55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

Most of my purchases are local CL or online auction. For the body tools I have Snap-on, Mac Tools, Plomb, Proto, Martin, etc... Most people have some steep pricing on ebay, but if you are persistent you can find them at a decent price..

[MP&C]

Today Kyle finished up another loose end, tying in the bottom of the NOS quarter panel.. A bit of hammer bumping to get the panels aligned...





Plug weld holes drilled and filled.....














Then he turned his attention to duplicating a second half for the front divider panel for the rear seat.














Using the Erco kick shrinker....





Needs a bit of fine tuning still but he's getting there...





And I was making progress on more blocking of the front end body parts, at least until an emergency phone call from one of our tenants indicated some water pipe issues from the recent low temps... This is what I was greeted with....





The hole to the left is where the plumber had put the pipe through, right against the outside wall. Then the brainiac insulators failed to caulk, and then put insulation over TOP of the pipes, keeping them well acclimated to any outside temps. I cut some access holes in the wall and relocated the one pipe farther away from the outer wall board where insulation could go between the pipe and the wall, as it should have been done from the get go.











And here's the culprit...








I'll let things dry out overnight, and finish tomorrow with adding a bit of caulk and insulation. Drywall/painter due in early this week to close things up..

[Cape Codder]

After buying tools for body work for the last 41 years I can say that Mac and Snap On are about the same quality for hammers and dollys. I have some Martin dollys too and use them the most. I use a slap file a lot for final finishing of larger areas. I think if I were to start fresh I would be looking on Craigs list for used tools from guys retiring as they are as good if not better at much less money. If I died next week I know my wife wouldn't have a clue as to what I have invested in my shop but would likely take whatever was offered.

[MP&C]

Originally Posted by Cape Codder

If I died next week I know my wife wouldn't have a clue as to what I have invested in my shop but would likely take whatever was offered.

Isn't that the truth!


More work on the rear seat supports.. Once the welds by the tunnel relief were dressed, the sharp corners (inside and out) were removed to help prevent any cracks from starting..











Then on to fabbing up the other side..








Kyle using the tipping die, I was relegated to bead roller powered option...














The two short flanges were bent in the press brake.. Then on to shrinking the flanges in the Erco. You'll have to visualize this one as we didn't get pictures.


Comparing the two...





Test fit...





Seat cushion will need a widening kit..

[Mjminino]

Oh man i wish I had your set up! Rock on

[reaper71]

Very nice work guys...

[Dieselwrencher]

Those seat skirt pieces turned out great!

[Advanced Design]

Bummer about the frozen pipe. Really nice work on the seat mounts.

[Frizzle Fry]

Originally Posted by MP&C

Seat cushion will need a widening kit..

Impressive work as always!

[ricott]

I will echo everyone else - thanks so much for taking the time to document this build. Your metalworking ideas and processes will make my life much easier when I get back to my truck.

[MP&C]

Sorry, been slipping with the updates. Let me catch up here...


Our upholsterer paid us a visit and discussed interior components. We are going to make some arm rests for the rear seat similar to what is used in the 55 convertible. To make room, we're going to keep the bottom seat cushion it's original width and just add foam to the corners to form the radius. So the sides for the seat risers were trimmed once more and test fitted...








The center of the seat riser was trimmed for the new size while leaving the flanges intact for later trimming..








Relief cuts added to tweak the radius, test fit into the car, and the top flanges clamped in place.. While clamped, the bottom flanges are trimmed for welding.











Copper backer made for welding up the corner..














All clamped up for the next one...





Skipping ahead a bit (photographer is really slipping here... )


Seat riser completed, test fit of the rear seat...





Corners of the lower cushion will have some foam added to fill out to a radius. Seat back will have some end cushions added to match the width of the lower seat..

Blocking out of the driver's door is the last to go, and all the front sheet metal will be ready to come off for the next round of epoxy primer..





And here's the before and after of the frozen water pipe damage...








A bit of paint touch up and this will be done!

[MP&C]

Took off on March 11th for a few days at Dan Pate's in Southern MN. Well, it was only about a day and a half, but once you include the travel time...

To preface, I had posted a WTB ad for a 52" shear and Dan had sent me a PM about the one he had in his shop. It was getting replaced with a 6' machine. Dan's hosts a yearly metal shaping workshop and he suggested I come to his spring meet and pick it up from there. This conflicts with a mother's day event that I must attend every year (annual yard sale....I'm the furniture mover ), so I picked a window of opportunity that left minimal chance for the white powdery stuff falling from the sky. Namely, this past week. I departed Southern MD at about 12:45 am on Wednesday and drove through (rather un-eventful), arriving at Dan's at about 8:45 pm the same day. I recommend Mountain Dew and sunflower seeds for such an undertaking.


