ryan95

I'm curious how you solved the issue on yours. That manifold was only used for two years. Either the design wasn't good enough or the casting was changed to lower costs. I'll be calling soon to ask a few questions.

I second that on the solder flowing to where the heat goes in this kind of soldering. Solder can be pushed around all day with a torch, but it will just sit on the surface unless the metal is hot enough. It also takes some practice to know when the piece is at the right temperature and how to keep it within the working window.

So I made a mistake today fixing a previous mistake. At some point someone overtorqued the coolant neck onto the head and cracked the flange near three of the six mounting holes. Last year when disassembling the engine externals, the outer part of one of the tabs fell off then I removed the head nuts. It looked like that was the only crack. I grooved the crack, preheated it, brazed it, and let it cool. I didn't spend enough time warming or cooling it, so a second crack appeared an inch away. That was my fault for being too hasty. Today I needed a smaller project, so I decided to fix it. This time I gave it plenty of time in our propane grill to slowly heat up and to cool it. 600 degrees was no problem for the grill. I ramped the temp up over a half hour and ramped it down slowly when done also. When I got to 300 degrees I shut the grill off and let it sit for another half hour. This time things went much better. The grill also made the paint very easy to remove. After cleaning up my repair, I was pleased with it and saw no other cracks. I proceeded to removing the rest of the flaky paint and found that the two front mounting holes were cracked as well. I am certain that these cracks are old ones since they are no where near the spot I repaired. They are also at the mounting holes like the first crack was. I am confident that this time I truely found all the cracks. With a straight edge on the bottom, the cracked tabs are all warped in the direction they were overtorqued. The remaining three have no visible cracks and show no warping. This means that now I have to do the job over again to fix the remaining cracks. I'll save that for another day when I can fit the project in. Fortunately It didn't take much of my time up. For most of the repair job I could do other things while the piece was in the grill.

Fantastic job on the weld. I doubt that as nice of a job would have been done by many places. I've found that with research, patience, and practice there aren't many jobs that aren't doable. As long as the cost of tools and materials isn't higher than what you would pay a pro, I'm all for learning a new skill. One last thing as a joke that I heard once, a grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain't. There is some truth to it though if one of the goals of the weld job is to make it look like it was never there.

Now I see what you were wanting to solder. That kind of soldering is a little different than body soldering. I taught myself how a couple weeks ago for repairing the Moon's gas tank. Find 50/50 lead solder and get some Oatey 30011 flux. Rather than smearing it around like you do with 70/30 body solder, the 50/50 wets nicely and will flow wherever you take the heat. I had to order mine online. I imagine that the hardest part for your oil pan will be getting it clean enough. If it is just soldered together you may want to remove the neck to get everything clean. This will also let you flux it better. Scribe around it before you remove it so that you know where exactly it was.

Thanks guys, I'll keep posting anything you all find interesting. I do appreciate the compliments. I suffer from what I call the "maker's curse." To everyone else something I make might look great, but I know where every single flaw or imperfection is. The kind words help me get over it.

I saw the pictures in your email. It certainly is an odd piece. I'm looking forward to hearing your conclusion on that.

Also, do as much of the shaping as you can with files. I used all round ones of various sizes. This makes filings rather than dust so that you don't get lead poisoning. Sanding is saved only for the very end to remove the file marks.

Thanks, It's not too hard once you get the hang of it. My biggest hurdle was keeping the panel warm enough for the lead to flow where I wanted to push it. Initially I was warming the lead I wanted to move and wondering why it wouldn't spread. Now I also warm the area that I want it to go. I also tried different torches. A MAPP gas blowtorch doesn't seem to pinpoint heat where I want it very well. I also tried an acetylene only, soldering tip that came with my Henrob torch. That was better, but I still wasn't happy. My best results have been with the recular welding tip on my torch. I get it to a neutral flame and keep it 8 inches or so back from the panel. I keep it just close enough to melt the lead after a few seconds and keep the heat moving. Also be sure to neutralize the flux after tinning the panel. Scrubbing it with a baking soda and water solution seems to be the best option for that.

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I updated. It took a second attempt to get the cowl right. At least I'll be able to use the first one to make some of the smaller parts from. On the first, I tried welding in the windshield stanchion sockets. That was a big mistake. The heat made the panel go crazy wavy. On the second try I used three small tacks and used body solder to hold it together like the original. This went much better. Soldering has been another skill that I had to learn for this project. Many of the seams on the car rely on the solder to hold them together, so body filler isn't an option. I will have to use a little filler here and there later on to get things flat, but I'm not using it anywhere that is structural. The body lines were made using my old Niagara brake, and the cowl vent flange was made using the hammer form I made in the last post. Other than some planishing, hammering over the edges, nailing it, and soldering the seam above the dash, it's mostly done. It's going to take some time to get that done, so here you go in the meantime.

I'm a little intimidated by the rear, but I'll report lots of detail on it. I may try reusing some of the panels that make it up.

