1968 Chevy Bel Air Wagon Project

[mingoman]

I'm in! I owned a 68 396 4 speed wagon 35 years ago lol.
Looking forward to how this one turns out.

[flatbed67]

Thank you BossHogg69 for the encouraging words
Nice to have you on board, mingoman, I hope you won't be disappointed.
Once again, this is a repair project, not a restoration. I work on a budget, and
am an amateur just trying to make do with my limited tools and skills.

So, on with it. I worked some with the tail en since my last post. First i
welded some scrap pieces to the outermost corner of the tail, and tried pulling
to the side. No matter how hard I hammered away with the heavy slide
hammer, nothing gave. In the end I gave up, and cut it all away:



Then I drew a template from the right hand side, and welded in the new tail strip.
After a few spot welds I chacked the fit, and all was good, so I welded it all
and ground the welds. Now it looked good, and I called it a night.

The next day, when showing the pics to a buddy, I noticed that it really didn't
look that good, so when I got home I checked with the template I had made
before.



I was right. Apparently the whole thing had warped badly as I was welding
it. The green part shows how far off the curve was and the white arrow
shows where the little sharpie V should point at.
Luckily it was pretty pliable,and i got it sorted. I cut out som pieces for the
bottom part to fix it all. After I had welded a four or five spots I chacked
again, and... Rats! it had moved again.
I was close to giving up for the night, but hated the thought of being at work
knowing I hadn't figured this one out yet, and started over. Cut out the few
spot welds, and hammered away until I was satisified with the fit. Then lying
under the rear of the car, cut pieces to fit, and slowly spotwelded them in,
checking the alignment and all after almost every spot was welded.



Rear corner seen from below. Also visible in this shot is the scrap pieces of
sheet metal spotwelded to the corner, that I pulled with the slide hammer and
used for grounding the welder.

This rear corner is welded now,and just waits for grinding.
As usual, this dented corner took a lot more work than anticipated to get it done. About four times. I should remember that

[Advanced Design]

I am impressed with the dedication to get the shape correct. Well done!

[BossHogg69]

Now that's what I call dedication!!!

[flatbed67]

Thank you Advanced Design and BossHogg69, I aim to do it
right. No use botching this job as it's going to get painted afterwards, and it's
not fun if it looks all crooked when painted.

Got some time to finish the work on the rear of the wagon this weekend. I was
going to start grinding the welds saturday, when I discovered two huge rust
holes in the tail gate.
A deep sigh, and a thought that this will take me a couple weeks to do hit me.
On with it.
I measured the big patch inte middle, and cut it out. Then made a bend on the
sheet metal brake. Some persuasion later, I had a part that fit nicely. I cut
away the rust, and adjusted until I could start welding. A few tacks in this pic.
On the other side the sheet metal was hammered and dollied flush with the
original folded skin, and rosette welded through holes that I had drilled previously.
The green arrow points at some more rust.



It was a busy saturday, so I only got this patch welded and partly ground. I
barely looked at the other rust hole, and even thought of using fiberglass
filler, it was in such an awkward place behind the hinge.

Sunday I looked at the problematic hole, and decided to give it a try. I cut as
much as I could with my small angle grinder with a worn down cutting wheel,
and then cut the rest with a rotating file. It worked perfectly, albeit a bit
slowly. I measured and cut a patch piece for it, again hammered to a nice
shape, and welded it in. Grinding the welds was as hard as cutting the hole,
but the same grinder with another file made grinding the welds pretty easy. I
sanded the coarse-ish surface with my not-a-dremel and a sanding flap wheel
of sorts. Those are toys when it comes to this kind of work, but it made a
difference, and my hourly rate is very low



Here the welds are ground. There's also a little patch on the rear quarter,
partly behind the hinge. This all was time consuming, but the result is okay, and I'm very happy to have it done.

[flatbed67]

Some time has passed since I last posted any progress. I'm doing this project in real time, so sometimes less happen.
After the tail gate had been welded and ground, it was time to turn to the
bumper. It too was a bit deforemed, the drivers side outer part was bent
forward. The inner structure is pretty sturdy, so I cut it to have an easier job
bending the end part backwards. This worked, as the bumper wasn't too hard
to bend now. After test mounting the bumper on the car, it looked much better, but
was too far to the left. Moving it over to the right forced me to move the left
hand side bumper mount about 1/4" to the left. The arrow points at the most
ovious place to see this.



With the mount welded, the bumper fit much better to the rear of the wagon.
After this pic was taken, the bumper has been slightly straightened as it's a
bit crooked in the middle here.



The ends also fit very nicely to the indentations in the rear quarters, so I
consider this repair a success so far.

