Weather flook today! 55 degrees for the next two days so time to get some things done in comfort. Finished up putting the last two bolts in the wood kit. True to form, the last one had a stripped cage nut! I was not going to remove that entire side to get at it so I worked with it until I got enough of it working that will provide a tight connection. Wasted a couple of bolts getting there but it is behind me now. Had a stupid moment. Ever have those? For some reason I never thought about putting copper crush washers on my front brake hoses . That does not work well. You would think that the wheel cylinder would have come with the washer but not in this case. Picked up some from the local parts store and fixed this issue. Now I have a pretty decent brake pedal. Sure there is still some air in there so we will bleed them off tomorrow if I can convince my young lady to give me a hand. Made up a punch list of outstanding items yet to be completed, wow do I have a lot to do yet! Thought I better mock up my cowl steering so I pulled all of that material out of stock and began that process. I had purchased a blister a long time ago to cover the hole and some of the pitman. I think I will not paint this so I am going to sand it down in stages and polish it. For the moment, I mocked it up to determine where to drill the 8 1/4 inch holes to attach it to the cowl. Had a little interference with hitting the blister when turning full left so I fabbed up an 1/8 inch spacer to move the pitman arm out just enough to clear the casting. I had placed the drag link on the outside of the pitman arm but it looks funky to me since it is not in alignment with the bone below it although it is parallel to the ground..So, I reversed the pitman arm and put the drag link on the inside which looks good but may have some interference when turning left with the zert fitting touching the cowl. Easy fix would be to remove the zert or add a larger or thicker spacer to the arm. Jury is out on that one. I will sleep on that. Was not happy with the straight look of the pitman arm so I carved a bit off on each side to thin it out. That takes a bit of the ugly away from it. After messing around with this for most of the afternoon I decided to reinstall the exhaust on the drivers side. I had removed it to get to most of the brake fittings prior to bleeding the brakes. That is enough for today. Going for a walk in the sun, Doc says it is good for the heart!
Tedious day yesterday. I decided the hot rod should have a little bling so I spent 3 hours sanding on the aluminum blister starting with 80 and stopping with a 1000. Then I rolled out the Baldor buffer and buffed the blister to a reasonable level of brightness. Polished it Wenol after that. Doesn't look too bad and will be about the only thing shiny on the exterior. Now I will need to polish those button head bolts, much easier process though. Then I sealed all the seams on the Kool Mat with a silicone sealer as recommended by the manufacturer. Today I need to source some rubber matting for the trunk floor and a piece of interior abs for the small side panels. That will get me almost out of the trunk and allow me to bolt the tank in place. mmmm
Back in the trunk area yesterday. I made some cardboard templates for the side panels and picked up a piece of plastic from a buddy that is flexible and about an 1/8 inch thick. Transferred the pattern over to it and cut the plastic at a slow speed. As these will be held in with Velcro strips, I had to make some small brackets to attach the front side next to the tank. Actually, these will be inserted from the driving compartment since the tank will have to be installed first making it impossible to get around the side of the tank. Cut up some small gauge pieces and bent them on the vice. Tacked them in, now I need to pick up some Velcro and some material to cover these in. Stopped at HD and found a thin utility black rubber mat which may work for the look I want. May buy that and glue it in then I will be just about done in the trunk. mmmm
That would be the "T" thread I assume. You are doing a great job. I am amazed how long all the little stuff is taking me to finish. Much to do with access to parts being in a remote area. I will be checking on your progress.
Slow progress today. Trying to round up some brass fittings to handle the installation of the gas tank vent. Rather tight for space but the check valve must be above the fuel level in the tank. After looking into the possible locations I decided to move the valve to the front of the tank area on a bracket that elevates the valve above the fuel line. Then I will run a 5/16 hose down and exit out of the trunk floor where I can mount the vent on the outside under the trunk. I picked up some of the brass late this afternoon but am waiting for a 1/4 npt female hose barb. Here is the bracket that will hold the check valve. And mounted on the gas tank frame. Tomorrow I will finish the lower part but the top will be next week. Always waiting for parts!! Picked up some Velcro so I will work on the side panels and the trunk floor covering as well. Big storm coming in tonight with up to a foot of snow. Great for skiing. That is about it though...
Today I finished the gas tank vent. Drilled a 9/16 hole in the floor below the tank and inserted a 5/16 hose barb fitting then attached the breather from below, ran a 5/16 fuel line up to check valve and then into the tank. Should work out well. Here is the vent tucked up under the tank. And the barb fitting under the tank Now that this out of the way I cut the carpet for the floor and installed that, then put the tank in place and attached the fuel line and the return line. Then I glued up the side panels which I had made earlier in the week. Attached the material and put them in place. All that was left was mounting the battery box and attaching the cables. So that should be a wrap for the trunk area for now. The finished trunk Started chopping the window moldings. Finished one but had to take a break in order to deal with the snow we have received today. Back at it again tomorrow.
Man, that's a cool build - kudos to you for making constant progress. Hope to see you at the NSRA northeast nationals this year! I'm desperately trying to make it with mine.
Thanks SDS. I have been fooling around with this project for over 10 years. Very anxious to see it move under it's own power finally. For years we attended many of the Nats across the US. It seemed that we were on the road constantly and got burned out on the show scene. We have not been a participant now for many years but do a few local events now and then.
Thanks Loudbang. Small area and it feels good to get one thing checked off the list of the many things to do yet.