I finished making the cowl vent hammer form earlier. It is made of an upper and a lower piece that sandwich the metal. The form needed to be curved since the cowl is arched. my solution was to laminate three layers of quarter inch plywood together so that I could clamp it in a curve while the glue set up. After shaping the openings I was able to give it a try. I made two test panels. What I learned on the first one was that metal hammers leave too many marks. I tried out a plastic teardrop hammer on the second one and it went much better. The small end was just right for the corners and the big end did a nice job on the flats. I also learned not to get carried away with getting the metal hammered up tight to the form or the piece becomes stuck and won't come out.

Parts Ancient, I have been following along with your progress as well. The engine work you are doing has made me want to dive into the repair work on ours, but I don't want to start on too many things at once.

Thank you coyote and others, I hope that this is a bit different from other restoration threads. I know that this kind of work has been done many times by others, but I have not seen very much of this kind of metal work online. Anything newer than the 20's is too different to be comparable. I am trying to keep my updates detailed without being too repetitive. If anyone ever has a question of what I did or wants to see more detail, please let me know.

Update, all of the doors are wrapped and both mid section panels are done. Some of the gaps could be a little better, but overall it's looking in good shape. Today I started making the hammer form for the cowl vent, made the template for cutting out the cowl, and gave Bob a tour of how his car is coming along. He was pleased with the progress.

I'm looking forward to following along. Nice car.

Update, Yesterday I started on the rear driver door, messed up the metal, and had to make a run to my metal dealer for more 20 gauge. I had a heck of a time tracking any down last fall. Thankfully this place has a ton of it since they stocked up for a big customer that used to buy a bunch. Has anyone else ran into this with sheet metal? Anyways, I bought 3 sheets. That should be enough to finish the car if I don't make many more big mistakes. I'm starting to get my sheet metal techniques figured out. This morning I finished skinning the rear door and the driver side mid section all but the flange where the hinges mount. I forgot that the metal blocks them in from further removal, so I need to get them painted. That will be one of my next projects, so that it doesn't hold me up. Here are some more progress pictures.

I should have read closer. Thanks Gary

Gary, do you have a source you can share for the 3d metal printing? This could be very useful for a few small parts I need as well. Very cool.

It ended up being a productive day. I completed wrapping the driver door. Other than almost botching things at the end when I drilled a hole in the wrong spot, it went well, difficult, but well. Thankfully the hole welded nicely and was able to be blended back in. Now I should be able to do the other three doors no problem.

The door skins are going slow so far. My first attempt turned into a practice piece. The second one is going better. I am developing a good process to make them go well. So far the big hurdles were making the radius bend and curving the upper flange where your arm would rest. For the radius I made a piece of wood that matched it and clamped both it and the skin in my brake. That part went well and didn't look bent by hand. For the upper flange I had to use my shrinker to get it to curve enough to fit the door curvature. This made the top wavy with tool marks. My solution was to make a planishing hammer. I could have bought one, but I wanted it today and would rather spend money on parts than tools, so I made one quick and dirty. I had enough scraps of ash that weren't car grade, so it made up a quick c frame and attached my air hammer and an anvil. For control I have a wedge under the trigger and a valve rigged up for my foot. Surprisingly it worked very well without making many adjustments. I haven't seen a wooden one on the Internet yet.

Can you post a picture of a good crimp made with those? I'm in the market for a pair of crimpers, but have not looked into those ones yet. The Channellock factory is about a half hour from where I live, so I'm quite interested.

It's time for an update. Other than a few exceptions, the wood parts are done. They have been painted, oiled, drilled screwed, glued, and final assembled. Since the last update, I worked on finishing up the seat wood. I also mounted the driver side door skin flange panels. They stick out around the perimeter for the door skins to be hemmed around. Originally they were nailed on with screw nails. I was able to extract probably 80 or 90 of the hundred or so when I disassembled the doors. I reattached them with #6 wood screws using the original holes for alignment and mounting where I could. Anywhere that the nails were broken off or in a bad location, new holes were drilled nearby. For those who know 20s cars, is this the common way that doors were done? It's a clever way I think of keeping the nails concealed. Tomorrow I hope to try making door skins.

I have heard that it is good to check the plate number on a year of manufacture plate with the DMV before you buy it. I found a nice matching Pennsylvania set and bought them before hearing about the idea. I will certainly be checking on the number before I take the time to restore them.

Here's a small update for now. I wanted to replace the original dowel pins on each joint in the doors. It's all apart, so now is the time to do anything that might be helpful to the car. When I took the pins out, they all had a curve in them in the direction that the joint was pulling. I decided to make my own dowels so that I could make them out of ash, and fine tune the diameter for a snug fit. I made some 5/16 square strips and ran them through my dowel cutter to get dowels just over 1/4. It did tighten up the doors. Only three doors are pictured because the fourth door was factory assembled with screwed joints instead. My guess is that in the factory the bin of dowel rods went empty and they used what they had to keep the assembly moving. I also wanted to show some of the details of how the sheet metal gets tucked in where the door pillars meet the sills. I cut the pockets out today and made the filler blocks. Basically the metal will be clamped to the wood with a half inch extra all around. That gets hammer formed over the edge and nailed in. To allow this to happen the whole way down the body, these pockets are necessary so that the hammer and metal have room to be formed. The block then goes in and is nailed in place. I hope that makes sense. Maybe when the real metal goes on it will be more obvious. I did get more things partially done. I'll make another post when those items are done and worth showing.