The “2nd Best” ‘60 Chevy wagon build…

Roger
It took me 25 years to be able to buy that car. I bought it for my grandson, who decided not to build it and sold it to your son. You are right about it being off the road since 84. An Arvada fireman bought it for the motor and then they were going to use the body for their carnival as a sledge hammer car. That's when a friend of mine, also a fireman rescued it, parking it outside all those years. I'm glad you got it as it is now going back on the street.

 

Thanx Flip, I was hoping sooner or later you'd chime in on the car and the build...I knew you lurked on the HAMB...sorry to hear your grandson didn't want any part of it tho.

Yes indeedy, the '60 is going back on the streets, where it belongs...too bad it sat for so long...and it was a great thing it didn't get used as a sledge-hammer car...what a waste that would have been.

Thanx for posting...and please follow along as the car comes together...

R-

 

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This thread is super cool! Have fun with it, I'm sure its going to look beautiful!

 

Looking good Roj. I'll have to swing over and see the progress. Subscribed. I'm gonna need a cool daily driver so when you get it on the road.... JK I'm sure I'd be waaay back in line for it. If u get a wild hair, go over to John's this week. I workout out a trade w/him to put in a roof on the coupe. I scored a roof off a 58 ford sedan at the junk yard.

 

Just thought I would send you a couple pics to keep you motivated
(at least you are not doing this more door)
I am following your progress ...looking good Roger.

 

Sorry TexasSpeed, to "drive you nuts"...but I'm not Superman, I have to stop and take a break every once in a while...and to shoot pix...and write the story. I don't know anyone that can go non-stop from a candidate for the junk yard to a driver in one installment - even the "pro" shops can't do it.

Thanx Frog, that Banff National Park wagon looks cool...is that yours on the other side of it. I'm looking forward to seeing Banff up close and personal in July...

R-

 

No Roger that is not my wagon beside that banff limo...that one belongs to a friend of mine.
You will love the scenic beauty of banff.
Also for an incredible little hike make sure you go to a place called johnsons canyon...turnoff is located just 6 miles west of banff and 15 minutes from that turnoff. Bring your camera and watchout for wildlife on that road.

 

ahhh!

 

Chump Change…

This then, is the fourth update to the ’60 Chevy wagon build…

Oh, BTW, lest I forget -Frog...and Mr. Lomont, thanx for the information on Banff...

By now, we’re deep into winter 2012 on this build…well, okay, winter in ColoRODo usually doesn’t come around til February…we get more snow in February and March than we do all winter (November to February)…and this March (2013) is no exception -this year we've doubled the snow total we usually get…sometimes even when we head for Moab, Utah, in late April for the April Action cars show we have to fight snow…either going over the mountains or coming back home. But, let’s not get ahead here…long about November, 2012, I can safely say it’s cold outside but nothing we can’t live with, my garage is insulated and heated enuff to work in shirt sleeves…and since the wagon is in my warm garage, it’s not hard to go “work” on it, or simply sit on the stool and study it, figuring out what to tackle first and what we can purchase to keep the build moving. Ever run into that problem…???

I've had people ask me WHY I use junkyard parts...first of all, that's the way most every car guy used to do it before crushing cars was the norm...and isn't that more traditional than buying across the counter stuff (besides, most across-the-counter stuff is now made in China). I can see hundreds, no, thousands of dollars wrapped up in this car before it hits the streets (engine, interior, paint just to name a few – used to be you could build a car for “chump change,” not no more when a good engine “build” costs a minimum of $1600.00 – and a screaming street engine could set you back $5500.00. A decent paint job goes upwards of $5000.00 (priced any of PPG’s primers/paints lately…???), and an interior can hurt your wallet to the (minimum) tune of $2500 and up. O-U-C-H…now you understand why I go to the junkyard for parts…the way I look at it is those parts I find are just ‘seasoned’-- with a little clean up and some paint, they’ll still work well. Hey, guys do that to rusty Model A’s and ‘32/’33/’34 Fords, right…???

While studying the car, I did find a few more things we needed at our friendly junkyard, so we called him up and said we were coming down and would he be there…???

