55 Wagon Progress

[Lokin4AReason]

Nice colour . . .

[mongocanfly]

Been a long time coming.....looks great..!!

[oldman3]

Nice...Jim

[MP&C]

Thanks Fellas!!

This morning, out of the booth. Still waiting on some sunlight, but a shot of the two colors together...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgnwfZ5Irvw



.

[MP&C]

OK, sun came out for a few minutes today so Brandon sent a couple more videos...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8aGxrAu7_M


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91GFxwMb7OU

[oldman3]

Robert, videos look great. The time spent on the body really shows how straight it is, since it's in paint. Love the two colors...Jim

[nsb29]

Looks good nice color match

[MP&C]

Thanks guys! They are in the middle of cutting and buffing, so looks like we will pick the body up next Wednesday and then they start on the loose parts..

[Low Elco]

Been watching this on the 'gram. It's coming out beautifully, and you couldn't have gotten better gunslingers for the job.

[MP&C]

Thanks Chip!


Well yesterday was homecoming, Jared and I drove up to Annapolis to pick up the body from Absolute Rod and Custom Paint. Really pleased with this green paint, it does catch your eye.









Gotta love a tilt bed trailer for loading a rotisserie...








All strapped down for the trip south...





A stop for fuel and then we headed to the Wednesday night meet at Leonardtown Arby's... I think that's the slowest traffic has ever travelled south out of Annapolis, we had quite a few people breaking their necks, slowing down to give the thumbs ups, etc..














With that done, we can finish our spring cleaning in the shop and get this set back down on the frame..

[mongocanfly]

That really looks great Robert..!!

[oldman3]

Just a super nice job...Jim

[Scott2]

That's just outstanding! When you look back through the thread there's an enormous amount of work that went into this car and every bit of it is top-notch, superb, no shortcuts work. Pretty damn impressive!

[nsb29]

I know sum one that built an in closed trailer because he was afraid of being recked by rubber necks love the paint

[MP&C]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!! Yeah, Brandon and the guys did a bang up job on the paint.. Will be turning some heads when Dana takes it out.


We stopped by the upholstery shop on Friday, they had the console ready...





Video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfvtDpCNpCU


Playing catch-up here on the F7 hood, the inside of the crease was blocked using tape to keep the center line sharp, then brace welded in place and some epoxy touch ups done..










With the touch ups blocked, we're ready for some Epoxy/sealer, some PPG ESSS base, and my first time spraying SPI Universal... WooHoo! love this clear!!





These Ford truck hoods can be a pain to get good paint coverage inside the nose.. So a couple pieces of TIG wire from our rack to the hood brackets hold it up in the air so we can get into the nose with the spray gun..

[Warrens69GMC]

Nice!

[mongocanfly]

looks great Robert....no suprise there...

[MP&C]

Here's a video we did on some basic metalshaping, making a heat/AC vent bracket for under the dash using a hammer and piece of pipe. Excuse the audio quality at the start, what you get for filming with an iPhone 6S. S stands for SUCKS... apparently the phone gets confused as to which of 3 microphones to use.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLanHAqaaY













.

[Warrens69GMC]

Nice progress....

[mongocanfly]

Nice show and tell on that Robert...

[MP&C]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Nice show and tell on that Robert... just curious , why not just weld the face to the 2nd piece without tipping the edge over..then dressing the corners..

Thanks for the comments guys.. Greg, EXCELLENT question!!!!


When you place a weld on a corner, and for an example, lets say we are patching a lower fender right up to the door opening to repair some rust at the bottom of the fender.... you lose the ability to control the two perpendicular sides. Let's say you blow a hole and have to re-weld in a spot or two. More heat and shrinking is bound to pull at the panel, and now you are pulling inward in two directions. The weld seam directly in the corner makes it difficult at best to planish and control where the metal gets stretched to, IF you can even make headway on it. So you'll find that in addition to having low spots, you also have altered the door to fender GAP with little hope of fixing it without filler.. By shaping your panel as you want it, and then tipping a flange that carries the seam into the perpendicular side, the crease helps to hold things from moving. Place the weld seam far enough away from the corner that you can hammer and dolly. With the brackets we made Saturday, this was easy as we just used the pipe once again, this time to planish the TIG weld once completed.

[mongocanfly]

Thanks for the explanation Robert..(now that I've watched it 4 times...I see now...)..you caught me before I edited it..
What you described was the very issue I had on some of the stuff I've done by trying to weld corners together..

[MP&C]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Thanks for the explanation Robert..you caught me before I saved my edit..I thought you had butt welded the pieces together...I went back and realized you had them overlapped.. It's hard to see on my small screen sometimes.

Greg, first off, you've had some good questions that others are likely thinking but not asking, so please stop editing!!


Next, Robert doesn't overlap. These got butt welded and dressed, as shown in the still photo at the end. The last part of the video showing the parts together is actually butted and has a couple magnets inside holding the parts together, so that may be why it looked overlapped.

[mongocanfly]

Haha..I'll quit editing...you caught me again though..
At the start it looked overlapped and at the end it looked butt welded

[MP&C]

Greg, I showed some of the welding pics in here for you!




Well I think we're long overdue for a wagon update. Yes, it is back in the building....





And we should be setting the body back on the chassis this weekend. We've been buttoning up some last minute things on the frame before a body makes accessibility more of a challenge. The cable for the O2 sensor up to the EFI was about two feet too long, so we ordered another connector and shortened it up a bit.





In order to better hold things from bouncing around, a large Adel clamp is "massaged" to better fit the shape of the Bosch connector, and yet remain loose enough to remove the connector if need be for any future troubleshooting needs..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJT8_trcz2Q











….and here's our leftover.





Next, we had transmission cooling lines to run, which means straightening a coil of stainless 5/16 line....





This should be straight enough....





We had to insure clearance around the inspection cover and starter, so those were temporarily installed...





We found these fancy stainless "cable ties" at McMaster, but even using a banding tool to tension it, the "tang" retention allows it to loosen slightly before the tang locks in.











Since I had recently picked up a pair of Pex crimpers at a pawn shop for cheap, we thought we'd give those Oetiker clamps a shot for keeping things snug.. Looks like this may work!





Top side...





Bottom...





The crimpers/pliers we used... $15 at a pawn shop...





Running the radiator ends...








And then some other superfluous stuff, we got the second vent bracket welded up last night











And even though it's off in the near distance, it's about time to repaint the tag so DMV can register it to the car (1955 only had one plate in MD)...

Thought I had some bus paint that was close, but looks a bit too light..





But playing with some mixing ratios online, I may be able to use some of my one shot lettering paint as a tint to get us much closer...





And since the rest of the bits are now being cut and buffed, we better get the body on the frame to make some room in the shop..











….and between all that, we made another set of window dividers, these going to Dallas for the restoration of a 57 wagon...