Thanks for the comments guys. Forgot to post that I spent last Wednesday at Phillips Hot Rod and Customs in Downingtown PA. Barry Ashmole, a metalshaper from South Africa is touring the states and was stopping by Mike's shop, so I drove up to visit. Some video of Barry using some of Mikes new machines..
Well the past few scheduled shop nights (and days) have been a bust, between college open houses and extracurricular activities... Back in the shop we needed to finalize our console lid design as some parts are getting ready to go for upholstery. Our piano hinge showed to have clearance issues when using it in "hidden" mode.. ....as shown here... We could notch the rear of the console and lid and move the hinge flush with the rear, but that would leave the hinge visible when closed, and now require and lanyard to keep it from flopping all the way over.. We started looking at hidden hinges at one of our local cabinet maker. Although this one looks plenty stout, it was far to wide for our present design, and would require quite a bit of rework.. With the new options, we narrowed our search to a cabinet hinge that was narrow enough to fit within our side confines, and found this one online.. Test fit, a straightedge is clamped to the hinge, aligned with the rear edge to see what interference this may have. Looks like this is the one.. Hope to finish the hinge details up tomorrow. We also took delivery on our stainless mesh samples to make a decision on our speaker grilles..
More progress on our console, with the new hinges we got for the console lid being such an afterthought, the room provided in our void openings was going to drag the sides of the angle bracket once upholstery was wrapped inside the slot. Better to make changes (and weld) before the upholstery goes on. So we made some new rear corners that bump us out slightly more than a 16th and use a slightly larger inside radius for a bit extra strength. This is much better clearance than we had before, one more corner to go and we can fit up the lid.
More progress on the console, the rear corner is opened up for hinge clearance.. 8-32 machine screws cut off and sharpened to serve as spotters for our hardware location in the lid.. 8-32 rivet nuts installed in our match drilled holes for attaching the lid to the hinges.. video version: .
My wife's cousin JB, who works at Interiors by Shannon, contacted me the other day about making him a dimpling punch and die for installing door panel fasteners.. There's always room for improvement, so I thought I'd add a flat to one side of the lower die so it could be clamped in a vise for more stability. A short piece of V-block was installed in the Aloris tool holder and viola! We have a Southbend Milling Machine! The alignment pin was added to the bottom die to help keep the panel aligned during the punching process, a 1/4" hole will be added to the panel where fasteners are needed. Installing into the vise... Our .06 aluminum test panel... ….that should work...
I keep thinking about the hours tabulated in this build. Hell .... if I had to charge for the hours invested in reading this amazing build .... I couldn't afford myself. You're the man .... Robert.
It’s not just the amazing quality of your work in this thread but the way you generously share your tips and techniques that make it such a great resource.
Some days I can't leave well enough alone. I thought I'd see how stout my fancy hinges were before we get too far along in the upholstery stage of the console. I guess I had a gut feeling on these, but some slight side to side deflection rendered the hinges loosened, and the swage of the semi-tubular rivets showed some cracks... We're a bit too far down this rabbit hole to change directions again, so I checked my inventory of semi-tubular rivets and found these HD items. These are used in securing latches and hinges to the HD saddle bags and tour packs. When I paint the Harleys, I break these things down to nothing to get fresh paint everywhere, then reinstall the hardware with new rivets. These are stainless and have shown in the past to be rather robust, so we'll drill out all the off shore rivets and install these.. Comparison... One set done, one to go..
Great detail work, Robert. Those Harley rivets are the deal for sure. Much stronger looking than the "off-shore" stuff.