When we got there we pulled the steering box off the four door, wasn’t that hard since someone had already pulled the tie rods off of it…$45.00 for a steering box is better than a $500 for a new one IF it’s good anyway…I’ll just clean the old grease out of it and check it for play, adjust it…and while there, we visited another ’60 and pulled the complete e-brake cables off of it since the ones on our wagon had been cut some time in the distant past. I told Dan we needed to revisit that first four door again because when I was under the car pulling the cables, the rockers looked solid…and we needed a new rocker on the driver’s side…and needed both rear fender pieces behind the rear wheelwells. The wagon’s were a bit thin in places…I remembered Classic Industries wanted to sell me the rear half of the rear quarter in a complete patch panel…$129.00 (plus shipping an oversized item) and I’d need both sides-$260 plus shipping total. I didn’t need that much metal to fix what I had…so I asked the yard owner how much just for the small area behind the rear wheelwell, both sides. “$40.00 each,” he said, “and you cut off what you need.” Such a deal, I’m saving all my chump change for when I really need it. The trunk had already been sawed out and the rear taillight area was gone so cutting the rear pieces off only took about 10 minutes…and one saw blade…I cut out both the pieces I needed and we loaded up the truck and headed for home…time to work on the floor.


Here’s the “new” floor pan sitting on the table for cleaning, I’ve trimmed a lot of the excess I didn’t need off of it…not too bad, eh…???

Once we got it cleaned and most of the old undercoating off it, I sprayed it with Eastwood’s Rust Encapsulator…and when I get all the floor in, I’ll spray the rest of it with epoxy sealer, in anticipation of the Lizardskin insulation I like.


All cut out except for the driver’s side…


Well, OK, finally, passenger’s side done…there is it…one side is done…putting in a floor is a lot like a jig saw puzzle…making it fit is a challenge sometimes…but it got done. In this shot, you can see how much I cut out of the other side…

It took Dan and I a couple of weekends to trim down the final piece of the driver’s side floor outside the car and several times to put it in and take it out all the time trimming to fit. Once I was happy with the fit and there was very little “gap” for me to fill, then the final time we cleaned the bottom of it out of the car and then back in and I welded it in place…and that took a couple of hours to get it all welded in…


Here I am got my head stuck under the dash…fitting the pan on the driver’s side…once it gets fitted, then I’ll tack it in.

Yeah, I know, I’m not wearing a welding helmet…it was hard to get my head down there to see what was fitting and what wasn’t. I put the helmet on after it was tacked in place up under the dash.

It took longer to do the drivers side simply because I had to cut so much of the floor out…it was rusted worse than the passenger side…and trying to measure and line up the bolt holes for the front seat mounting took some time…didn’t want the seat sitting crooked in the car.


There it is…Finally…!!! All in and done and the welds ground down…even shot some rust encapsulator on it…next step is to get the car in the air and shoot Lizardskin.

I took a grinder to all of it and ground down my welds (OK, OK, I’m not the perfect welder but when I get done with it, it’s solid) and cleaned it up. The next weekend, I sprayed the whole floor with Rust Encapsulator and then epoxy as well…I plan on spraying the toeboards with Lizardskin but I’ll lay down some other kind of insulation under the front seat and rear seat.


After I sprayed epoxy sealer on the bottom…Lizardskin will go on next.


After I’d let the sealer dry the required time, I poured the Lizardskin in the cup and started spraying. I used the cup instead of a hose into the two gallon bucket simply because I could move the gun around easier than knocking over the two gallon bucket all the time…Note the tarp covering the floor...when spraying the Lizardskin, make sure everything is covered...it flies all over...!!!

You might be wondering why there’s so much room under the car that I’m able to kinda sit up…well, let’s just say that I “raised” the car a bit…Necessity is the mother of invention, ya know…???


