1952-59 Ford my 4.6 dohc powered 57 Custom, aka, doing it the easy way

I follow this thread and look forward to updates on the best '57 Ford I've ever seen. So it hurts me too. I am a cave man compared to what you have accomplished.

 

I forgot about the little incident I had with my Fairlane. It was in the garage and thinking it was in neutral, I started it. Yep, it was in reverse. By the time I got it stopped, I had about a 12 inch scratch on the front fender, not too bad, only $500.
Grundy didn't even send anyone out, I told them the estimate and they just sent me a check.

 

That was a hell of a compliment, Bob. A big thanks.
I got the problem with the shifter/******/neutral switch figured out and fixed. Simple fix, just a little hard to reach. The housing the cable rides in came loose from the shifter cage. The shifter was moving into the detents as it should, but the cable housing was just flopping around, so the cable wasn't moving back and forth as it should. The neutral switch of course is on the ******, and it performed as it should...not letting the car start because it wasn't in Park. If I had only listened to what it was telling me.
The car now starts when it should, does not start when it shouldn't, goes in all gears.
Tomorrow I will make something to prevent the cable housing from coming off the bracket again even if the screws come loose again.

 

I just feel bad that you had to go through all that to find the problem. Ford years ago had a problem with cars jumping out of park. I had one get loose from me on the alignment rack. I ran the car up on the ramps, got out to lift the ramps and I hear this "clunk". The car is rolling back towards me... the door is open and all I can do is hit the floor. The garage door frame stopped the car, but the door was a mess. Luckily management did have the service bulletin and I was cleared.

 

Sorry to hear this happened but glad you weren't hurt but I am sure you must've felt sick afterwards, I know I would. Hope it all works out with the insurance and thank you for posting about it, as it might prevent someone from serious injury in the future.

 

Well, here it is...as good as I could get pics of. What isn't showing up in the pics is the waves it now has.

 

I was expecting a lot worse... still bad enough on such a nice car.

 

Bummer man, but you'll get over this setback too.

 

Thanks Bob, Rui. Hopefully it won't be too long. I've gotten back to driving it again, and actually got the wife out in it today for the first ride. She's not into this old car stuff, so I didn't make the ride too long, maybe an hour. I got the car realigned yesterday and it's handling better. It had a tendancy to "float" at 65 or 70, doesn't do that any where near as much. Also the returning to center after a slow turn has got better, but still not there. I had my alignment guy put as much caster in it as he could, but that only ended up being 2 degrees. Ideally it should be at 4-6, but it's not getting there without some mods to the suspension.
I've met with Grundy's adjuster, and all the paperwork should be done by early to mid week. I've made arraingements with the top shop in the area to repair the damage. I'm just not physically up to a summer spent doing bodywork and besides, I don't want the car down for that long. I should have it back in 2-3 weeks after it goes in. It will be done right. I am working with them to help keep costs down. I'll be stripping all the gl*** off the left side, stripping everything off the door except the door handle, removing the bumper, grille, tailight, and back trim, etc etc.
The shop owner and his dad are big big car collectors themselves. The owner is friends with Bob Owens and Jeff Norwell. The shop has or recently had a car featured in Rodder's Journal, and Jeff says "the shop does good, good, no...GREAT work". It'll be in good hands and the owner really likes my car besides.

 

Took the car out yesterday and ended up about 90 miles south of town before I turned around and headed home. Car ran great, although it was really windy and it was blowing me all over the place. Kinda kept me on my toes heading south, but by the time I got 1/2 way back, I realized I was making these steering adjustments subconciously without even thinking about it.....that's exactly why I've been taking it out, got to get use to this new car, lol. At any rate, had I not cancelled my cruise to Oklahoma with my friend, I think the car would have been just fine...bruised and dented, but running fine. No starting or shifting issues. I drove about 200 miles after filling, and the needle hasn't got down to 1/2 full yet. I can live with that. Should get better after I get the car actually running in normal mode with no codes being thrown.
Lots of hot rods and streetrods around town and on the highways this past weekend. We had our first local monthly cruise night here, probably close to 100 cars. Had a constant swarm of people around mine for 3 hours asking about the car.....never got to look at most of the cars there. I left feeling really good about my project, except for the dents of course.
My short response to the many times I was asked what happened seems to work quite well...."do the words "neutral safety switch" conjure up any images in your mind?". That's all that's needed for 90% of those asking, lol.

 

Great news. Sorry I won't see you in OKC but glad you got to put some miles on it.

 

Takes a lot of time to sort out a new car and my turn is coming up. My gas pedal issue is either timing or a carb adjustment. The clutch needs some fine tuning. But yours except for the one mishap has been coming along nicely.

