The “2nd Best” ‘60 Chevy wagon build…

Looking good Roger. I drove my 60 to work today and my to do list is getting longer. I wish
that I was able to build it back like what your doing. Keep us updated on your progress.
You're doing stuff that I can use. Happy Trails, Mick

 

Damn you're moving along Roger! Makes me want to get off my ass and do things the doc says I can't yet. Well I can get some organizing and painting done if nothing else if the rain stops.

 

I'm assuming that rust encapsulator works well, or else you'd have quit using it! Do you use it mostly over surface rust and small pits? What's the name of the stuff?

Looking good so far, by the way. I bumped into you with the two Caddies at Moab last year, if the wagon's anything close to those it'll be fantastic.

 

Thanx Girchy...what were you driving in Moab...??? We didn't get to Moab this year becuz of all the snow we had around here...and over the mountains...it finally quit snowing here around Mid-May.

Yes, the encapsulator is good stuff...it's an Eastwood label called "Rust Converter" it kills the rust and turns it black...and I use it over surface rust...altho it does say you can use it over heavier stuff IF you wire brush it aggressively to remove the bigger chunks. Of course, here in ColoRODo, severe rust is almost non-existent, unless the old car has been brought in from states east of the Mississippi.


Good stuff...

Yesterday I removed the curved side quarter glass because the metal trim holding in the glass was rusted badly...under it, it is rusted as well. I'm going to use it on that to stop it from rusting under the rubber gasket before I put the glass back in.


Bad news, eh...??? Fortunately I know where there's replacements, including the curved glass.

Thanx for the compliment on the Caddys...hopefully the wagon will turn out as nice.

R-

 

Looking good Roger.
How many cars have you restored in your life so far?

 

Hey Ted, thanx. Going all the way back to about 1967/'68...I count about 14 (not including my brother's cars- and that's about 6 more) complete builds, altho I've owned
about 36 cars total...I tend to keep a car quite a while before I get rid of it...the last '57 I sold, in 2001, I owned since 1972...I have one more '57 to sell and I've owned it since 1984.

R-

 

Really dig your build threads and the cars that go with 'em Roger. Thanks for taking the time to cover so much of the process. Certainly helps us newer guys put things into perspective and plan accordingly.

 

Just found your post on your 60 chevy . I'm hauling home a 60 4-door nomad ..All you looking for parts ? ...Larry

 

Well Lar, you're about a week too late...I did need parts, but I found 'em local... a friend in Thornton, Indiana needs some, I'll shoot a PM to him so he can see this...

R-

 

As always your build thread is inspiring. I've decided (for better or worse) that I want to tackle as much of my 51 Ford build as possible after re-reading this thread again. Thanks for the inspiration, hopefully we'll cross paths somewhere again this year.

 

Roger, this thread should be required reading on the correct way to rebuild/refurb a full bodied car. So many cars get slapped together to get on the road instead of following how you did it.

 

You guys are with the program,,

 

I agree

 

The only way to learn something...is to tackle it yourself and get some experience...you'll find out soon enuff if it's the right way or the wrong way...and I'd bet there'll be lots of people (especially here on the HAMB) that'll give you pointers...good luck with it...

Thanx Trent...patience is always a virtue...and a great help when (re-)building ANY car...and of course, safety is always on my mind...I couldn't drive a car that was thrown together...!!!

R-

 

With the smaller things going well and getting taken care of…and yes, BillandLori, we like to break things up into smaller “victories,” things we can get done that it appears to be “going forward” on the build instead of backward steps…and we know there will be some of those but we try to eliminate most of them. What with the long Memorial Day weekend, we really hammered on the wagon…got a lot done…

So, in the immortal words of John Lennon, this is “Numba Nine, Numba Nine, Numba Nine…”

That is: ’60 Chevy wagon Update Number Nine.

Since we got the Lizardskin (and the rest of the undercoating) done on the bottom of the car, Dan grabbed the gas tank off the counter and asked “Are we ready to put this in…???” We’d gotten it back from the gas tank guy a couple of weeks ago all sealed up but still needed to sand it and paint it. Of course, Dan likes cleaning things so he took the tank outside and sanded the rust in anticipation of spraying on little primer and a little silver paint on it.


Dan sanding the rust so the primer would stick.


And me handling the primer job and the paint job…

We let it dry a few hours and then proceeded to put it back in its place…wasn’t hard at all, but of course, we did replace the very hard rubber flexible hose that was originally on the fill tube…Ya know, there’s a gripe of mine…you can’t go to an auto parts store and buy as many inches of rubber gasoline hose like you used to - now it comes in a 12” section, in a package…and it’s not cheap…so even if you only need 5 inches, like we did, you’ve gotta buy a package and cut it, then you’ve got an extra seven inches of hose laying around you’ll prolly never use again. I guess that's a "gotcha" these days...

It didn’t take long to slip the hose on and tighten the clamps down and cinch up the straps that hold the tank in…


Hahahahaha, I guess this is the best shot of the installed tank Dan could get…Dans’ “ballast” gets in the way sometimes…

And with that done and out of the way, we moved on to the tailgate. We hadn’t had the “new” tailgate on yet and didn’t know how it was going to fit…and let me tell you that sucker is heavy…!!! We parked a chair under it to help hold it up and proceeded to slide the tailgate onto the hinges…what fun that was…it took a bit of shoving and cursing to line up the bolt holes but we finally got it.


