hursst

Great work on the interior, looks fantastic and very comfortable, too.

Really looking forward to seeing the resto of this Cleveland. I don't think I've followed a link for a car that old yet. Good luck on your work.

Great work, getting close to the finish line.

It's been about 3 weeks since my last post. Between Carlisle, Hershey, and working overtime, there hasn't been much progress. Hershey was very successful, picked up some good parts in general and picked up my latest batch from the chrome shop. I mostly use Librandi's in Middletown, PA and they've done nothing but perfect work and service. This time I got back my rear bumper, part of the front bumper assembly, and some odds and ends. This morning, I was able to piece together the entire rear bumper assembly, with outstanding results. Here's a before and after (Photos 1 & 2). I'll be doing "Year of Manufacture" plate on the car as well. My engine is slated to be finished on Oct 22nd, so my next step will be to get back to the rocker panels and get all the rocker work finished before I have to shuffle the chassis and body around when I receive the engine. I'm having a lot of problems with fitment of the driver's side rocker due the the curvature of the repro panel being WAY off. I have a plan to fix it and we'll see how it goes this weekend.

Great to see the MG again! When you go to bare steel like that on the fenders, is there any pitting remaining? If so, do you put on any rust inhibitor, or is it clean enough to just primer?

I think we all had some good hauls at Hershey this year. Perfect weather, good turnout.

Still for sale! Will sell for $200 and will deliver to Hershey for free.

How much for the 1975 Corvette(s)?

Today was even more productive than yesterday. Got the Clogmaster 2000 out again this morning. Lower humidity today. I also loaded the blaster up with more media than usual and I changed the ceramic tip on the blaster nozzle, as the current one had worn thin and the side chipped off. This made a big difference, the blaster worked much better, faster, and much less clogging today, so I was able to complete blasting all 6 fender brackets (Photo 1). It was such a nice day and I made such good progress, I went right on to priming the parts as well. My sprayer is really dialed in now, and I'm getting better results than when I started. Here are all the brackets (Photo 2). I have all the hardware refinished and primed as well, so these are ready to be installed on the body (when the body is stripped and primed) to be painted all at once.

Another boring week slaving at work and finally another weekend. Got my new top from Moss Motors yesterday (Photo 1). Overall, it looks pretty good, fairly authentic. Even comes with a card signed by the person that hand-made it at Moss In Petersburg, VA. Nice touch. I'll have to farm this out to get fitted and have all the fasteners professionally installed. One mistake and you ruin the top with all the fasteners, clips, and snap placements. Took advantage of the cooler mornings and broke out the Clogmaster 2000. The goal was to blast the 6 inner fender pieces and get them ready for primer. The morning turned out to be fairly humid and the Clogmaster did what it does best, clog up, but I am now able to unclog it and get it going again for a while fairly efficiently. Got about 2/3 of the way finished, then it started to rain, so that ended that. When I emptied my compressor, it looked like it had about 2 gallons of water come out with the evacuated air. Too humid. In the meantime, I welded in the top portion of the outer rocker on the driver's side. Went okay. Once I got it in and sized properly, I found the lower portion to be quite far off, even after I bent the curve in tighter. I decided to fit the door and try to get it spaced enough to get some type of door gap (Photo 2). I got it pretty close, then drilled some fresh holes in the vertical door pillar to re-install the factory aluminum rivets on each side of the outer rocker. The factory holes would not match up properly with the new outer rocker. That gave me a decent setting at the top, which should hold well, but the bottom is still quite far off. I will probably try to buy a large clamp and see if I can continue to bend the radius of the outer rocker tighter so the bottom will line up with the inner rocker support panel. Will be happy when these rockers are finished, probably the biggest pain in the neck on the car. Also continued on some more smalls. I'm now refinishing all the mounting hardware for the 4 fenders. I think each fender has about 80 individual hardware components between nuts, bolts, washers, and shims. I looked at my two parts storage areas and they are looking a little sparse, so making great progress on all the small parts. Once I get the body painted, it should fly together. I'm now thinking I may be able to get close to finishing the car in maybe another year to year and a half. Lastly, no word on the engine. I will call them after Hershey to get a progress report.