 

I haven't totally decided about OKC, but if I do, it'll be in my DD. as I'm hoping the '57 will be in the body shop then. I may have found a trim piece in Kansas, so I may do a long loop and come back thru okc for the show. I'll keep you posted if I do. I need to decide between that and the Pate swap meet later this month, can't afford to do em both. This year the pate is combining the swap meet with a car show.

 

Texas 57 Glad your able to drive your car sounds like you have a good body shop to fix your car was hoping to see you in OKC this weekend been watching your build thread super job i will see if i can look up okiedokie

 

Are you showing your '56 wagon? What day / days are you and okiedokie planning on being there?

 

I will be there Friday an Saturday

 

I will be there Fri Sat and Sun in my 40 coupe.

 

with your wagon in the avatar?

 

Yes the wagon in my avatar and a friend of mine in a 40 chevy sedan

 

I will be on the look out for your wagon Slicks.

 

Was at the nsra show Saturday. Great show, sure wish I could have brought the '57. I looked for a black 40 coupe and saw one parked up under the trees on the left from the main gate. It had spinners/knockoffs/? on the wheels...was that yours Okie? If it was, you drove past me as you were leaving also.
I looked and looked for a yellow and white wagon, but couldn't find one.

 

No spinners/knockoffs. Slicks did not get to drive his 56 wagon, but he did find me and say hi. Pleasure meeting you Slicks, look forward two maybe sharing a steamed catfish dinner at Hucks someday. Sorry I missed you Rich, I was parked [on Friday] on the left side of the entrance road beside a building, then on Sat I was over on the north side in the gr***. No 5:00 in the am for me.

 

OK...back to my build....I finally called Grundy Friday to find out the status of my claim. I found out the guy handling it was out of the office all last week due to some emergency surgery with his daughter, so I left a message for his supervisor. He called shortly after and finalized everything. I am really happy with the numbers. Very thorough on the estimate (they emailed me a copy). Now I have a problem. I had talked about not wanting to do the repairs even though I had done all the body work and paint myself. I figured since the insurance company was footing the bill, just get it done and be over with it. However, I was guessing at an estimate that ended up being close to twice what I had guessed. I don't have a lot of money available, so the thoughts of turning 10k + over to someone to do something I can do is weighing heavily on me. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

 

How close is the body shop estimate and what Grundy is giving you? You can take the $$ and work on the car little by little and pocket a lot. I'd have the itch to have the car back in 1 piece myself.

 

I never got an estimate from the body shop I was talking with. They were waiting to get the appraiser's estimate and were going to go off of it. Totally normal for daily driver repair shops.....you bring it in and they work with the insurance company, and you just pay them the deductible. Little different in this case I would think.

 

Easier for the shop to back into a price like that, but you said you trusted them and they do nice work. Be nice to see you get it fixed and not lay out any more $$.

 

You have insurance to cover just such a thing, I would use it. On the other hand, I would get a bid from the shop independent of Grundy's estimate. Yours is in no way a normal body shop insurance deal. After all the time you spent building the car, get it back to where you can enjoy it asap in my opinion.

 

I'm with okie, would hate for you to miss the bulk of the summer cruises.

 

Wow, this thread almost made it back to the 3rd page!!
I decided to do the repairs myself. I've only spent two days on it this past week, but getting I am getting all my parts and supplies in. I drove to Kansas and picked up a spare door as a backup in case I need it, I ordered some new door gl***, picked up a mirror at the Pate this past weekend, got a good restorable trim piec for the back quarter. I got a new door handle in from D. Carpenter/ I've also picked up the fillers, epoxy and 2k primers, sealer, basecoat and clearcoats. I also replenished my abrasives and bought some tools to help with the repairs.
As far as actual work, I started on the door and front fender. I got the creases in both pulled out with a stud welder and slide hammer, and got the fender pretty much pulled back out where it's suppose to be. The pics show the blocking I did on the clearcoat above the bare rounded area. The blocking showed I got the area pretty close. A coat of 2k primer will be enough to get it straight again. The "rounded area" above the wheel well I hammered and dollied out pretty close. A light coat of filler will get that straight also. The area behind the wheel well was where several creases were, and the stud welder worked well on that. First time I've used one of these...sure beats the hell out of drilling holes and using an old school slide hammer with a sheetmetal screw!!.
I'm working on getting the major dent/pancaking out of the door. The stud welder isn't going to be the right tool for that, so I'm in process of emptying the door out so I can get in there with some prying/pushing/inflating tools.

 

some pics of my first couple of days work. The first pics show the fender crease before and after. The last pic is after longboarding the fender to get an idea of how straight it now was...not bad I think. The fender was bowed in 1/4 inch or so from s****ping along the building's door Jamb