My point is that we are basically following the same game plan. I just did the trunk carpet and gas tank install too. Also using Velcro. It is good to see someone else at approximately the same point to see if there are good ideas to copy.
Couple weeks ago we received a healthy amount of snow so in my infinite wisdom I decided that I had better shovel my 100 foot driveway and the entrance to the road. That was the beginning of a 2 week convalescent period, Ha!. Seems I did something to the old back and it put me down for quite a bit. After a few days of self help I gave it up and saw a doctor. He managed to get me standing straight but it took another week before I could do any work in the garage. Since then we received another dose of snow but I am letting mother nature take care of it now. 60 degrees tomorrow so it will all be gone soon. I chopped my window moldings, mocked up the head light conduits and have aligned the front hubs with the rear end using my laser. Got all the small pieces prepped yesterday and ran them up to the paint booth. Shot most of the new stuff with etch and then high build. Today I will start sanding them and hope to paint them all this Friday. Started cutting out templates for the glass. Will swing by my glass shop and see if I can get some sticker shock!
Yesterday we got the small pieces painted but ran out od CC reducers so the final coats will wait until this afternoon. In the meantime work continues on a bunch of small stuff. finished up routing the headlight wires attaching them to a terminal that resides under the radiator on the front of the cross member. With the grill shell installed most of the wiring will be out of sight. I removed the right spindle as the drag link was rubbing on the bottom of the bone. Bent that down a bit for proper clearance and then touched up the paint and reinstalled it. I picked up a small pancake horn from a Subaru wreck. It fit perfectly on the bracket that holds the emergency brake handle. I am amazed at how loud this small horn is albeit that it sounds rather foreign, but it works, never the less. Now that this is done I installed the emergency brake and adjusted the brake cables. One more thing done. Pulled some 3/8 round rod off the shelf and made the radiator rods. Simple enough to do and gets one more thing off the list. Since my axle apparently is the short version ( for fender cars) my tires rub on the bones before hitting the spindle stops. I am told there are longer pin stops but in an effort to finish one more item I took 7/16 nuts and welded them to the end of the pin nut. Then ground off the wrench flats and tapered the end. Put it on a 7/16 stud, inserted in my drill press and smoothed it out with a file. Touched up the paint and put them on. That keeps the tire about 3/8 inch from the bones. Swung by the glass shop and picked up the 3 pieces of glass. Bill came to $104. Now I need to get the windshield done which i cut the template for yesterday. More on that when I get the glass cut. Thats a wrap for today.
Love reading all your posts. You do a great job of detailing the small stuff and showing how it’s done. I’m collecting parts now for my 30 coupe build and yours is inspirational. Thanks.
Only one glass shop in the area and they have survived for 70 years but it is all old school, no electronics to be seen. They even heat the shop with a coal/wood stove
Just back from the paint shop. Finally, got all the small pieces in CC so i will pick them up in the morning and start putting them to good use. In the meantime, I put some Kilmat on the rear bulkhead as that needs to get installed as soon as the hinges for the trunk come back from paint. After that I can put some carpet down and install the seat. I am beginning to see a small light at the end of that tunnel. So want to drive this thing even if it is in the driveway! I looked up the availability of window channels for the door glass. Wow those kits are out of sight! So I chose to use a universal channel that is the same spec as the original pieces. They do not have the metal lower retainer of course so I have a couple of choices to hold the channel in place. I did not care to glue them in with a urethane glue and I did not really want to pop rivet the lower part in. In the end I decided to copy the piece that came off of the original channel. I will reuse that one and made three new copies. I will rivet these to the bottom of the channels much like Ford did back in the day.
Build is coming along nicely!! I like the detail on your cowl steering… I need to practice polishing some aluminum!
I am lucky as I had bought a Baldor buffing system many years ago. While it usually just sets in the garage doing nothing, it is handy for that occasional buff. Rarely use it any more.
had a '30 w/s and a roll up rear window both mounted, in the frame/ channel... $130 for both... door glass mounted in the channel, put back in the door with new felt uprights... took him the doors... charged $100 ea. at pick up... GALAXY GLASS, RT. 202 lewiston, me.
Only glass shop around here. White's Glass, been in town longer than I can remember. Old school company, no computer's, does everything hard copy.
One of my younger friends who runs a very successful body shop gave me some suggestions for buffing out the paint and gave me a bottle of Farcella compound. I used a yellow sponge pad for the initial cut followed by a lighter blue pad at speeds of 1100-1200 followed by 800- 1000 rpm. I had cut the clear coat down to 2000 although it was recommended to go to 3000 but no one carries 3000 in town. Go figure. I did the grill shell first and had another friend inspect it. He thought it turned out well, so I did the head light buckets next. This is definitely a learning process. I have watched way too many tutorials on the tube, enough to make me probably a little dangerous. Is it perfect? Probably not, but I am not trying to get a show car look. Here is the grill: And the PS roof top Long ways to go if my shoulder holds out! Will do a little each day. Fingers crossed that I don't make a real mess out of this. Going to keep focused and be patient, can't rush this stuff it appears.
Managed to get all the way around the car today with the first pass of buffing. Still have to do the center of the roof but the old arm/shoulder was worn out by this afternoon. May take a day off and come back to this on Monday. Here is what the DS looks like now. Windshield seals came today so I had better get the glass cut for that next week.
The Jalopy Journal
