Back in Black! rpu build thread

Man. You are one lazy bastard! Too lazy to reach inside to open the door. What's going on...putting outside handles on an open car?

I like the sill plates though Mine are just 1" square tube.

Pete

 

Dan,

I think you have a problem. I am afraid you have missed something and there's nothing I can think of to save you at this point.


How will you ever insure this thing? No number anyone would ever put on it can come close to what you have. You will forever be plagued by ulcers and stress when people walk around it, you'll never sell it and come out feeling right, you will never win a disagreement with an insurance company, they'll never write a policy close to it's real value! What the heck are you gonna do?!

 

Again ... nice job on the door work overall. All the work "fits" the cab. I'll agree with the '32 choice.

Keep it going.

Paul

 

Nice job......nah, FANTASTIC JOB!
I wish it wasn't so humid here and I could leave my panels in bare steel.
It is a pity to cover such an awesome car with paint.

 

Steve, thanks! I would love to take you for a ride-I hope that you visit soon!

By the way, I took a quick look at your update on your T coupe-WOW! The frame looks amazing in stainless. Tonight when I have some time I wanna check it out some more

Thanks Keith! Speaking of updates, what are you working on lately?? Inquiring minds want to know!

It's a Florida thing-we are lazy
Actually the only reason I put the handles on is to break up the slab-sided door. It looked kind of empty without them. Here's an old pic to show it without the handle:



Oh yeah, that & I am lazy

Oh Scotty, there are MANY problems that I have at this point. I got 99 problems but, well you get the point

My only ulcers & stress right now are wondering if I EVER will get to drive it haha.

I talked to my insurance company & they told me they would insure everything BUT the sill plates................

Thanks Paul, I appreciate! I think I may lose points - now it's not a 100% accurate restoration ha!

Dave, thanks man. Pictures are honestly a little forgiving. Like all of us I'm just trying the best I can. Good lord, I could never make a living at this. It takes me WAY too long to get anything done

Seriously though, I appreciate as always

Man, don't I know it! It is SO freaking hot & humid in Florida now, it's crazy. I need to get this thing in epoxy primer soon. Its been about 95 in the shop mid day anymore.

I wish that I could leave it bare. I honestly love the look are bare steel. I could just never keep it looking good long-term


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As usual.. looks great Dan.

On the topic of bare steel.... I saw on Speed TV to a product called Shark Hide.
http://www.sharkhide.com/

It looked interesting. I wonder if anyone here has any experience with it.

 

Holy moly! Great progress!!! Like how you handled the door sills!

 

Just gettin more of the paint and interior finished on the '37...guess it's about time I put an update up!

 

Dan,Those sill plates look really good. The handles finished off the door nicely.

 

Well for what it's worth I got the driver's side all done too. The sill plate & door handle are done & mounted, and the gaps are done

That's pretty cool stuff-never heard of it before. Wonder how it does on steel?? Looks like it would do pretty good on aluminum looking @ their site-cool stuff!

I would say "fair progress"

It's one of those stupid projects, when you finish it you say "how the h*ll did it take me 2 days to do THAT??

But, I did a few menial things that pictures don't show that took a lot of time. I removed all 4 hinges from the doors, and did a lot of finish work on the door skins around the hinges. The skins were dimpled in pretty bad @ all hinges. So I filed the hinge openings in the door skin a bit for clearance, and hammer & dollied the skins to get them straightened out.

That took longer than I care to admit

Thanks Scott, I feel better now

You BETTER do an update now-we LOVE pictures. Especially of your 37'!!

Thanks George, I appreciate. The doors did look bare to me without the handles. I went backwards, I "unshaved" the door handles. There is something seriously wrong with me

I see right thru that comment! You are happy that I added weight to the car with the sill plates. This additional weight will give you a slight advantage when we line up to race.

You can't fool me


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DUDE!!! The details are important and are what separate the men from the boys, in my opinion. "The Devil is in the details" hold true, I believe.

I get this though. When you're building to this extent, it takes forever BECAUSE you just HAVE to spend the time doing the little things.

Carry on Dan! The time spent is well worth it. If you don't spend the time, then how will you feel??

 

Great job as usual. Good idea on the sill plates. I have to do something similar on my 34. I might have to borrow it.

 

I agree completely Scott. I redo stuff all the time and think I am never going to finish this if I keep redoing stuff but then I think about how i won't be happy with it when I am finished if I don't redo it.

It is a fine line between being obsessive and getting done and sometimes I am not sure what side of the line I am on

 

Haha! YEP!!

 

Man, that is my biggest problem Scott. Part of me REALLY wants to finally finish this thing. But the other part really doesn't want to skimp on details that will make the car a better finish product.

I am getting to the short end of the list though, so I THINK I am winning

Thanks for the support man. It's easy to see the way you build your car you take pride in your work

Thanks man! I hope somebody can use it. God knows I have borrowed a million things I see on here-that's why I love it!

