55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

Final update of the class, pictures from yesterday.

Wheeling door skin for a sport coupe:










Annealing copper wire to use as rivets:














Cover plate for military vehicle:





Paper pattern











Tuck shrinking on post dolly








Forming upper quarter reverse














Wheel opening bead detail added











Tipping flange with vise grips with jaws that have been smoothed...





Stretching





























Here's a video of Peter demonstrating lead loading aluminum:


https://youtu.be/MSfK9XhnLeM



Loading stumps for the journey to their new home..














This class has been a blast, Peter is a wealth of knowledge and experience, and we are honored to have him share and pass this on to others. Anxiously looking forward to next year!

[Bomp]

Thanks for the pics and the vid.
Amazing

[oldman3]

Really glad to look at pics and the video, thanks...Jim

[MP&C]

thanks guys!


Finishing up the scooter fender..,





Marked for trimming...











Tipping wheel to set the side flange....











Profile comparison, front to rear...








.....and side to side...








about ready for shipping to AZ.....





.... and Kyle is dressing some welds and weld touch up to get the body ready for media blasting...








Hey. you can still walk in this place...

[oldman3]

Fender turned out great...Jim

[MP&C]

Thanks Jim!


Not much to show, still working on grinding welds and filling pin holes... A good testament to using Tig or O/A welding


Also welded up/shaved the upper firewall seam....








Lesson for this evening is to watch welding around stuff mounted JUST BEHIND the firewall!

[Low Elco]

Great stuff. Wish I was there.

[MP&C]

Well, more welding, grinding, and then we decided to give the roof insulation removal a try. Picked a spot and dumped on some lacquer thinner, which softened it up nicely and then made a sticky mess. So we put the putty knives aside and tried the paint scrapers..... without solvents. Dry removal was definitely better...














Also got another shipment of shirts in from Bonehead Graphics...





and promised the owner a modified set of spot welder tips to tackle his own wagon roof repairs...

[MP&C]

Well time to finish up Randy's scooter fender(s). The original (rear) had been loose at some point as the fender mounting holes were nice and elongated from flopping around. So I'll get them filled in and Randy will need to match drill them to the frame..








Use the right tools for the job :headscrat





After marking, when cutting out such a small piece I like to leave a "handle" until the very end..








....gives you something to hold onto while fine tuning the fit





Nice and snug....





Tacking in the filler piece...


















Next was to trim a nice radius on the front and back ends of the new front fender....








Last on the list, the forming process with the old fender left some "pie crust" edging, as seen here and in an original photo...








So we needed a special tool in order to duplicate this feature...








Spacing all marked out....





Finished edge...












All ready for delivery!

[MP&C]

Kyle was off tonight so I missed getting some in-process pictures.. Still cleaning up welds to get the body ready for media blasting. The rear brackets for the gas tank straps were welded in...








I also worked on the passenger quarter this evening. One of the biggest problems with welding a horizontal seam down through the middle of the quarter on a car is the tendency for the seam to cave inwards.. I had some help this evening using the Watervliet hammer and a 24" radius die..





Still have some highs and lows to address, but the weld seam is back out close to where it should be, and the Atlantic Ocean has calmed quite a bit..





Next was to remove some creases in the cowl vent, seen here...








Looks like someone may have kneeled on it at some point in the last 60 years. I've found the easy way to "highlight" an area like this in need of repair is to use a piece of 80 grit on the back side:








Got the creases out using the body hammer with the chisel tip, and forgot to get the finished pictures. Next time...

[Dieselwrencher]

More great work! It all looks awesome from my chair.

[MP&C]

Thanks!


Here's the top side of the cowl vent.....











....using this hammer....











the marks on the back side show where the strikes were placed to remove the creases...











Kyle has the inner roof insulation about gone...

[oldman3]

That came out real nice...Jim

[FarmerSid]

Awesome as usual..

[BlueJeep]

Did you switch to TIG?

[MP&C]

Yes, the fender patches were done with tig, though it would be easier clean up.

[MP&C]

Our enclosed trailer has the white wagon wheels that always seem to turn rusty in a few years, so I have been trying different wheels to see what might work....


These are some late model Mustang wheels, the hub hole would need to be opened slightly, but the offset was, well off.





Perhaps on a fancy trailer with more stainless trim, but these just looked too much. Next, some plain Jane Ford Ranger wheels....





Much better, correct offset, and no wheel modification needed. Just need to change up the color and add some stainless trim rings. I do have some bright orange, some bright red, and a few other colors in the paint locker..




Some before and after media blasting..








Two down, two to go. Can't get it all done in one night. And more weld grinding and other prep work on the wagon continues. Since the big cleanup in preparation for the class in the shop earlier this month, we haven't been able to find our quarter panel profile template, so Kyle made a couple of them, one for in front of the rear wheel, one behind, and we've been working on the weld seams and doing some metal bumping to minimize our stock in filler products. Drivers side is looking much better than it did last week, still about another day to go and the quarters should be good for epoxy primer..

[Low Elco]

Beautiful as always. Need to stock up on tips for the squarebody bedsides I'm gonna have to do.

[MP&C]

Thanks!



Well, we didn't get pictures of the funny part. Kyle and I loaded the frame in the trailer and headed off to the local car wash to remove the grease from the front cross member. We had quite a few stares and a couple horns honking as he pushed the frame around the car wash parking lot and I was sitting on the frame rail, maneuvering with the Jr. steering wheel. We found the tire presoak and a wire brush does wonders for the engine grease. The car wash attendant did not look too pleased, but never said a word.


Back at the shop, bolting the adapter plates onto the frame...








You can see in the above picture we used 1-1/2" long spacers to get a better access for media blasting the frame..


Disassembly starts....














After a few revolutions and a bit of air pressure, we had quite a pile of 60 year old dirt..





Override springs from the era. The handyman wagons were often used as work vehicles, and this option helped with the heavy loads...





All stripped....

[MP&C]

Had an early Chevy hood side show up at the shop tonight, the owner wanted a couple different versions of louver samples made up that he could hold against the hood on the car to better visualize. One style he was looking at lends from an early Alfa Romeo that extends the louvers onto the cowl, as shown in the green tape..





We took a paper pattern of the details so the hood side could go back with him to use as a pattern for the opposite side that still needs to be made.








Spot welded on some "end stops" for the louver die.....





.....and a squared plate for the back gauge.








Louvers in the Lennox.....














One sample down, one to go..

[oldman3]

Very nice work...Jim

[Baldeagle SR]

Now that is some kool work. Rich

[Bomp]

You make it look so easy.
Fold your arms, nod your head, blink of an eye, poof, done. Perfect

[Low Elco]

That... is awesome. Too cool.

[MP&C]

Thanks guys!


Well FedEx showed up today with a CL delivery, got a matched pair of 48" linear rails. The two bearing blocks will have a material clamp bolted to each block, and used on one rail. We'll get a chance to try it out on the second louver sample. Where we had been manually holding the workpiece against the back stop, this should work better with a simple glide back and forth once clamped in place..














While I was getting that squared away, Kyle was removing some scraps that were left on the frame from the original trans crossmember.








He also removed the spot welded guides from the louver panel. The good part about samples is we can see what works well and what doesn't. Here we can see that we won't use spot welds next time as it's too much clean up. I think we'll give some stainless rivets a shot on version 2...