[flatbed67]

Since it's colder at the door, and also because my garage is a bit too short, the
car was turned around for working on the front.
The front of this car is all askew, the lower part of the grille is almost an inch
too far to the driver's side, and the lights of that side are too far set back by
about 3/4". This car has had more than its fair share of fender benders and
mishaps. The result is not nice, and it's hard to tell where to start. So I just
took a deep breath and dived right in.



The front bumper came off pretty easily. The bottom part of the grille is
attached to the bumper, some hammering remedied it not being centered.
Funny enough, this was all but impossible to accomplish with the bumper
mounted on the car, but with everthing unbolted it was a cinch.
With things hammered and adjusted, I was almost chocked at how off the left
hand side bumper end looked. It wasn't like this before.... Was it?



At this time measures were taken, and the whole thing removed again. A few
tries later the bumper fits much better.

[flatbed67]

Some little tinkering was done along with the bumper work. I tried polishing the lower grille,
and the results look pretty promising. Not good by a far cry, but better than rattle can
silver for sure. I can always paint the bright stuff later if I get tired of it, but it's harder to
unpaint bumpers and grille once it's done.



Having a real bad "before" situation helps

Most of the trim and emblems are removed for polishing or sanding.

Some new bits have been clicked home off the net, like new front turn lights,
pedals, arm rests, window cranks etc. Those bits will make the car look well
maintained, even if the bright work is a bit on the shabby side.

[flatbed67]

As the gray paint is flaking off petty badly in places, most of it will be removed. I
was going to have the body soda blasted, but I'm too cheap, and am paying in
elbow grease now. The roof and pillars are done, as is the right hand side front
and rear fenders. Still just scratching the surface... Pun intended.

[mongocanfly]

Looking good flatbed....if your removing all your paint have you tried a 3M bristle disc...they're not cheap, but they sure do remove paint good...almost like just wiping the paint off....and no metal damage..they make them in the roloks and for hand grinders...sure beats hand sanding

[Advanced Design]

Nice work Flatbed. How did you polish the grill?

Handy recommendation Greg. I’ve never used one though would be handy.

[mongocanfly]

only downside to the bristle brush is cost and life of use...but it works like magic...

[flatbed67]

Thank you mongocanfly, for the tip. The paint is chipping badly on this
car, and is coming off pretty easily. I just sand it off with an oscillating grinder
with 80 grit sanding discs. I tried 40 grit too, but it doesn't help much, as any
paint left is so deeply scratched that a lot of sanding has to go into getting
those scratches out. I then sand it all smooth with 180, so that the epoxy primer will
adhere, and hopfully not shrink into the scratches. The roof seems to be
pretty good, so it was mostly just sanded for adhesion.
I plan to spray on a nice coat of epoxy first, then block it and fill as needed
with poyester filler ( much like bondo I guess), block and fill, block and fill,
then epoxy again, block it down and then final paint and clear. I'll paint the
final paint in a nearby paintshop, where I worked for a year a few years ago.
It's well worth the cost to get the car painted in a dust free environment,
with a good spray gun, mine is cheap, and not good for finer work.

Thank you Advanced Design, I have an abrasive nylong bristle bruch like
this one...



... to knock off the worst pitting, and then I polish with a buffer on a powerdrill
using Autosol polish. Speaking of which, Autosol for Aluminum works pretty well
on chrome, and doesn't dull it as coarser versions will.

[flatbed67]

Slow work, this paint stripping. It took some time to make a hole in the garage
wall and build a system for evacuating the dust too.
The drivers side is done when it comes to paint stripping. Most is sanded down
to the bare metal, and finished with 180 grit for perfect paint adhesion without
risk of shrinkage into the gritgrooves.



The front fender is dented, and this will be adressed before the epoxy goes on.
The severely dented, shrunk and hammered hood is also ready for epoxy.



I'm assuming a lot of filler will have to be used in order to make the hood look
like it's supposed to...
Detail work is done according to inspiration. My aim to make the wagon look a
bit nicer than just your usual respray, so details like nice paint inside the filler
door feels important.
The chrome is pretty much shot on this car, but I hope to be able make it
look tidy anyway.

[Ol Blue K20]

Subscribing to watch....I love the wagons....

[flatbed67]

I was aiming to get the right hand side doors ground today, but decided
that making a cycone for the shop vacuum would be a good investment for
future sanding. Which there will be lots of, given the shape of the wagon.

