55 Wagon Progress

[Advanced Design]

Great idea and nice work. That is the smoothest operating hood hinge I've ever seen.

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys. Yeah, real pleased with how the hood is now closing.


Tonight we worked on some more front end pieces. The drivers side inner fender extension had been slightly mangled, looks like perhaps a tire ran over road kill or something and threw it up, breaking some spot welds.











Kyle had already worked on straightening the lower bracket, and after I re-welded the broken spot welds, he got into some metal bumping to repair the rest of the mangle in the sheet metal.


Meanwhile, with the hood fitment about done it was time to weld up the rear corners after the rear flanges in the corners had been persuaded forward to provide consistent gap across the back edge of the hood. The Crud Thug was used to clean out the inside corners for welding..








A copper flat bar was trimmed to fit the inside corner snugly to help manage weld penetration where inside cleanup wouldn't be needed.





Welded and dressed....





Then the peak on the hood was addressed, after peaking the front of the hood awhile back I had yet to fix the low areas. A consistent crown would be essential on provide good support for the hood, and there were a few low spots along the peak. To be able to match up the low areas, a magnetic rule was placed on the underside and top. After sighting the peak and finding the lows, they were marked and the measurement notated.











Flipping the hood over, the same dimensioned areas were persuaded downward. A screen door tool was used, but proved to be rather ineffective.





Time to break out the heavy duty implements, a rounded/radiused cold chisel and a dead blow hammer, along with the small shot bag held against the opposite side....








That worked better, and showed dramatic improvement. Still a bit more to do, but we're running out of time this evening, so we'll finish this up on Saturday..