Ben Bruce aka First Born Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Made the whole thing worth it, didn't it! Keep up the good work. ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest raywilks Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 i am proud of you!!! most people i know would not have tried a vechicle needing wood and metal to that extent. i look every day to see how you solved the next problem. dean and company had a lot more to work with, both tools and vechicle condition. uhm maybe next chore will be to build a welding table?? hang in there, we all are following along!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexRiv_63 Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Pat,You're doing a great job. Most accomplishments in life require two things: 1. Showing up. 2. Being willing to try something new. You have done both in your project plus you have no fear of taking on a level of fabrication many others would not have the guts to try. Keep the photos coming, can't wait to see the end results! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 Thanks guys. If you see some serious goofs, please feel free to point them out as it is still not too late to fix some of them.With the inner fenders bolted in place it gave me an idea of what the bottom part of the molding/bead/character line would look like. I made some wooden forms and attempted to shape some sheet metal over them. They kinda filled the void between the lower back panel and the inner fenders. This was rather tedious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 I debated for a long time whether I should cut the area with the bolt holes from either the car or the inner fenders in order to do a butt weld. Again, I chickened out, cleaned the inner fenders and had them epoxy primed. I bolted them back on and welded both sides. Double thickness gives added strenght but it can also trap moisture. It is a gamble I was willing to take.Oddly enough I still had the corner caps along with most of the strip that goes along the bottom flange of the inner fender. That is what you nail to the underside of the sill kickups. I welded those back in and made paper patterns to cut pieces to fill the gaps.Afterall that was welded in, I gave the interior of the the body a good wirebrushing and sealed it all in with a good coat of POR15. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 Now I needed to attend to the missing roof corner. I brought back the driver's side with hammer & dolly and cut off all the mangled metal from the passenger side. Then I sandblasted all my patches , sealed the welds with All Metal and fitted the roof corner I had purchased in New York State. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 (edited) The patched up body section was taken to a body shop to be blasted & primed. I then remounted it on the wood. Still some tugging & shoving as it wasn't so flexible this time. I installed the rear window wood at this time and nailed the sheet metal on.The arrows in the first photo shows some leading which I assume were repairs to the same crash which had mangled the windshield pillar. Looks like it rode on its side in a ditch. Edited February 18, 2011 by Landman (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotts_DG8 Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Pat,First the picture your daughter had put together turned out really nice and the frame looks to be quite unique too. And now on to the car, it's really starting to take shape too. Just curious, from the first day when you collected the car from the field to the most current pictures that you've just posted what kind of time period had passed? Again just curious, I sure it wasn't just a couple months as I noted before there sure is a lot of work going on here. Scott... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 I collected the car in May 2001. The latest post shows pictures around December 2007. I didn't work on it all the time. in 2004 I was away for the whole year working. The making of the wood pieces used up most of the winter of"05. The disassembly of the parts car and the beginning of the reconstruction was in summer '06. The majority of the work involving the body so far took place in 2007. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 Flashback to post # 18 when I had the bright idea of using the above the door sections of the sedan's roof. That turned out to be a mistake. The roof panels of the coupe have a flatter curve than those of the sedan. What to do now?Luckily I had the remnants of the coupe roof I had bought. Since the sedan roof panels were already nailed & bolted to the roof rails I just cut them above the drip moulding and at the normal factory weld above the door's vent window. I then fitted the panels from the coupe roof. I needed all the clamps in the garage and some serious planning since the perforations around the roof insert area had to match what was already there. :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 After putting the doors back on I was faced with a bad misalingment of the belt moldings on the passenger side. I had done something wrong again. Probably with the roof corner repair. So being both pissed off and a lot bolder, I cut some slits in the roof, cut the window frame and pulled the body down with a clamp and retacked it to the wood. I spliced in some window frame segments from the parts car and it ended up so so. I put some fenders on for the fun of it and that was it for 2007. While I was at it I spliced in a better section of drip molding on the driver's side as well. :eek::eek::eek::eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 2008 dawned bright with a promising new contract. That meant $$$ but less time on the car. Anyway I managed to get home for a week every three weeks. The only fender that was salvageable from my dad's car was the left rear. I attempted to fix it with patch panels cut out of one of my scrapyard fenders. It didn't turn out so well. The patch was OK but I couldn't get the lip bead back right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 (edited) I also attempted to fix the right front fender from the parts car. It had a huge dent and a crease. After pounding that out I found a very coarse (coarser than mine) weld . So I gound that out and it looked like they had had a tear which they repaired by pulling the metal back over the tear and welded it there. So I went for the old patch panel approach again but It wasn't long before I discovered that something like a fender is way more difficult to repair than the main body. Edited February 19, 2011 by Landman (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 That's when the light came on and it was time to go see someone who knew what he was doing. I took the left front fender and three rear fenders along with the grille shell to the man who had made my rocker panel nailing flanges. Here's what he did with the right rear fender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dean_H. Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Wow! What an incredible effort to restore an old car. Way to go, great story, you are the new master restorer! Fine looking body style, you'll have a beauty when it's finished ...eh! (a little Canadian lingo). Thanks for posting your work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 Coming from you, that is downright flattering. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 ...And to the right front. I raise my hat to guys like him who can make something out of nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 After a while I got a bit tired of the never ending process of the reconstruction. So I started doing little projects. One of these was making a new battery tray. I also made some quarter window moldings out of those from a sedan. They have the same rear curve but are longer front to back. So you neet to cut & reweld. I needed to make the small wooden corner fillers as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 I was curious to see if all my fiddling with the rear section of the roof had resulted in an altered rear window opening. So I tried the rear garnish molding. Turns out I was missing a piece of wood. Went back to the rest of the sedan which was parked on a farm nearby and retrieved the part in question. Since it was broken and rather soft I made a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 Made some floorboards using what was left of the sedan's as patterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 The muffler hanger was broken and it was missing the ears that the u-bolt mounts to. Fixed thatCleaned up & painted some window hardware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 I had to replace one vent window regulator. I also mounted the vent window frames and dividers into the doors complete with rubbers to pre-derill the mounting holes and reduce the handling when the doors are painted. It looks like everthing will work fine. The glass is NOS found on eBay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 I stripped the rubber from the running board mats & reshaped them.Patched up & straightened the running boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 At about this time I started to put stuff back on the car to check fit & alingment. Some time was spent trying to make the front fender horns symmetrical.My car only had the driver's side of the hood and it had lain flat open in the field. Since I am trying to use as much as I could of the car I set out to reform the louvres and give the hood its curve back. The passenger side half came from the sedan, while it wasn't as flat as the other one, it had also been sprung and needed some help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 I had a tailpan that I bought in Saskatchewan while working out there. I attempted to repair it but the results were less than satisfactory. :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dean_H. Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Your car sure has a nice back section. I could stare at that all day long. Very nice work, on a great looking car. My Hupp was a walk in the park compared to this project. What a job! Hope you can find a good sale on sandpaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 So in time I had what amounted to a first assembly. It did look like a car again. So much so that my granddaughter pretended to take it for a test drive.However, here I was with a more complete but still unrestored car. I was now where most people begin.Like Dean says. Now I better find a lot of sandpaper to flatten all the fillers which will be required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 Off comes the body again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 So now, in the 65th posting or so, I do what others have done in their third. Clean, repair & repaint the frame. It needed a new cross member and some new horns which I took off the coach I had dragged out of the bush. It had been promised to a friend who wants to do a rod with his son and he said he wouldn't need the front of the frame anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotts_DG8 Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 Pat,You just really had to have been very proud when you stepped back and took your first long look at your accomplishment to this point. And fine, it may be just a 20 footer right now but you know that you’re the talent that put this all together and to me it looks great. Very few would ever attempt this kind of effort. I can tell you first hand that the cost that you would have paid someone to have gotten even this far would have been through the roof. I have to believe too when you decided that it was time to pull it back apart you were one nervous person ensuring that the body was secured while lifting it and probably just as happy that it didn’t split in two (that last bit was just a little light humor). Really, it turned out great. Scott…Oh, just for an update, what time period are we at now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 What the heck is that contraption attached near the wheel on the 3rd photo?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 That's what makes 1934 Chevrolets interesting. It has many names: knee action, dubonnet type suspension, enclosed hydraulic front suspension. Frihtful looking thing isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 That's what makes 1934 Chevrolets interesting. It has many names: knee action, dubonnet type suspension, enclosed hydraulic front suspension. Frihtful looking thing isn't it?Looks to be VERY heavy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 I think they weigh about 60 lbs. They contain the coil spring and two shock absorber units. They are full of hydraulic oil. An early form of independent suspension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 Selected springs from the stash and found enough to make two similar units. Installed all new bushings and fabricated the missing clamps.Dismantled the differential and driveshaft/pinion unit. Cleaned the housings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 The gearset was cleaned inspected and adjusted. At least I feel like I adjusted it. It was reinstalled along with NOS seals that I soaked as per the instructions. New driveshaft bushings were installed as well. The brakes were refurbished and new linings were installed on the shoes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 OOPS! Here are the photos for the previous post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 The guy who sold me the drivetrain from the coach he rodded had taken the care of keeping the brake rods in their proper positions on the cross shaft along with the handbrake parts. So I elected to use that rather than the ones from the parts car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 Pat,You just really had to have been very proud when you stepped back and took your first long look at your accomplishment to this point. And fine, it may be just a 20 footer right now but you know that you’re the talent that put this all together and to me it looks great. Very few would ever attempt this kind of effort. I can tell you first hand that the cost that you would have paid someone to have gotten even this far would have been through the roof. I have to believe too when you decided that it was time to pull it back apart you were one nervous person ensuring that the body was secured while lifting it and probably just as happy that it didn’t split in two (that last bit was just a little light humor). Really, it turned out great. Scott…Oh, just for an update, what time period are we at now?Scott, I removed the body from the frame in September 2009. First thing you know, at this rate, It'll be today and I still won't have finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landman Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 I keep referring to the "sedan", the "rodded coach" etc. I thought I'd post this little chart I made to show where the major components in the car came from. There are four major donors. Each photo has a small oval with a color in it. The corresponding color in the drawing shows which car things came from. It is displayed on a cabinet door in my shop. I use that to explain all these sources to visitors who come around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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