The little ash vacuum I used without filter for the sander quit yesterday. Here's what it looked like:



when I took out the motor, I wasn't surprised that it didn't take long for it to burn
as all the debris that otherwise would have stuck in the filter actually went
through the motor for cooling. The vacuum dying was to be expected anyway,
though not this fast.
The filter in the shop vacuum clogs every few minutes
when sanding, so a cyklone had to be acquired some way.
I decided to cut off the motor portion, and glued in a bucket in its place. I
found some tubing that fit the vacuum hoses in the scrap bin, and after some cutting,
welding, pop riveting and gluing this is the result:



The vacuum connects to the top, and the sander to the nice exhaust pipe,
this will create a whirl (cyklone) inside the bucket, and hopefully make the
dust settle on the bottom, and mostly clean air to exit upwards.
Who knows, it might even work

[flatbed67]

Hi Ol Blue K20, nice to have you on board. To me, a wagon always looked at least as
good as a coupe, and many times is more practical in use.

Please all comment on my project/work/progress, the comments are a real source of inspiration for me.

[flatbed67]

The simple cyklone works okay, and with most of the car stripped, I felt like
doing something fun for a change. Paint stripping is entertaining at best, but not
fun...
I had planned to paint the bumpers on the wagon, but since the front bumper
came out better than expected, I was going to give the rear bumper a try too.
The result is actually much better than I had dared expect, and I'm pleased
with the result. It took a lot of polising, and you can still see where water has
run made kind of paths. I assume a lot of polishing could get this off, but for
now this is what we have. As paint and clear from some previous repair had
been over sprayed on the bumper, and my chemical paint stripper didn't work
on it,it was polished off. All in all time consuming, but definitely worth the while.
I had started polishing before the "before" pic was taken, but the difference is
still obvious.

[flatbed67]

I think the new tail lights would look much better if they were sunk in a bit.
A friend made a simple tool for pressing sheet metal for them.
I cut ten pieces of 8" x 8" sheet metal with a hole drilled in the center. I brought
them with me to a friend who has a 50 ton press, and pressed them.



I then welded in a washer with a 1/4" hole, to have something to guide the hole
saw.



Then cut the holes for the light assemblies.



After a bit of filing, and drilling the two small mounting screw holes, a lamp
could be test mounted. Oh yes, this will look good.

[flatbed67]

A small, but important issue is the outer tail lights: You can not get to them
from the inside, and the 1950 Pontiac lamps are changed from the inside.
A visitor in my garage pondered if one could make a twist in system for them.
It felt like a reasonably good idea, so Some 20 little tabs for all the tail lights
were cut and filed, three tabs for each light assembly.
Then a mounting was made, by cutting slots for the tabs. The tabs were
welded to a lamp housing, and the whole thing seemed to make sense.
That is until I tried to remove the tail light from the mounting plate. It was hard work
for sure! As the chrome bezel is round, it was almost impossible to remove the
light, without helping from the other side.



The next day a new plan had emerged, and back in the garage, the mounting
studs were removed, and the holes were drilled through the bezel. Small M4
stainless screws with ground down heads were used, and proved pretty
stealthy.



The pic is a bit out of focus, but you can see that the screw heads don't
show that much. Only the outermost tail lights will be mounted like this.

[BossHogg69]

I LOVE the taillights! awesome ideas! Thanks for showing the stuff that DIDN'T work out - that helps just as much as showing what did!!

[flatbed67]

After the outer tail light mounting was sorted it was time to plan the new tail
lights, and start cutting.
First, the general idea was tried using masking tape, a ruler and a sharpie.



I tried to position the lights as close to eachother as possible. To achieve this,
the outer tail light was moved slightly inward, and about half an inch up.
In this pic the first hole is cut, and the new piece taped in to try the fit.



A few hours of slow welding and a lot of grinding later, the rear looks like six round tail lights would fit.



I decided on the color for the wagon now. I've been thinking of the look of
the old Volkswagen vans that electricians and the phone company used in the
early seventies. A grayish blue will look surprising when glossy, and look
suitably different from the usual light blue and green metallics these cars
often are painted in. Here's a color sample:

[Getter-Done]

Wow
Nice job on the taillights.
I like it.
You made that bumper look new again also.
That is going to be one Nice Wagon!!!

[flatbed67]

Thank you BossHogg69 and Getter-Done for the nice words and
support.
Already in the second post in this thread this little project was getting out of
hand, when I decided to do more than just a little patina job. I was going to
have it done by Christmas. As it's already more than two months past that, I
now hope to get at least the outside done before that all important goal in this
part of the world, the Mayday cruising (1st of May), which on a good year can
gather up to about 500 American cars in a single file parade rolling through town.
You just gotta be there I've been there many times since my first in 1986, when I drove a '77 Chevrolet Beauville.

So bodywork, paint, exhausts and front springs in less than two months..?

[Ol Blue K20]

Good looking job on the tail lights. I hope you can make your goal in May.