Luv2Wrench

So... bad news, good news. The bad news is the cramps came back with a vengeance. I wasn't able to leave the house for nearly a week. The good news though is that finally I think the Dr and I have figured out that the synthetic Thyroid medicine I've been taking was not enough. With that change I've been feeling better and better. I was able to get back out to the shop some and had a blast restoring the little shaper. On the MG I got the generator and coil wired in as well as replaced the tie-rod ends and re-aligned the front end. I'm really feeling good now and it is such a relief. There were a few days last week when I really wondered when I would ever make it back out to the shop. Should things hold up I should be able to get started on bodywork and paint prep next week.

It is not, Hendey had their own head I believe or they would've used the B&S. Hendeyman would know. The key for the head I have is that it is setup to be driven from the left side of the table. Most of the heads you see around now are driven from the right side. If I ever have to use mine I know this guy up north that is super helpful and will work me through it step by step and if I need something extra he'll either help me make it or make it for me. Great guy to know.

Looks like intermediate gear setup for you dividing head is a good bit different than the L-W Diving head I have. I mine has the two gears in the same plane which is in the same plane as the gear that feed the head. The other end, of course, goes down to the table. Of course I haven't actually hooked mine up and cut gears with it so it might be setup wrong. I kinda hope I never have to find out.

Love the car, love the shop, this looks like a great project to follow. Looking forward to it!!

Looking good, you're certainly getting the hang of it!

Great looking car... seems your diligence in searching paid off!!

That looks really good and the Simple Green aviation stuff did a great job. I need to get some of that, where did you source your's?

So I had a wonderful trip, everything went as well as it could possibly have gone. I turned it into an overnight trip so that I didn't have to drive 11 hours. For younger me that would've been no big deal, for older me it just doesn't work as well. I'm glad I did it that way because I could take my time and see the sites along the way. With COVID I really haven't been out of the house much so it was great to get away. The shaper was located nearly 2 miles down a sand road deep in the Apalachicola forest. Unfortunately it was stored in an open shop so the Florida swamp humidity did take a toll. Here's a pic as she sat up against a wall. The owner had a younger lady selling some of his tools and I dearly thank her for doing that. She's basically rescuing a "shop" full of machines. She and her boyfriend loaded it in the van for me!! By far the easiest pick yet. The Rhodes Shaper is a very early machine. The name on the casting is L.E. Rhodes and it was made in Hartford Conn. Most of the pictures I've seen of these shapers has the company name as "The Rhodes machinery co" or similar. After removing the hideous vise and a quick cleaning I was relieved to see it was actually in fairly decent condition. I was able to loosen up everything and get reasonable movement. Full restoration will still be a ways off but it should be relatively straight forward. As per the MG, I have the wiring to the dash completed. I have a couple of things left to wire like the distributor and coil. I replaced the tie rod ends so I need to finish that up as well as get the final pieces of the steering assembly buttoned and the steering wheel back on. At that point... it should be a matter of dropping the battery in and firing it up again. From there it will be a short drive into the garage and I'll move the remaining body panels down and get to work on them.

I used Dallas and would not recommend using them. I think it is obvious the guy that does all of the work can't very well anymore. If you don't look closely at the chrome it looks fine. If you look closer there are scratches, bubbles and all kinds of stuff going on. I pretty much wasted $5000 by going there. It took nearly 8 months as well. It is unfortunate because I really can't spend the money to have it done again. I would say the job is more than acceptable for daily driver, probably OK for a show car, but absolutely not concours level.

Ran into some health issues in November that left me with muscles that would cramp on the slightest bit of effort. Thankfully I've gotten that sorted out and work has resumed on the car. I will admit that there for a little while I was getting rather worried. On the tool side I've some better luck. I managed to acquire a neat little bench top die filer. It was a little dirty so I took it apart, made sure everything was lubed and fitting correct, gave it a quick coat of paint and put it back together. I don't have any files for it and they are a bit difficult to locate. I modified a file and gave it a quick test run and it really works great. Very quiet and will move a fair amount of material. Very happy with this purchase. I also found a small shaper for sale on CL down in Florida. I'm headed down there tomorrow to rescue it. I'm hoping it isn't as bad as the picture makes it seem. It is a 7" Rhodes Shaper from the early 1900s. I already have a 15" shaper so it isn't a "need" but I'd like to have a smaller one as well and this little guy definitely needs to be rescued.