That is exactly the challenge. It's kind of like playing "Deal or No Deal".

You have a great offer for $250,000 from the banker, but you are convinced that you have the million in your case.

I just don't wanna be the idiot that goes home with $25

 

Alright, so I have been trying to wrap up the seemingly endless list of little things to do before I can prime the body.

One thing that needed addressed badly was finishing up the inside corners of the body. The panel flanges were pretty mismatched between the rear quarter panels & the rear panel itself.

See here:



So I cut the corner lip out, and replaced it to make the transition line up. Now it looks like this-lots better I think:








So both corners are done!

Now I needed to address some alignment issues on the drivers side. The way that I built the rear subframe allows total adjustment of the rear body panel. This way I can fine tune the door gaps.

One problem was that the rear of the lower door was a tad lower than the bottom of the rear quarter. Because of this the bead at the bottom of the body didn't flow & line up so good.

See here:


So I decided that looking at it for a week wasn't gonna change it

I pie cut the rear lower quarter just above the bead & pulled it down a tad to line it up:



Did a little welding & grinding-WAY better to me!:



So now all the gaps look usable to me. The passenger side was good after a little tweaking too:



So now I am really happy! I am kind of a nut about alignment & gaps, but I think I am on the right track.

Not a whole lot left to do on the body before I can get some epoxy on it. Hopefully another weekend or two will wrap up the body fab work.

Thanks for looking guys!

Dan




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love the knobs

 

DodgeRod,
Your making me sweat!

Beautiful work, wants to make me give up Rat Rods........Nah!

LOL

 

And I thought I was fussy Dan! You take the cake. But I love your work. Perley

 

You are THE master tweaker, Dan...nice!!

 

Deatails,Details. I dont think that you have missed one on this build.

Looks really good.

 

amazing work!

 

Thank you everybody!

Well, I got about the last stupid little fab project out of the way. I installed bearclaws in my doors, and wanted to install safety latches in the doors for a couple reasons. Mainly as a safety lock to keep the doors from ever popping open, but they also keep the doors from rattling on the striker.

The safety latches I used are from Rocky Hinge. They are normally used on suicide door cars, to prevent to suicide doors from popping open. They look like this:



Once I got them mounted in each door, I came up with a problem. The roadster doors are so shallow, that I have to trim the arm that the lever mounts on REAL short so that they could slip in the door.

Once they are mounted, I didn't have enough sticking out to mount a handle to, so that I could lock/unlock them

Here's a pic of that:


Plus, I HATED the billet little knobs that came with the safety latches. SO I needed to make new knobs with a short extension on them to mount to the stubby little arm on the safety.

The safety has a 1/4" round stem on it, with a flat spot on one side to tighten a set screw on the knob to hold it on.

My dad had a great idea for what to use for the extension piece. We found these at the hardware store. They are extensions that are set up for a 1/4" shaft, with an allen set screw already there-no brainer! Thanks dad!

Here's that piece:


$5 fixed the problem! I trimmed these short, to the length I needed, about an inch.

Then I made a handle out of some 3/16" flat plate, with some holes drilled. Here's all the pieces needed before welding it up:


Then I fastened the hardware store piece to the latch in the door, and clamped the handle I made in place to weld. I drilled a hole a little oversize in the handle, for the hardware store piece to poke into. Then the hole just needs welded up to join it.

Here it is ready to weld:




And all done:




And on the car, latch open & closed:




With these latched, the door pulls nice & tight to the body, compressing the seal on the rear door edge perfect, & there are zero rattles:



There is a hole drilled in the door jam for the safety pin to go into. I didn't want to have the pin scrape the paint off around the hole.

I decided to use a stainless t-nut as a receiver to mount in the door jam for the pin to slip into. I drilled the center smooth to the perfect size for the pin to slip into.

The t-nut mounts to the door jam with a couple #6 SS button heads. It looks like this done:



Sorry to post 1,825 pictures for such a simple thing.

Hopefully it might help somebody out a little.

Thanks for looking guys,
Dan






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excellent build, thanks!!

 

That is what makes this build so special.... attention to detail. And the photos are GREAT we like how you spend your time keeping us enthralled with your build.

 

One of the best build ever on the HAMB. I'll take 2. One in bare metal, one painted thanks!

 

I can't take it anymore!!!!!!!!!

First he puts outside door handles on a roadster, then I find out by stealth that this thing has door seals.

Dan, what are you sealing out?











I'm curious too. The latches have little micro switches. Are they for some kind of swanky interlock arrangement? i.e. the car won't start unless the doors are locked?

Looking nice as usual.

Pete

 

Brilliant!

 

As usual Dan .... your detail work is beyond reproach!!

Are you having some seat cushions made for Mike's seat shells??

Paul

 

Man those door pulls are amazing. What a great idea and great execution. Outstanding!!!