I'm looking forward to a break from the 55 wagon and to help out on some of the many challenging projects that Dan has shown us on the metalshaping sites over the years. So Dan, what have you got to work on? Oh, this car here over in the corner, he says......



I restrained my enthusiasm as best I could in true Charlie Brown fashion



(just kidding Dan)


We walked down the hill to the shop the next morning and Dan had experienced some fitment issues with some of the panels on the 55 and asked that I take a look. RichardK showed up mid-morning and we proceeded to take measurements and cross diagonals nine ways to Sunday. We verified these to a sample car sitting out in the yard, and still didn't have that ah-ha moment. Everything we checked seemed to be within factory specs, although that was pretty loose in 1955.

My plans were to work around the shop for a day, load up the shear the next morning (Friday), and leave around noon. I have a cousin, Nancy E. Rueckert, who lives in Litchfield, MN. She had been in an industrial accident at work and was now paralyzed, and I was going to visit her that evening. Dan wisely pointed out that we should load the shear to have everything ready to go, and then worry about other shop activity.

So here is the shear prior to the John Deere moving it...



...and for anyone with sufficient space available for one of these, Dan has this nifty equipment hoist...



As there was some rain forecast for the east coast on Friday, the shear got some appropriate attention..



It was about time for me to get cleaned up for the visit to my cousin's, and Richard mentioned that he had a buddy who lived in Howard Lake, a short drive before Litchfield. Since the truck was hooked to the trailer, he offered to drive me to Howard Lake, where he could visit his friend and I could continue to Litchfield. What a true gentleman, and as I've seen with Dan, genuine MN hospitality.

Had a nice visit with Nancy, and I think our conversations got carried away that when I looked at my watch I was worried Richard would put out an APB on his car

Here's Nancy with her husband Dan.. (to eliminate confusion, let's call him Dan2)



I made it back to Howard Lake and got a chance to meet Richard's friend, Jan Gilmer. He's well known in the Midget racing world and even more so, since his retirement, in his meticulous reproductions of 1/4 scale RC replicas. Here are some pictures of a restored Midget from 1956...







.....along with Richard's thread posted here about the body he built for the car.. A work of art to say the least.

http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=2768

And here are some links on Jan Gilmer for those interested...

http://www.herald-journal.com/archiv...Australia.html
http://www.quarterscalelegends.com/gilmer/gilmer.htm

Jan has a small machinist shop and still produces amazingly accurate 1/4 scale reproductions to this day. They are highly sought after, and after seeing them in person, I can see why.

Richard and I returned to Dan's with only one close call with a couple of Minnesota's 4 legged Bambi creatures.. Even as late as it was, Dan greeted me and I think we talked of more metalshaping stories for the next couple hours. My day job has me heading to Oahu in the near future, and he was telling me of his visit to the only Pullmax owner on the island of Oahu, let's call him George. So I hope to meet up with George on my next visit to HI.


After breakfast we headed down to Dan's shop. Back on the 55, it wasn't until we took the height dimension of the windshield that we came up with the answer, there was a quite a difference there. Dan had installed a new roof on this from a donor car, one of the seams being in the A post. We found a slight excess in vertical made for quite a jump in the windshield opening. So with a bit of slicing, our height adjustment at the a-pillar made for quite an improvement and a more consistent and parallel gap to the door behind it..





Since I wasn't going to be at Dan's spring event, he spent quite a bit of time showing me some shop tricks...

Band Saw "guide" for cutting convex shapes on the band saw... Slides into the blade and gets bolted to the table.... Essentially moves the table surface for those oddball shapes that don't fit the table..





Linear stretch dies for the Pullmax....





The cantilevered and jack bolted design allows you to adjust the stretch for a tight radius, and the pointed ends allow you to get into the corner as tightly as needed...



Adjustable backstop for thinning a panel for sharper bends



Delrin die to use for panel beading.. in conjunction with MDF forms.. (partially unscrewed to show threads)



"tank roll" or 45* radius tipping dies for the Pullmax... 3 pieces were laser cut in 1/4" stock and welded together to form the 3/4 shank..





Flanging/step die using an MDF guide....



Imagine this for a bed side...



At this time I think my target departure time had come and gone.. But no visit to Dan's shop is complete until you've used the Yoder....



All packed up, ready to head east.