Here’s what it looked like from the side of the car…

I parked the rear tires on ramps I’d reinforced…and added a piece of angle iron in front of the tire to prevent it from moving or rolling off the ramp…then I laid a piece of 6” by 2” U-channel under the front frame rails and bolted it in place. Then I hooked up the cherry picker to the center of that brace and raised it up. Without an engine in the car, there wasn’t much weight to raise. I stopped five feet up and went and got my mounted vise…in case you don’t think the vise mounting is sturdy, here’s how I built that: The vise is mounted (bolted) to a piece of 5/16” plate welded to an 8” metal pipe (1/4” wall)…that in turn is welded to an old Scout drum…and that drum is welded to another piece of 5/16” plate…it’ll support just about anything I’ve got. I set the U-channel on top of the vise…it was solid and I wasn’t afraid of getting under it at that point but I kept the cherry picker hooked up just in case. As you can see, I used a couple of Halogens to see what I was spraying…it took about two hours to build up the Lizardskin to the required thickness.

I only did as far as the rear end because we hadn’t cleaned any farther and I wanted to remove the gas tank and get it cleaned out. I could just imagine what kind of syrup was in the bottom of it.

Surprise of surprises…there were shiny nuts on the hangers-someone had (in the years it sat anyway…!!!) had the tank out and put it back in. It even sounded empty when I tapped on it…could it be…??? When I finally dropped it out, what did I find…???? The fuel tank sending unit was missing…hope I can find one of them somewhere…!!! I looked inside the tank and it appeared clean…someone saved me some work and money by emptying it. My guess is that whomever owned the wagon before I did was planning on putting it back on the street and they started with the gas tank - but never finished the job (and that would explain the strange power steering box up front). Oh well. Sure makes it easier on me when I take it up to have it all sealed up. The floor above the tank was clean and there were no dangerous Black Widow spiders living there, but it didn’t have any undercoating above the tank…I’ll remedy that with more Lizardskin.

So, the bottom of the car is almost done…and with the floor completed and after I get the bottom sprayed with insulation, it’ll be time to take on the front suspension….rather, take OFF the front suspension…and that’ll be covered in the next installment…

R-

 

Roger,I enjoyed your detailed account of the floor attack, I makes it for me like I was there lending a hand. I m back to watching the Collector Car Auction on TV in Palm Beach, FLA.,being Thursday , cheap cars .compared to weekend sales.64 Cadillac Black super stretch limo $14,500.00 for example.

 

Thanx Bill, guess everyone else that was looking in on this thread is in Austin...oh well, there are some of us that have to stay home and work on our projects...

BTT...

R-

 

I'm here, enjoying the updates.

 

You're keeping me motivated Roger old boy.

 

Roger,I'm loving the updates,,I thank your making a lot of progress for a old guy!

BTW,your chosen profession has really enhanced the threads,,I am a hack at writing but I can appreciate your well written descriptions that compliment the photos. HRP

 

Zeke, good to hear you're motivated...and you think you've got a lot of trim to paint...??? Here's every piece of trim from inside the wagon in this pile, waiting to be painted...



Dan's got some of it sanded, but it got pushed to the side to work on other more important stuff...

Oh BTW, the driver's side panel showed up yesterday...a friend had a 20% off coupon so we ordered the panel...I only need about the lower third of it but had to buy the whole thing.



In the back of the catalog, in fine print it sez the panels "cannot be returned because they may have minor imperfections in them"...Yep, this one did -in two places -note the wrinkle in front of the wheelwell and the small indention just below where the bottom of the door fits... besides, if I cut off what I need, I wouldn't think they'd take it back anyway...!!!

Thanx for the comments Brerhair and HRP...

R-

 

patiently waiting...

 

Been following the thread as I work on my 60 four door wagon. Great work on your part. I had already replaced the bad spots in my floorboards prior to seeing your thread, but my approach was similar to yours. Also, I had already blasted and repainted the garnish moldings and you are right---there are a lot of them. I put new felt channels for the windows in all the doors, obtained them from Steele but am having trouble locating replacement channels for the tailgate window. Have you found a source for replacing the channels on the sides and top of tailgate window. Because of the chrome frame around the tailgate glass you need a deeper and wider replacement felt channel, for the tailgate glass to ride up in and seal at the top but I haven't found anyone who is making this larger channel.

