Projects Truck into a coupe- My next pet project

Thanks !

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9665041#post9665041

This needs to be here too.
A thread I started when I realized the problem with the quarter tops

 

6 words from Winston Churchill

Never, never, never, never, give up !

 

Here's how I'm fixing the problems in 239,240 and 242

This is a template to follow the curvature of the rear 1/4s and established by multi angle viewing. I had lots of help with the eyeballs and mouths of the those interested in helping. It's really amazing how different folks will see different things.

After ducking around with it for days, really looks good as far as flow and natural curves. You'd think this should be easy but its not at all. And that's just to get one side, its even harder to get the other side to match. Damn quarters flop around like a cross between jello and a chicken with its head cut off.

Now with the curvature measured and plotted a 1/2 x 1 reinforcement was formed to follow the compound curved of the plot. Then an exact opposite was made.

 

The pieces were clamped and tacked to the inside of the quarters.

 

Looks great , NICE!!!

 

Other side same way, and best of all matching curve

 

This is how the quarters sit. At this point all I'm worried about is from the bead line down following the flow and smooth curve with no dive into the B pillar or door. Also didnt want a tortured bulge of metal under the window/roof to quarter junction. There will be more cuts and full pieces.

I made 1 cut on this, and the gap now is far from uniform. It's about an inch at the top of the trunk, over 2" where the pinch/dip used to be and 1-3/4 " at the bottom of truck. Also had to drop the tails to get the profile bead to line and transition from the door without looking kinky.

 

The very end of the tail needs some dolly work but the rest is good.

 

So tried setting the roof back on. Since I'm going bottoms up on this, I set the bottom of the 1/4 window where it wants to be.
Kind of strange the roofline is aiming for the street lights and hard to imagine that this was ever welded together.

 

Just watching this thread tuckers me out.

 

Good thing I'm not you then huh? Lmao
Ill have time to be tired later but right now I have got a lot to get done.

Today's adventure is getting metal to go from the bead to the trunk opening.

 

Hey I could do it, the only things I'm lacking besides stamina are the skills, tools and knowledge necessary.

I'm pretty sure my Bantam has suffered similar ills underneath it's bondo coat. It's a dilemma, finding someone who would straighten it out as well as you're doing would be hard to find, particularly after all the body shop horror threads that come up. And how do you quote a price and time frame to fix this stuff, has to be an open checkbook and time frame.

 

Thanks !

Thanks !

I have no idea if a quote on something like this is possible.
It would be a "not to exceed" quote based on Time and materials I guess.
Not to exceed 2 million and we will work back from that number.

Starting from scratch without having to decipher and fix old work is a lot easier I think.

 

I just heard thru pm that this car got some ink in rebelrodz - July 2014 issue.
Not what I'm doing here, but all the stuff I had to fix by the guy that took my money.

If the crap I cut apart, cut off, grind off and had to throw away was worthy of any ink leaves me wondering what the hell is out there in our hot rod world.
I haven't seen it yet, but I bet there are no pics like this one .
You know with center string lines, levels, braces, maybe measuring a few things.

I lost track of how long we've been working on getting these quarters positioned. It's such a dance and then the 47 other things that you gotta do that pop up and don't involve the cars. You think you got it then find out you are only getting close. The closer you get the more you realize how far off you still are. But but but I really think they are where they need to be

 

That last pic... what the....? Is something still Katy Waumpus there? It looks like the top right corner of the trunk opening is about 3/8" higher than the left. Optical illusion?

 

Katy whompased picture I hope.
The levels are dead nuts but my camera grid lines were off.
In this crop the levels should be parallel with the top and bottom edges of the photo
And my center grid line wasnt lined up either. Ill grab another and change that pic later.



Here the center line should be parallel with the edge.
I guess I was standing realyl off for this pic.

 

Latest efforts are tedious and the progress isn't really that noticeable but it needed done before going forward.

Fabbed up the inner rockers
Fabbed the rear 1/4 patches for the area in front of the tires.
Got the 1/4s, patches and rockers all welded in. Had to re make the inner wheel house and set those.

Next will be to cut the new wheel to fit the lay of the real quarters and get those in. Once that's finished I think some more major progressive movements will be in store.

This one is stretching my skill level, trying my patience, taxing my budget and occupying too much space in my life right now. I've got chunks and pieces scattered everywhere and trying to establish locations of the ass end of this car in the middle of thin air is a challenge. There's sooo much to watch and its all a variable until everything wiggles its self into place, sorta like jello.

 

Coming along .

Got the wheel houses cut and ran them thru the bead roller for the step where they meet the wheel lip. All fit in real real nice.

Got the rear sub rails made and welded in where they attach to front sub rails and rear wheel house.

Not that its next, but its almost ready for the floor now.

 

Inner rockers.
No water pipe

 

Rear sub-rails

 

This has been one hell of a fight. I respect your perseverance in making the car right.

 

Hell of a job ya got going there Vicky, looks good.
It's rather obvious the last builder has never been upside down making sparks with the roof.

 

Thanks fellas !
It's nice to hear and I'm grateful to have a place to share this adventure and what I'm doing.

 

Today's plan is to get the area of the 1/4 windows moving along. Almost all custom made parts to blend that into and over the doors and down into the top of the rear 1/4. I've been making these parts when I had time, lets see if I can get them in.

 

Here's the mission

 

Here's the parts.

From my guesstimating, ill need to chop about 1" more from the 1/4 window to get the rain bead in the right spot because it was all jacked before I cut it apart.

Later for the next steps- That means ill need to cut it above the rain bead and bring the roof up to get the roof line back.

 

Good start on the drivers side.
Can't see much of it, but there's a lot of work to get this far

 

Looks much better along the bottom of that window and up the door now.

Gonna bring the top around to meet up.