I found this thread backwards... through your post to someone else's post in the more general "Our Cars and Restoration Projects" thread. I'm interested in following this restoration.. do you have a "start" to the restoration and perhaps a thread about the restoration of the body? Really great looking car and a fantastic job on it!!

You could hide the FOR in the trunk of that monster.

That's pretty insane.

Amazing car!!

Really cool car, thanks for sharing!

shop full of product is always good

Looking good Chris! I think in the rush to adopt "new and better" stuff there is a lot of knowledge lost. Most techniques have their strong points and weak points. Body lead had a lot of weak points but it also did some things that plastic filler really can't do that well... but that knowledge was lost. Thanks goodness for YouTube!

I'd like to thank you for updating the thread and thorough evaluation of what went on, that's very helpful for for later readers trying to decide what they should do. Far too often a thread will stop and you don't know what to make of the solutions tried. I have a gas tank that I took to a radiator shop to get repaired and sealed. They did that but I media blasted some questionable areas on the outside and they turned out being rust through areas they missed. I've repaired that area but need to re-seal and I wasn't clear on how to apply additional coats after it has already dried. Further inspection of the tank also revealed some puddle areas so I'm likely just stripping everything out and using POR 15.

That looks almost exactly nothing like the results I get when doing something similar. Pretty much every step of the way, lol.

Car is back in the shop and the freshly primed body panels have moved to the living and dining rooms to await further work. I'm back to trying to get the car running, stopping and turning again and darn it if I'm not having issues. I bought new handbrake cables and they're an inch shorter than the original ones which means once installed (with the handbrake fully off) they pull enough to engage the rear brakes. Both tie rod ends have issues (they were new) so I've taken them off and await new ones that will hopefully not have issues. The wiring has gone well and I'm close on it. The floorboards and rear shelf have been installed and they're done. I mocked up the side curtain box so everything will be ready when it is time to do it. Instead of taking the gas tank back to Sims I just fixed it myself and will re-seal tomorrow and get some epoxy and 2K on it. I'm going to bleed the brakes today, refill the coolant and hope to get enough wiring done tomorrow to get the engine running again. I bought a bunch of parts earlier in the week but given the whole pandemic thing... nothing has shipped yet which is certainly understandable. As such... I'll need to put some of the bad stuff back on (tie rods end) so that I can get to my goal of running/stopping/steering car by end of weekend. I need to be able to drive it out of the shop and in to the garage on a routine basis. While I am able to push it, there is a hill between the two and it takes about all I got to make the uphill stretch and... with no brakes, the stretch back down the hill is a little nerve racking.

so if you can't touch it... how'd you get all that work done?

Sorry I don't but it is great to see you here in the forums again!!

Others can weigh in here, but assuming you have reasonable strength in the area, have you thought of silver solder into and over the holes and pits? From the pictures I see what looks like a reasonably solid and structural trunk floor now that you've added the patches you have. Silver solder is ridiculously strong and fairly easy to apply. I think you could clean the pinhole areas, heat them, flux and solder them fairly easily.

Productive few days. Got everything welded up, sanded and ready for epoxy primer. Managed to get epoxy primer on Saturday. Started in the external paint booth but had to move inside due to scheduling changes by Mother Nature (rain). Fortunately I was able to get two coats on the hanging items and only had to finish up the fenders and such inside. I took it easy this morning and early afternoon waiting for an "opening" in the external paint booth. Late in the afternoon I got that and managed to get two coats of 2K primer shot before the lights went out. I reserved a slot tomorrow afternoon to shoot another 2 coats on the fenders and hood. I think that'll get me in good position to start filler and block sanding next week. With some luck I might be able to start color the week of the 16th which would really be nice.

Johns Creek isn't the place you'd think would work well but I'm in an older neighborhood with 2 acre minimum lots, so we're spread out a bit. I can imagine Brookhaven isn't easy. I used Dallas Plating out in Dallas Georgia. I'd heard good things about them but it didn't work for me. I would still use Sims but I would have some written instructions for them. A checklist of sorts. I think the kid that did my tank saw the obvious holes, filled them, sealed the tank and he was done. They should be set up for pressure testing and I'd make sure they did that before I took the radiator/tank back. With Sims I think it was unclear directions and I would work with them again. With Dallas plating I think it is simply the case of them having a 5 month backlog and the one key guy that does most of the work and he's blind as a bat. They appear to store that backlog outside in the gravel parking lot and I'm sure my radiator shell was damaged after I gave it to them. I would not use them again under any circumstances.