 

Following you thread brings back a flood of memories with the massive amount of trim in our wagon,,especially seeing that pile of to be sanded and painted. HRP

 

Fat47...No, I have not. I read your thread about that and thot to myself "I need that exact same thing," but, I'm not to that point yet. I haven't even begun to look for that stuff. Every one of my side windows need all that channel and glass replaced as well as removing the hard rubber on the windshield...if you find what you need for that channel BEFORE I get there, I'd appreciate a PM on it.

Geeze Lar, gimme some time to write it willya...???

HRP: I just read your comment again about being an "old guy," remind me to tell you the story about a friend that found a '60 Chevy four door wagon, for cheap, but decided he was "too old" at 60 years of age to take on another project...oh wait, I just told you the story...!!! FWIW, I'm ten years older then him.

R-

 

http://www.chevroletrestorationworld.com/ the most reasonably priced place ive found also check ecklers and sites like that

 

Easy to poke fun at a old guy,,I got you by a few years! HRP

 

Yeah I don't have nearly that much to do for certain. I need a couple of those patch panels and the rear 1/4s, trunk...and numinous other bits that no longer exist on this physical plane or dimension. Who did you order your from?

 

Cool build, Roger! Looking forward to seeing it.

 

Hi Roger and Dan just found this. I dig this thing, lookin good so far I'm subscribed now will be watchin progress. The chrome reverse on this car when you got it are on the front of my 55 now. Kev

 

Love this thread. Thanks for the updates so far.

 

What’s old is new again…!!!

Here’s update installment Number 5…front suspension rebuild.

Zeke – got it from Eckler’s…and check out that site TnomoldW put up…I did but it’s a bit more pricier than Ecklers or Classic Industries. Thanx Jeff (MercChev)…Kevs56…when we got the car it had old Ralleys on the front, you musta got them before we got the car…!!! JPNewlin, stay tuned, there’s more…

Just as well start off with a pic…show and tell, right…???


Here I am trying to get the last lower A-Arm off…and wouldn’t you know it…this bolt/nut was rusted…most of it came off with normal nut twisting…you’ll note there are not ‘air tools’ laying there…I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to that…I simply like using hand tools.

The other parts all came off easily enuff, with a little knocker-loose and some time to soak, but this one is the bitch…and ya know, there’s always one that will give you grief no matter what you are working on.


Yeah, that pile of dirt came off of the lower frame while I was trying to get the control arm off…as you can see I’ve got it swung around to the rear of the car trying to get it off…

I let it set a few hours soaking before I tried it again…it finally came off, just had to ‘lube’ it up a bit…so the next step was to take all those parts down to the sandblaster and have them cleaned them up…and to order the necessary parts. The coils will be trashed cuz if you look closely someone wanted the car to be a ‘gasser”…they used three of those “aluminum coil spacers” in each front coil…and the rear coils, too, to raise it up. I’ll be buying some 2” shorter coils for the front…gonna drop this sucker on the ground…and we’ll worry about the rear when we get to that. You’ll note that we left the engine in it for weight so we could safely remove the coils with a floor jack…


And there it is…all suspension off…now Dan gets to work on the frame…gotta clean it up real good…!!!


And after we pulled the engine/tranny…for the fifth time…makes it easy for Dan to clean the frame and get it ready for some epoxy and paint…that ought to make it look new again.

While Dan was working on cleaning the frame, in the meantime, we took the front suspension to the blasters, not going to spend any time cleaning that stuff when for a mere $75 it can all be blasted clean and neither Dan or I need to get our hands dirty. FWIW, it cost me $85.00…cost of sand must’ve gone up…!!!

It took Dan a full day to get the frame clean via wire brush, sandpaper, lacquer thinner and prep-sol…clean enuff for epoxy sealer… and once that’s on, the paint. Getting closer here.


Here’s the epoxy sealer going on…note very expensive masking paper…!!!


And after it was all sealed…we’ll shoot black paint next…


Doesn’t look very black does it…


That’s cuz it’s not black…I couldn’t find any leftover black downstairs in my paint cabinet…and I didn’t want to go spend more money $$$ purchasing a quart for just the frame…!!! Priced any PPG stuff lately…??? I like PPG stuff, but, may have to change if it gets any more expensive...!!!