I made mention to Dan that Friday the 13th was not a good day to travel. About halfway down I39 in Indiana proved this. I had just passed by a semi and pulled back into the slow lane in front of him when I noticed a set of headlights coming toward me.... in the fast lane I had just moved out of. I made out of that rather lucky. About a mile down the road some scattered auto debris and one car against the center divider showed they weren't as lucky. Everyone was OK, and I think most of the damage was from them swerving to miss the clown heading north in the southbound lane. Well upon arriving home, the rain added to the snow from the previous week has made my driveway a swamp. Looks like we will unload the trailer when this has dried up a bit.


I personally want to thank Dan for his hospitality, and all the shop tricks he took time out to show me. Special thanks to Richard for driving me two hours (each direction) to visit my cousin. Two upstanding guys for sure..

[MP&C]

Progress from this past Wednesday..... Got the 55 moved into the paint booth....





.....but only temporarily, not quite ready for paint yet.. Shuffling some stuff around to make room for bringing in the new shear on Saturday, and needed the car out of the way. The new shear is just shy of 7 feet long, so it wouldn't fit in the same spot as the old one without moving something else as well. In measuring the tool box, it looked like a good fit in that spot, so moving it and the kick shrinker will make a better spot for the new shear against the back wall.











.....and as we haven't used the radial arm drill press in over a year, I think that's getting ready to go on CL to make room for the planishing hammer, when that gets finished up..

[MP&C]

This past Saturday morning started at my brother-in-laws to pick up the new shear. It's been parked in his garage since the week before while my driveway has been drying out..





Here's his El Camino project, narrowing the frame rails in the rear....





One of the neighbors a few miles down the road has a Pettibone forklift. I had him lined up to help lift the shear off the trailer today. He made it about 1/4 mile and had the brakes locking up and frying, so we had to back up and punt. Another buddy has a skid steer with the fork attachment, but the shear was on his trailer. So we dropped off the trailer/shear at the shop, went and got another trailer and picked up the skid steer.. I will say this shear is about at the limits of the lifting capacity of this skid steer, the back end was trying to go airborne when lifting it off the trailer. So we inched it up in the air and then pulled the trailer out from under it. Here's the placement...








Now just need to finish the electrical hookup...

[duallyjams]

I'll have to re read this BIG update

[oldman3]

Great story, love the tools...Jim

[MP&C]

Got some electrical work done this evening, wired up the phase converter first, checked the voltage, then wired up the shear..








When I went to Minnesota to pick up the shear, I noticed that Dan had a couple pair of snips laying on the shear.. Didn't put two and two together at first.








He had the shear installed without the back gauge due to the space requirements, and I had even less shop room than he did. This is where the snips come in. Mark your panel for the cut line...





Use the red shears to make a slight cut on the right side of the panel....








.....and the green shears to make a slight cut on the left side...





Now you have the cut line "marked" on both ends...





Slide the panel into the shear just past the cut edge, then gently pull back until it stops against the lower blade...











Now shear. No back gauge or second person to help sight in a full width sheet needed.. No fuss no muss. Thanks to Dan for the helpful hint!


While I've been playing electrician, Kyle has been plugging along in getting various pieces media blasted so they can get epoxy primed....

[Cape Codder]

Kyle does a nice job at sandblasting, I could never seem to get employees to get metal that clean without sending them back out multiple times.



Bob

[MP&C]

He's learning thorough pretty well.


While the wagon was still in the booth, the floor and welding table got the semi-annual cleaning....





even the top of the tool box...





Kyle had finished a bunch of media blasting so they were hung up in the booth to get ready for some epoxy, likely next week....








Kyle used the ball end carbide in a die grinder to remove the lower baffle of the core support, so we can get rid of the remaining rust there...











Starting on the replacement piece, we'll get this finished next time..





Everything back in place....

[Advanced Design]

Great adventure and a nice trick for the shear line.

[swamp rat]

Per the band saw leg, we have used them at my work for years but we made them out of a 3/4" sheet of high grade plywood, just lay it out on the plywood and incorperate a
1" high leg that runs to the front of the saw table and C clamp it in place, pretty stable for sheet metal work. I guess you could make them out of just about anything.

[MP&C]

Our Saturday progress had us making more painting fixtures, this time for the rear gates. The lift gate used some square tube and riv-nuts for attachment...











Fixture was made to hold lift gate in same position as on car for spraying...








More blocking....





Tail gate painting fixture....

















Then a bit of scuffing to get ready for the next coat of epoxy....

[swamp rat]

I really like how you come up with solutions like the tail gate fixture, as well as all the other home made tools and dies ect..

[Dieselwrencher]

Great work! Do you have a goal date to have the car shot by?

[MP&C]

Attempting to make the August TriFive Nationals, but my day job and a travel schedule may cause some interference....