round vents do look like the style that Chevy used, so I would go with the round ones all the way across.
Another vote for 5 round vents Robert. Do you have a part number for them? Based on your research and documentation, I think I'll do the same combo in my future truck project. So thanks!
Dave, the round 2 vane in chrome as shown should be PN 490535 from Vintage air, they run just over $10 each. She ordered these ones from Summit. Just as an FYI, unless I wasn't being forceful enough with the new parts, there appears to be a pivot in line with the vanes, so as shown it only tilts up and down. If you wanted to aim the air directional flow to the left or to the right, you'd have to spin the ball to get the vanes more vertical, and then rotate to the left or right as needed. Someone with OCD and line alignment to parallel universes may develop a twitch.. I'll verify whether or not it was just "sticky" and report back...
Dave, vent operation is as described above, the "ball" has a pivot in line with the vanes, so any side deflection of the air will require rotating the vanes to a vertical position first. Went to a metal shaping workshop this past weekend, and just in case we needed a project to tackle, I took along one of the round vents so I could make some "buckets" in case we were going to mount them in the lower outside corners of the dash. To prevent scratching, I covered the chrome with painters tape. As it turned out, we had plenty of other projects going on, and I never got to the vents. Removing the tape when we got home resulted in this: So be forewarned, don't use tape to protect the chrome on the plastic vents from Vintage Air. Also made a Xerox copy of the vents to be able to lay them out and test a pattern before cutting any holes. Thanks to all for the input on vent selection. Here is the 5 round pattern that the owner has decided on...
Not a very good testament to the quality of the vents from Vintage Air, are they going to replace it?
At just over $10 each, I think it's one of those you got your money's worth things.. Well, the past couple of shop nights we've had some detours and some back up and punts. Where to start.. Started with a test fit of the power antenna the owner had bought, installed somewhat easily and even clears the door hinge when closed by 1/4". But this trim ring on top is just......obnoxious. Anyone use a power antenna that is a bit easier to hide? Next, lets get the VA unit under the dash to see how much room we have to work with on a radio.. Doh! We had planned on a single DIN chassis, so it appears the radio will need to be 4" deep, or go back into the dash, or go in a console. She did buy a console with the bucket seats, they all came out of a late model Monte Carlo. Let's give that a go. Not much room for installing a single DIN chassis, but even worse the console tapers in at the bottom where the trans tunnel is spreading outward. So it looks like its teeter tottering. Doesn't match the car at all. So this looks like something else to add to the list, perhaps a custom made console is in order.. Since we're not doing too well inside the car, let's shift gears and move to the outside. We had a couple more parts to add to the pile awaiting powder coat. The side baffles of the core support had some hole alignment issues, must be off a 57 or something.... so we'll fill those in and get them re-drilled correctly. Next, we need mounting brackets for the radiator. These were made from some 16 gauge cold rolled steel.. We do now have much better clearance around the radiator petcock with the new improved version of the lower baffle.. Kyle had learned some Tig welding this past weekend at GatorMeet, from Gator's boy Dakota. Dakota is quite accomplished for his youth, having won the state competition for welding. Here Kyle runs a couple of practice samples to get the machine dialed in... Seems he forgot his long sleeve welding shirt this evening. I had shown him how to tack without using filler, and gave him more aspiration by showing him a no-filler fusion weld. All in due time.. Practice aside, here is the hole filling effort in the baffle panels... While Kyle worked on filling the holes, I had directed attention to the condenser and the holes we would need to add to the passenger side baffle prior to powder coat... just as shown in the book.. ....only Murphy had other plans, it appears our condenser was intended for a cross flow radiator... Hmm..... don't think this is going to work. So to back up and punt, the plan is to make a mounting bracket that will hold this universal condenser to a top flow radiator all while hiding those ugly holes that scream "I'm a universal fit". Then we'll have to get some new hard lines made up that fit correctly. Layout of the mounting bracket... Don't try this at home, it was done on a closed test track... The ears inside will be folded inward to use the same bolts on the side of the radiator.. Here we are making the top and bottom folds in the magnetic brake, this design will help to hide all those holes.. ....and we'll finish the mounting flanges next time..
So many hidden treasures, in this build. Been said before, but it will be a shame when they are all covered up/painted over. One of the top ten builds on the Hamb, ever, IMHO. Also been keeping a close eye on CadMad's build of his '39 Caddy. Turning a 4 four sedan, into a 2dr sports roadster. Now I think he has it up for dale??? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/39-cadillac-custom.937692/ Thanks again, for all the detailed photos. 3 a/c ducts in the middle, is gonna look zoomy. JT p.s. Go Kyle, Go!
More progress on the condenser mount... The flange fold marks are run through the tipping wheel to better show the bend location. I've found that when using the press brakes this helps to "feel" when the upper die is located properly, less guesswork with the eyeballs where it's harder to see in the press brake dies.. Clamped in place for a test fit.. The side folds add some stiffening as well as hide the bolt heads for the core support baffle plates. Test fit of the condenser... Radiator brackets got a nut welded in the bottom hole, the condenser mount will get nuts welded in place for the top 2 sets of holes, so everything will bolt in from the outside in.. Making the slots for the radiator brackets, used a cone shaped burr.... Found that this cutter had less chatter when the cutting edge was perpendicular to the hole opening...