Thanks Don! Saturday morning Mike and I went to look at a 39 Ford that needs a complete new wiring harness. What a rats nest the under-dash was, with far too many splices. When people run wires with no regard to movement and function of things like the cowl vent handle or parking brake, when three separate wires are spliced to go from one point to another, you just shake your head. For me I guess it validates what I do in sharing the various tips and methods in this thread. If it helps one person to get some ideas to better improve their own build, or it keeps hack work like we saw Saturday from happening, then mission accomplished. When we returned from that, I finished up the remaining hinge conversion, and Mike cut out some 18 GA cold rolled and made some bolting angles for some inner fenders we have planned in dressing up the blah engine compartment. Undoubtedly there will be some components bolted onto the original inner fenders and these "covers", and this bolting angle will allow us to remove them for access without having to remove fender bolts. Monday evening we had a departure, the upholstery has left the building! Well, most of it, we still have door panels, arm rests, etc, etc.... to address. Thanks Gary! Last night we cut out some bend sample strips to nail down our console lid insert, should get the final version cut out and fabricated Thursday night. Meanwhile, E and I worked on locating attachment holes on the mounting angles Mike had made. The original inner fenders were attached to the fender, and noticed we needed a mounting hole up front of our angles for better stability, so we added those holes and installed some rivnuts in the inner fenders. This will allow assembly without the need to hold washers and nuts on the opposite side. E gaining some rivnut installing skills.... This shows the side by side with the angles installed. Thursday we'll get the attachment holes for the new inner inner fenders located, drilled, and rivnuts installed. Then these parts can get sent off for powder coating.
Robert ,thanks again for all the info you give me . If you get bored some day how about a small tutorial on the rivetnuts. I seem to pull the threads out from getting them too tight or they just spin when I try to install or remove them . Thanks again.
Sorry it took so long... For smaller sizes that are more susceptible to stripping, I either use a stubby 3/4 wrench or choke up on the ratcheting wrench so you don't have so much leverage. To help prevent spinning, I've been using the AVK style with the splined sides, a sample pn from McMaster Carr is : https://www.mcmaster.com/95105a143 For that style tooling, the part numbers for smaller sizes are C845-440 through C845-2520. Larger sizes start at C722-3118 through C722-5013. Google search of applicable part number should locate some vendors.
I have a question if you don't mind. Are the fendwells in the rear fastened to the back of the exterior rear quarter panel?
Originals were fastened at the bottom of the quarter with a bolt, which normally became a rust trap and that tab fatigued and broke off in most cases; it did with this one. On this job, when we fabricated the rear portion from scratch, we left that option off, but when the bottom side of the car was Line-x'd they sprayed both front and back of that edge against the quarter, so I'd say it is anchored better than before despite being boltless..
I think you will need some form of mechanical attachment to keep the lower quarter from flopping like a sail. The Line-x seems to have this one locked down very well..
I will see if someone makes repop inner wheel well sheet metal and do some cutting and pasting. The caban side of the wheel wells are fine so there must be a double layer of metal making up each side.
E worked Thurday evening on drilling holes and installing rivet nuts for the inner inner fender mounts. Oops, I think she chipped a nail.. Meanwhile, I fabricated the console lid insert... Today, Mike and I worked on the lower radiator mount. We tossed around various ideas, and settled on one that would keep the lower condensor mount a separate isolated part. We decided to use the same dies used to for the J-channel detail on the back of the 52 Chevy tailpan that we made up a couple years ago. Here the J-channel detail is added on a piece of 16 gauge cold rolled steel.. Radiator test fit: .
Thank you so much for the riv-nut video . I was trying to do it with a bolt and a stack of washers. Guess I will put the correct tool on my Christmas list ,Thanks again.
With the top loose there is enough movement to pull the radiator forward for accessing the hose clamps. Part of this design is also to hide the ugly hose clamps.
Another part we're adding due to the length of this car is a second interior light. We chose to go with the original version, so here's a factory mount, spot welds ground out from the back side of the included section of roof crossmember. Then it will get media blasted, epoxy primed, and plug welded in place. We got the baffle/lower radiator mount plug welded in place... ...and the rubber edge trim for our lower radiator mount added.. The "final" version will include weather strip adhesive to keep it locked in place on the radiator. Needs to be pressed in a little more but this is the idea... Side baffles for the core support were trimmed on the inside (for our larger opening) , new mounting slots added, and access holes opened up.. Lower radiator hose clearance to the battery support bracket...
I have a couple radius bends to do on the AC condenser bracket, so a piece of 1/2" 4130 was added to the Magnetic Brake die.. This will help keep things from moving, and it is welded on what is usually the back side, so no interference otherwise... This will be the mounting flange to the radiator.. 1" rod is used to form the radius on the side "covers" A test fit before we cut out the gaping hole for air flow.... The center hole is cut out and a flange tipped for wrapping a 3/16" rod for wire edge. This should add plenty of strength, if the 16 GA wasn't enough.. Our anvil we made up for stretching the metal in the corners for tipping.. Where we left off....to be continued.. .
The Jalopy Journal