Regardless of venue, has there ever been a night-drive on one of these tours? I would think it would be different and interesting, especially for pre-electric light vehicles, to run these cars at night, at least for one night of a tour. Seeing gas lamps, kerosene, or pre-sealed beam headlights, wig-wam tail lights, use of spotlights, opera lights, various early colored lights would be something very unique to see. We never see them during the daylight or in most shows, the lighting is always off.

Here's most of a Ruggles truck in Rockville, VA. Looks like it could be restored with a lot of work.

Try emailing Marge Verdones. I bought a repro set from her in 2012 in stainless steel for my 30U. I do not know if the '29 is the same, but probably is. I do not know Marge's status or if she's still making them or not, but worth an email. verdones@evenlink.com -Chris

More parts here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1930-plymouth-parts.1135168/

This guy has bumpers: http://www.1948plymouth.info/28Q29U/index.php?topic=1368.0

This post has a lot of 30U parts for sale: http://www.1948plymouth.info/28Q29U/index.php?topic=1358.0 You may have to sign up, but it's worth it. 4-cyl specific blog, with emphasis on 1928-1930.

Can't wait to see the FOR at Hershey!

Took a 3-day weekend. Went down to Moss Motors in Petersburg, VA to buy some parts for the MGA. One of the things I picked up was the seat kit and foam, at 15% off with the special they had. They also had in in stock. They even gave me a tour of the upholstery shop! All their upholstery is made in-house by hand, pretty impressive. I got the black leather with white piping, as original. I read some info on installation on the MGA guru site and chatted on their forum and got some great photos and input. I decided to just tackle it myself, seemed doable by an amateur. This was the only project I did this weekend, I went to the local AACA regional show with my '30 Plymouth on Saturday, then had to replace my steering rack on my lawn tractor (with only 103 hours on it). Some poor engineering there. It turned out to be quite easy, since it's a very simple seat and the upholstery was pre-fab. I used staples to secure the fabric, as that's how most of them were done. The experts say some had staples, some had tacks, some had a combination. Mine appears to be about 80% staples with some tacks thrown in. Decided to just go with staples to make it a little easier. First photo is how I found it (seat folded down) in 2016 (Photo 1), second photo is with the lower frames and seat foam (Photo 2). Here's the finished result (Photo 3). Overall, quite good, no major screw-ups on my part. The arm rest is how it came from Moss, it will need to be sewn onto the middle carpet section, so that's probably a good project for when it gets cold outside. I may be able to salvage the original center carpet section, although the original arm rest is petrified.

Today's a bonus posting, borne out of frustration. The poorly-engineered repro rocker panel really bothered me. Both pieces I bought do not have the correct arc on them, so the top part facing out will be too high once it's welded in, making it impossible to close the door. The one I installed on the passenger side I think I eventually got to work, mainly with a pry rod and door adjustments. It will probably need more work. For the driver's side one, I wanted it to fit when I welded it in, so I decided not to take it to a shop and just figure it out on my own. My solution is crazy, but seems to have worked, at least with the arc problem. Here's the problem, the arc is not enough, so when you line up the rocker at the top door lip, the bottom section hangs past the lip of the inner rocker by almost an inch (Photo 1). Not having any better ideas, and since this is a junk repro part, I decided to find a tree in the woods, wrap the rocker around it, wrap some tree-protector tow straps around it, and pull it tight with my Jeep and winch until at the correct arc (Photo 2). The bad news is that the tree was not perfectly circular, so I ended up putting a little of crease in the rocker. The good news is, I set the radius perfectly and now the panel will fit perfectly when spot welded in (Photo 3). Once it's welded in, I'll have to massage it with some body hammers to see if I can lessen the crease a little, then maybe put some filler in to hide any imperfections, if needed. I said this before, but it costs the same to make a (simple) part correctly than it does to do it wrong, why don't they just make it correct? I'm also assuming that the reproducer, at some point, had to have test-fit the part that they made. I guess they saw their shoddy work, shrugged their shoulders, and sent them off to Moss Motors to be sold to me. For shame.