Some more details to iron out on the condenser mount, the corners seemed to "roll" a bit, so some corner braces are in order.. Using 16 gauge cold rolled, holes drilled to provide an inside radius to help prevent stress cracking.. Plug welds to hold things together.. Bob Heine over on GJ suggested using a Corvette antenna as they use an escutcheon with a flush fit, so I had a Corvette part delivery over the weekend, size of the business end is rather larger than the aftermarket one we had. As this fit in the void behind the A pillar (see in background between cowl vent and A pillar) and also needs to dodge the hinges closing, this did cause some interference. Dan thought this was from a late 80's/early 90's.. The biggest issue with the universal power antenna we have is that the top of the fender is considerably rounded, and the antenna escutcheon is designed for flat. So we are also looking at the factory piece, to see if we could adapt (drill hole larger) to use with the power antenna.
I'm late to the party like always! But i think the simplicity of the round vents just work best and look as though they could have been stock in '55. Your work is nothing short of amazing. HRP
Yeah, I think it's the round vents in the dash and radio in a console.. More progress on the condenser, used some machine screws to attach to the bracket, and some AVK style rivet-nuts in the frame of the condenser to act as a captive nut. Bolted in place... Meanwhile Kyle ties up some loose ends, finishing the weld across the remaining "shaved" lead seam on the passenger quarter.. It does need some grinding on the underside of the weld still but we'll wait for the car to be on the rotisserie for easier access. Fitment of the Driver's side tail light... this was even worse than the passenger side in fitment, and we did need to make a relief cut at the top, but after some massaging, it's getting close. A few more tweaks to get this done and then the headache of installing the motorized tail light pivot for fuel fill access..
Sorry for the slight hiatus, been in UK and just got back this past weekend. Time to catch up on what we had done before I left and what Kyle did while I was gone to take up my slack.. Part of our fitment issue with the passenger tail light was that we are installing the "hidden fuel fill" which required the removal of the brace welded in the opening. Next, when the old quarter was cut off and the new one installed, without the brace in place both pieces tended to wrap to the right, which can sort of be seen in the following picture, where its flush above the inside corner and rotates to the right upwards of that. The outer quarter was rotated in a similar fashion. We weren't having much luck in resolving the issue with the top weld seam remaining, so a relief cut was added, a restraint device employed to make use of some off dolly bumping to eliminate some of the right rotation. I didn't get a good picture of it, but you can see where the inner quarter comes in considerably upwards of the tail light right corner.. Anchor Off-dolly bumping... Then some shrinking was used to pull in the inner quarter, and a 16 ga plate used to hold things in place while the top seam was re-welded. Kyle got the seam welded closed... And temporary brace removed... Much better, almost ready to tackle the "fuel door" pivot...
Got another care package in the mail... The new escutcheon for the antenna looks like it will work, the hole size matches the nut on the antenna and we'll just need to get rid of the flat spot/keyway in the hole. Only I don't think we'll be using this one. Between a recess under the chrome and visible scratches in it, this one's going back. On to the next new pieces, hopefully these fit better, Reproduction headlight buckets..... wanted to test fit all the headlight and turn signal pieces before re-priming the fenders.. Decided to use some AVK rivet nuts over the u-clips.. Parts fitted..
What happened, you piss someone off at TriFive you vaporized over there. Big loss for them I joined that site because of your posts and a lot of my visits are to reference your posted information for my 55 project. I will now be over here at the HAMB viewing your current project posts and I do appreciate the time and detail you share with others.
Yeah, Otis was quick to delete all my remaining posts... Don't believe all you read from someone who locks threads to prevent anyone from correcting his statements.
Worked on the Rocky Hinge hidden fuel door this evening. The mounting plate we made is plug welded to the tail light opening.. Slight trimming needed..... Then some 3M body molding adhesive tape is added to the top of the pivot bracket and the lens pressed in place. Here's the initial test... https://youtu.be/oZ6JYr988dc That worked fairly well, so it was clamped in place and a transfer punch used to mark the housing for drilling mounting holes.. Then the holes were slightly slotted using a dremel for side to side adjustability. Here's the results, from different views.... https://youtu.be/848V2PbuQJw https://youtu.be/N_Qz0NZxh5g https://youtu.be/PVeWQyb35j8 OK, now for the bad that we found with the kit... The original lamp housing must be removed for clearance, and a new (included) one gets installed below the original position. The new housing has those spring loaded contacts that some tend to bend over and short out, so I gave the wires a couple gentle tugs to see if the contacts deflected toward the outside shell... Surprise, surprise, the contacts pulled clean off.... Note there is no copper inside the contacts, indicating these had a loose crimp... Next, the operation of the motor function seemed to be intermittent. A recheck of the power connections showed no issues, so we pressed a bit harder on the switches toggle, and the function returned. Multiple repeat attempts were performed and the switch proved to be the culprit. It appears to be a cheapo switch that has intermittent contact function. So looks like we'll be replacing a couple of the parts for this kit... So much for everything you need in one package....:dunno:
The Jalopy Journal