I did find some 15-20 year old Ford Charcoal down there, about a third of a quart left – had it left over from my Dove Gray ’57 Chevy…used it on the frame there as well…and plenty for what I was going to do and it was dark enuff to “look” like a good paint color for the frame…besides, I’m not a purist…it doesn’t have to be “Genuine GM Chassis black” to satisfy me. I’m not a ‘dark color’ fanatic, that’s why I don’t keep much of it around…I like light and bright colors on my cars…

So, while Dan was cleaning and sanding the frame, I decided to go ahead and sand the firewall too…figured I’d just as well shoot it BEFORE we put the engine back in…that way we wouldn’t have to mask around it and/or pull it again…once it was out of the way, we pulled off all the extraneous stuff we could unbolt from the firewall and sanded it before we painted the frame. The next weekend when the frame was dry, we hung some plastic to mask the frame and proceeded to shoot some epoxy on the firewall.


I’m using my small gun because I can control it better…and it lays down a nice pattern.

When Dan and I build a car, we’re always thinking ahead about what colors would look best on the car. We’ve decided to give the wagon a two-tone…not very “trad” in the way I’ve decided to delineate the two tone…but it’ll look good when it’s painted.


Here I am laying on the first coats of ‘95 Cadillac Eldorado Champagne…Dan calls it Gold and it does have a look of gold…ought to go good with whatever other color we’ll pick out.


Here’s Dan standing alongside the newly painted firewall…looks good with the Ford Charcoal frame, doesn’t it…???

Now that the frame and firewall are painted, we can get on with putting the front suspension back together…the next week after painting, we picked up the stuff from the sandblaster, took it to a friend of ours to have him put in the new bushings, tie rods ends and the ball joints. When it came back from him, we cleaned it all up and epoxied it. We didn’t shoot any pix of me spraying that stuff…or painting it, suffice to say it got done.


Here’s a look at what we purchased for the brakes…along with brand new brake shoes, got all of it from NAPA except for the coils, think we spent about $50.00 for all of this.

We purchased a complete suspension rebuild kit from Eckler’s and the shorter coils and had it shipped. The kit saved us some money over buying all the stuff from NAPA. Those are the 2 inch shorter coils…I’ve measured the frame-to-the-floor as it sat on the ramps with the wheels and tires on with the stock coils in it…and will measure it again once the suspension is back together to see if the coils really do drop it 2 inches.

So, I proceeded to put it all back together. It didn’t take much over an hour to put both sides together. Sure is easier going together than coming apart…!!!


You can see the front suspension, minus the coils in this shot…all painted up and purty…!!!

That’s where the “what’s old is new again” headline on this updated installment comes into play…matter of fact, you could say the whole wagon is going to be “what’s old is new again”…!!!


In this shot you can see how I bolted the U-channel to the frame horns in order to lift the car to sit under it and spray the Lizardskin…

We couldn’t put the coils back in simply because the front end was now “weightless”…and we had to use a floor jack to compress the springs before we could compress the coils enuff to bolt the spindles to the upper ball joints.

We decided we’d better put the engine back in…that’d add about 700 or so pounds to the front…and if that didn’t work, I’d get Dan to sit on the U-Channel…and that’d add close to another 300 pounds…total of 1000 pounds…that should be able to hold the front of the car down to get the coils in then…!!!

BUT, we wanted to clean and paint the engine first…so that when it goes back in, it’ll be the last time…stay tuned…

Thanx for looking in…

R-

 

It's lookin good Roger and Dan. That young man decided to buy that 59 Nomad, prolly on his way to get it. It has a 348. with it. He wants economy ,I don't think that will happen with that boat anchor. It's common to get 9-10 mpg with a 348. I suggested he go to a Chevy V-6 . It seems after years of production since 1987, GM has all the bugs out of them since 2000 and should be a fabulous engine. Most all the parts are the same as SBC.

 

I found a picture of a Nomad wagon but I suspect it's not real .....

 

LOL...No, that Nomad is a photoshopped version...not real...!!! Not liking the roof line at all...and the tailgate and/or window...

Somewhere in the "Long roof" thread, there's a mighty fine version of a '60 "Nomad" by JamesD...

Found it on page 63 of that thread...



R-