Thanks Steve. I've really been interested in your posts, the '69 SS-427 is one of my favorite cars.

Some good progress this weekend, but nothing interesting. Went back to work on the rocker panel and filled in many pinholes and just plain holes in some of the spot welds and in some rusted areas. Found one spot weld I missed completely, so did that. Got the whole mess back in primer (Photo 1). Waiting to buy some more Eastwood Chassis Black in a couple weeks, so it will stay like this for a while longer. Also did an assessment of the outer rocker and it needs to be re-curved, so I will try taking it to a shop this week to see if someone can tighten the arc by about 1" so it will fit properly. I also got out the front valance panel and continued to grind it and fill in some pin holes. I got it pretty good, then started adding some body filler to see where I stand (Photo 2). Unfortunately, I didn't do a good enough job welding a few months ago, or I missed something, but a 2" crack opened up, so I will have to grind out about half the body filler and re-weld. The metal is so thin that it is tough to get a good weld in this area, but it's not thin enough that it needs to be cut out and replaced. I'll keep working it.

I would love to see you start posting your work in the "Our Cars and Restorations" area. Looks like a challenging but very interesting project. Not sure if you have time to post there or not, just a suggestion. Good luck with the car!

I got my fenders back today, so left work early to pick them up and get some primer on them before they flash rust. Couldn't have asked for a better day to do it, cloudy, 72 degrees, about 60% humidity. I started by wire-wheeling the pitted areas, as the blasters never seem to get everything out of the pits. I at least made it cleaner than it was before. I then hit each panel pre-prep and did one at a time. The rear fenders I hung from my engine hoist (Photo 1). The front fenders were too heavy and big for the junk I had with which to hang them. No problem, used a stand instead. The main goal is to get a base of good primer on to prevent any flash rust and keep them in good shape until I can do the rest of the body work on them. As you can see on (Photo 2), the front fenders are both roached at the rear lowers, while just the front lowers on the the rear fenders are shot. Painting outside is my only option for now, but no big deal with just the rough primer. Will have some dust, bugs, and lint to sand out, however. One of the rear fenders I already patched (mentioned in the blog a couple months ago) and it will just need a little cleanup before it's ready for some light filler and final sanding/primer. The other fenders will need extensive work with patches and a few other small pinholes in some other areas. One of the rear fenders had a pretty major smash in it. It looks like someone welded a very large tear on the back of the rear fender and they did an excellent job with the weld, but there is a noticeable bead still renaming and quite a few depressions and small wrinkles that will need some grinding and some filler to make right. Overall, they did a pretty good repair. I'll be putting these on the back burner while I complete the rocker panel work on the body. I got an email from the British shop and they are now powder coating my engine block and associated block parts, then they will add all the ancillary parts that I provided. No timeline for completion as of yet, but any communication from them is a good sign. Due to budget constraints, I won't even think about having the body blasted until spring 2020. I'll use the fall and winter to hopefully get the engine in, put all the floorboards and completed related parts on the chassis, thoroughly clean the chassis, re-upholster the seats, finish stripping the paint from the steel frames of the doors, hood, and trunk, and continue on the smalls I have lying around, which will include farming out the gauges and continuing to get things chromed. The chromer is now backed up for about 6 months! Seems like I'm making some big progress now, but I still have so much work to do, I still have a few more years left.

Thanks. Looking forward to more updates from your Merc.

Here's a before pic of the master cylinder assembly. Note the caulking or who knows what that they added to seal areas where proper rubber seals should be.