Hmmmmmmmmmm, not bad…sure does fill the hole there and kinda completes the back end of the wagon…

After we’d got the bolts in and semi-snug, we closed it and realized it was too low…so we opened it back up, loosened the bolts and adjusted it. We only had to do that once before we got it to fit. In the above pic you’ll notice the fin trim is missing and so is the side trim…after we’d got the tailgate on, we went and found the trim…I had to straighten the side trim a bit before it would fit…and of course, all of it needs polished…but that’ll come when we tear it all down for bodywork and painting…

With the tailgate on, I went to the shed and pulled out the bumper we’d purchased at the swap meet a year ago…pulled the brackets off the old bumper and had Dan sand them…also sanded the inside of the bumper and then painted it satin black…


Looks much better than rust…and IF someone looks, they’ll know the bumper was off and cleaned…right…??? Right…!!!

While the paint was drying, I went to my “baggy box” (the box I put all my labeled parts into) and found the bolts…seems when I pulled off the old bumper, I twisted off a couple of them (rusted tight) so had to round up some new bolts, washers and nuts…in a few minnits of digging thru bolt cans (coffee cans full of bolts and nuts) I had enuff to bolt the bumper back on…


In this pic you can see the tailgate trim in place and the side trim in place now and as you can see, the "swap meet" bumper is bolted in place.


And here’s Dan just starting to polish the bumper.

Now all we have to do is find the rear valances and clean them up…we’ll leave them in dark blue paint…but we noticed they were once white and under that Antique Gold…so those valances have been on a couple of cars…or have endured some paint jobs over the years…but with all that paint on them, they won’t rust out for a while anyway.

The next thing we’ll do is clean up the taillight housings and find the new lenses we bought at the Saber’s February swap meet. We’ll need to have them in place when we start wiring the car.

After we had the tailgate in place, I decided maybe I’d better tackle the last remaining piece of metalwork on the car…and that’d be the partial quarter, behind the door and finish the rocker. I’d replaced the inner structure a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of welding in a new handbuilt rocker.


Here you can see the inner rocker structure replaced. I had to do it in two four foot sections cuz my pal couldn’t fold a “z” shape into it in longer sections…four foot was his max.

But first, I had to have a piece of sheet metal measured, cut and folded to fill the gap in the rocker. So when I got that in, I could figure out exactly where the bottom of the quarter panel should sit. Sure didn’t want it crooked. I made a cardboard pattern, then trimmed out a piece of sheet metal, marked it for folding then cut off 2 inches of the rocker to send along with my metal so it could be folded to the proper angle. It came back the next day so I welded it in…

With the rocker healed, I could fit the partial quarter. I trimmed it to the size I needed and temporarily tacked it in place to see how it was going to line up.


Looks to be good enuff for me and the girls I go out with…not that they’d ever care if it was slightly crooked…but my bodyman sure would…!!!

I’ll come back and finish welding it in later…

While I was busy fitting sheet metal, Dan cleaned up the exhaust manifolds and painted them with some Por-15 Hi-Temp…then he bolted them temporarily in place until we purchase some header gaskets and find more header bolts.



That makes the engine look almost finished now…


Notice the Ed LeBrock carbinator setting there…we sold the huge Holley simply because I don’t like Holley carbs…never had any luck with them.

Anyway, that’s it for this update…check back in later and see where we’re at with the build and getting it back on the street…we may take some time off now that rod running weather is here (it finally quit snowing on May 3).

We've got a couple of small things to take care of on our Cadillacs...one is putting my gasoline tank back in and the other is putting cruise control in Dan's Caddy...but we’ll get back on the wagon soon enuff…!!!

R-

 

Methodically, correctly, intelligently plodding toward the finish line. Inspiring stuff.

 

Thanx Brer...slow but sure...Good thing we never get in a hurry, eh...???

R-

 

patiently waiting for vroom vroom...

 

Looking great Roger.

Thanks again for taking the time.

Inspiring me to work on my impala....

 

awesome yet again

 

I always enjoy the updates , Thanks .

 

Watching stuff done right. Well done.

 

Oh, I had a nice rental Hyundai Sonata! My wife and I were in town mostly for a mt biking trip, but we'd picked the weekend to at least see some of the car show. I didn't get to see the whole show (we left early on that Satuday), but I saw the Caddys parked on the street Friday afternoon and took a few shots.

Thanks for the info on the rust stuff, may need to use some of that on my OT truck!

 

It's good stuff...too bad we didn't meet...

R-

 

Roger,

Earlier you mentioned that you had installed 2" shorter coil springs from Ecklers. Are these springs stock from some other vehicle or are they made specifically for the 60 to lower it? I was going to go through the book at my local NAPA to see if I could find a shorter spring with similar demensions, but you might be able to short cut it for me.

thanks walt

 

Walt,

No, those springs are not from some other vehicle...they are for a '60 Chevy and made specifically for the '60 (but according to their catalog, they fit '60-64 Chevy. I doubt you'd find those at NAPA since Eckler's deals in '58-'72 Chevy stuff exclusively...they also have a website...www.lategreatchevy.com or 1-800-285-7461...

Hope this helps...

R-

 

How'd I miss this thread! Great detail on cleaning up and re-using things.... now I gotta go scrape and paint some rust!

 

On post #101 it looks like you have the long brake shoe on the front. Not picking as I can see you have the rear on OK.

 

YOU'RE correct Caddyman...!!! I wondered IF anyone would notice that...but you're the first one. I first put the shoes on that way then realized the long shoe goes at the rear...of course, this was after I shot the pic...so I just used the pic and wanted to see if anyone noticed.

On my '55 Caddy build, my Borgeson u-joints in the steering column/box were questioned simply because I didn't have them in "sync" when I first put them together...and finally someone noticed and questioned it...

Both items have been fixed since.

It's good to know that there are those out there that can pick stuff out of a photo and tell the owner to correct it...

Thanx for you help...!!!

R-

 

I remember my first brake job as a kid. I take all the brake shoes off the car & go get new ones. Then i see there are long & short shoes. Go buy my 1st Chilton manual & learn how they go on!