Bleach Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 You have a good example of what the paint would look like if you decided to repaint the car the same color. Most of the wiring in my '51 was in already in bad shape when I bought it in around 1985. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted April 10, 2023 Author Share Posted April 10, 2023 The first headlight assembly is completed. The wiring is hooked up to the bulb and it is ready for installation when the fender is painted. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted April 10, 2023 Author Share Posted April 10, 2023 (edited) Edited April 10, 2023 by Fleetwood Meadow (see edit history) 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GARY F Posted April 10, 2023 Share Posted April 10, 2023 Looks good. It is the little things that are rewarding also. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted April 10, 2023 Author Share Posted April 10, 2023 (edited) Thanks Gary. That’s how I look at it. I have the fender sitting on the bench to be stripped and it’s so unmotivating so I had to do little things to feel like I’m making progress. Edited April 11, 2023 by Fleetwood Meadow (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted April 19, 2023 Author Share Posted April 19, 2023 Floating car ghost in my rear view camera. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 Decided to remove the rust on the roof and apply some primer so it stops rusting. I got about 1/3 of the roof done. I’ll stop before the rain comes and do more over the next week. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 2 hours ago, Fleetwood Meadow said: Decided to remove the rust on the roof and apply some primer so it stops rusting. I got about 1/3 of the roof done. I’ll stop before the rain comes and do more over the next week. Be careful. Primer will hold moisture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 Good point, I will have to get a base coat on it somewhat quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleach Posted June 17, 2023 Share Posted June 17, 2023 Some of the 75's had padded roofs. Might be an option for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 18, 2023 Author Share Posted June 18, 2023 Spoke with the engine rebuilder. Let me start off by saying I will never have someone rebuild my engine again. They can do the machining but that is it and the time frame needs to be much less than 25 months. The block was sent out because they didn’t like how the crankshaft sat in it. It was scheduled to be back in last Friday, 8 days ago. Here is his latest response. “Waiting on block to come back. They were backed up. Looks like Monday they will be working on heads. Will have a better idea Monday. Sorry for delay.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 22, 2023 Author Share Posted June 22, 2023 I decided to clean the front seat of the car after hearing that we are hopefully about a month from getting the engine back. After the mice took over I hadn’t cleaned the front seat but I have seemed to get rid of them so now I want to sit in the car without a piece of plastic under me. I’m a little disturbed by the recovered water but I’m glad it’s now clean. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 27, 2023 Author Share Posted June 27, 2023 The roof is now primed. After keiser31 mentioned that primer absorbs moisture I switched to Rustoleum Professional Primer. According to the research I did it is designed for indoor/outdoor use and it beads the water on it instead of absorbing it. While I was outside with the car I hooked up a jump wire and was checking out the lights. It’s the first time in over 2 years that the tail lights have been turned on. Hopefully the engine will be back soon and I can hook up the electrical again. I don’t tend to be a sentimental guy but when I work on my cars, in between internal arguments I’m having with people that aren’t around me at the time, I tend to think about people close to me. My aunt, the one I talked about earlier in this thread, whom named this car Ricardo had a stroke on Sunday. She will be 63 this July and my mother found her disoriented and making incoherent sentences. They had to perform a surgery on her neck and removed what the doctor called a large clot. As I have been working on this car lately I have been hoping to get it running soon so I can take her for a ride in it. Now I’m not sure just what will happen since she has blood in her lungs and they don’t know why. I’m not sure why I always think about my family so much while I’m working on these cars but my mind naturally moves to them. It’s funny how some people think of cars as mere tools to transport us but for others they do something internally to them. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 30, 2023 Author Share Posted June 30, 2023 I added some color to the rear of the roof. It is very close to the blue I wanted it to to be. I think I will continue painting the roof. It will match the blue toned interior I have in mind. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted June 30, 2023 Author Share Posted June 30, 2023 Should have done this before I painted but I wasn’t planning to do this yet. Took the trim off of the doors and the belt line. I’m glad I did. It was wet and filled with debris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 11, 2023 Author Share Posted July 11, 2023 (edited) Repainted the door trim. Looks perfect. I finished painting the roof and the surround around the windshield. The “white” in the trim is actually a little more of a cream color in person. Edited July 11, 2023 by Fleetwood Meadow Added the last sentence. (see edit history) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 12, 2023 Author Share Posted July 12, 2023 Cleaned out the trunk. First time in over 2 years. The mice had fun in there. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy J Posted July 12, 2023 Share Posted July 12, 2023 I'm 3 years into my '51 Pontiac restoration and I am still blowing rat turds out of that car every time I blow into the car to clean it out.All I lack is the upholstery to finish,but I would like to get all the rat turds out of it. I don't think it's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 16, 2023 Author Share Posted July 16, 2023 The tedious act of paint removal has begun again on the front fender. With the engine rebuilder claiming it will be ready very soon I have to pause the rear end cleanup and get the front end cleaned up so the engine can go back in. Earlier this year I bought a surface conditioning tool and it is making the paint removal so fast. What took me a couple days on the first fender took me a couple hours on this one. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r1lark Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 (edited) Fleetwood, did you get the Eastwood surface conditioner, or the Harbor Freight one? I've been considering getting one of these, but wasn't sure how much of an improvement it would be over a DA or grinder with 60 or 80 grit. How did you strip the first fender? Edited July 17, 2023 by r1lark (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 17, 2023 Author Share Posted July 17, 2023 It’s the harbor freight one. It comes with 3 drums and I did the whole roof and this fender with still over half the drum in material left. It makes the process so fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 18, 2023 Author Share Posted July 18, 2023 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 18, 2023 Author Share Posted July 18, 2023 Took some time but every bolt came out beautifully. I was pleasantly surprised. Say what you want about how I tackle body work, but I would never do this.. (lower left side) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Zimmermann Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 It's not the first time I'm seeing such "repair"! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hursst Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Just caught up on the last 4 years of your work. Pretty amazing. Keep posting, there are a lot of folks watching! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleach Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 9 hours ago, Fleetwood Meadow said: Took some time but every bolt came out beautifully. I was pleasantly surprised. Say what you want about how I tackle body work, but I would never do this.. (lower left side) That's a typical area for rust on these cars. I had the same problem on mine when I fixed all of it's rust in 1986 and it was a southern California car from new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 19, 2023 Author Share Posted July 19, 2023 (edited) This was a Pennsylvania car. It was resprayed after some body damage. And then this repair did a lot of damage itself Edited July 19, 2023 by Fleetwood Meadow (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 19, 2023 Author Share Posted July 19, 2023 The area I sanded was covered in body filler, some over 1/8” thick. It was hiding a long dented area. Does the brass repair indicate anything, such as an age or style of repair? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Zimmermann Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 Probably the could not weld but attached the patch with silver soldering... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retirednow Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 Looks like repair was done with a brazing rod 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 27, 2023 Author Share Posted July 27, 2023 I attached the light to the fender. It is just about ready to go back on once I clean and paint the engine bay. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drhach Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 I really like the blue you've chosen for the car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleach Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 On 7/19/2023 at 5:08 AM, retirednow said: Looks like repair was done with a brazing rod A proper repair would have been by cutting out the old rusty metal to good metal and welding in new metal. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted July 30, 2023 Author Share Posted July 30, 2023 I would love to hear the real history of this car. The engine was removed due to an oil leak. It’s a 1953 engine so I am assuming the ‘52 engine had a bad cam shaft like they were known for. The metal under the grill is crumpled. This fender was clearly damaged and repaired. The whole car was repainted in a similar to original color. The front driver’s fender doesn’t have undercoating yet every other panel does. So I’m assuming it was in a nasty accident and the repairs I’m finding were done to quickly get the car back on the road. But I don’t know very much about the car. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted August 5, 2023 Author Share Posted August 5, 2023 Took some time but I was able to piece together what was missing on the fender. I have to clean it up and grind the welds but I’m pleased with the look and I’m pleased with how it fits on the car. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 This engine situation has caused me to completely lose motivation. The engine was supposed to be done by August 1st. The engine rebuilder didn’t get back to me and I finally got in touch with him two days ago. He said to me they were closed for four weeks and just started running again. I’m so sick of his excuses. I told him he has until 9/16 and I’m coming to get the engine whether it’s finished or not. He told me I can’t. If it’s not finished he isn’t releasing it. So now he has my engine held hostage. I’m so disgusted I’m tempted to just sell the car and let some fool put an LS engine in it and hot rod the damned thing… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r1lark Posted August 31, 2023 Share Posted August 31, 2023 A lot of machine shops are way backed up these days, at least the good ones. It took about 8 months for my machinist to bore and hone a Studebaker block for me, but he told me upfront it would take that long based on the work he had in the shop. Around here, so many of the good machinists are doing pretty much only race car stuff, so the rest of the good machinists are swamped. Yes, there are machinists that have little to no waiting but they aren't what I consider the good contentious machinists. Keep your chin up, maybe your machinist will surprise you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drhach Posted August 31, 2023 Share Posted August 31, 2023 I'll second that. I had similar issues with my local shop. They did a great job and long waits sometimes are the price you pay for a quality shop to do your work. Are there other things you can do to the car while you wait? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleetwood Meadow Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 28 months! That’s far too long. There are plenty of things I can do but I’m losing steam when I have seen no progress updates, I haven’t been told that they are even assembling it. And every time I hear from him they have been “closed.” And then he has the nerve to tell me he gave me a discount for waiting. It it’s still almost $9k. And to add insult to injury a friend of mine had an engine rebuilt by them too. He gave it to them last year and the engine is already back in the car. It’s hard to keep your chin up when you can’t move the thing or hear it run. How does one get the motivation. To spend thousands of dollars on a lawn ornament? I guess it’s just finally hitting me that I made a mistake with using this guy and he certainly isn’t getting my ‘51 Dodge engine that I want to rebuild.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smartin Posted September 14, 2023 Share Posted September 14, 2023 Almost sounds like they screwed something up and are hiding it until they can find a replacement or fix what they fubar'ed. 28 months is not cool. Especially if you have a friend who had theirs in and out in the same year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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