Sealing roof moulding.

[TMURF]

I'm replacing the roof insert on a 1934 Pontiac. What type of sealer should I be using for sealing the moulding around the insert?

 

[PFitz]

Autobody supply shops carry "body caulk" in tubes for caulking gun application and in cans to trowel on. It's non-hardening and made to be compatible with automotive primers and paints.

 

Mask off up to the edges of where the molding will be. Apply body caulk and then the moldings.  Peal off the masking tape and any excess caulking that squeeze's out from under the moldings onto the tape. 

 

Paul 

Edited December 29, 2019 by PFitz (see edit history)

[trini]

Hello TIMURF will you mind PM me please. I am coming up with the same question. I am looking for the aluminiun drip rail for my 28 Dodge Senior . I sought information on this forum for replacement rails and no body was able to tell me where to find such part.  That is amazing. 

The rails on my car was nailed with 1 1/2 inch thin headless nails into oak lumber and by removing  the nails the  soft rail got twisted up.

Harry in Thornhill , Ontario

[trini]

Check with a plumbing  outlet (not Home depot) There is a grey sticky material in a roll like tape that is used to seal kitchen sinks on a counter  top and can be used for sealing most things . Check them out. It is about 5/16 wide and 1/8 thick . A paper between the coils to prevent sticking to itself. Ford has a grey sticky stuff like the thickness of a AC welding rod but  not sold  to the public . It was used in factories only and workers would  sometimes accidently  on purpose put some in their pockets and bring home. 

[Guest]

14 hours ago, trini said:

The rails on my car was nailed with 1 1/2 inch thin headless nails into oak lumber and by removing  the nails the  soft rail got twisted up.

Not OAK.   It is far too brittle.  I am not aware of any body builder that would use oak for framing of automobile bodies.  I do know of amatures that have replaced rotted wood with oak and have driven on rough roads and have had the oak break.

[PFitz]

 

3 hours ago, Tinindian said:

Not OAK.   It is far too brittle.  I am not aware of any body builder that would use oak for framing of automobile bodies.  I do know of amatures that have replaced rotted wood with oak and have driven on rough roads and have had the oak break.

 

 

Yup. Most likely white ash, which some mistake the grain for white oak, or chestnut. White ash was the most common choice of American car builders for body framing. Some bodies were built with maple where it was more plentiful out in the Midwest than white ash, which was more plentiful in the Northeast.

 

Oak was used in commercial vehicles  that would take abuse, such as truck beds. And white oak is more rot resistant for exposed wood bodies of trucks.

 

Paul

[trini]

These are the original lumber, 1928 Dodge Brothers Senior I suspect made by Bud. The main sills on the frame are definitely  white Maple. The curved pieces at the tub area  looks like maple but could be ash and has changed colour. The roof rails are definite oak. the cross rails onto which the chicken wire are nailed definitely oak. There were 5 of them and they all  changed shape. I am replacing them with maple.   The roof side frame is certainly  oak and painted  black. Oak smell is  especially when wet. 

What I am finding out is that no body on this forum were able to tell me how to dismantle this four door saloon. Now I am going to document my experience 

I am leaving tonight for vacation and will be back in April 2020. 

[PFitz]

I can tell you how to dismantle it. 

 

You have to understand how it was put together, and that the designers never intended for the wood to be repaired/replaced.

 

The way wooden framed car bodies were built was from the outside and then the inside. The joints of the framing were glued and screwed mostly from the outside by one carpenter working on that body. That was easier, therefore faster in production. Only toward the end would a few pieces like seat supports, and steel joint braces, be screwed in while the carpenter was standing inside the frame.  Then the wood frame went to the sheet metal where workers fitted sheet metal to whatever the finished framing was, thus hiding the joint screws.

 

They used casine glues, which crystalized after a few years and the glue joints failed. But by then the hunderds of nails in the sheet metal were rusted in place so it became the sheet metal supporting the wood, together not the other way around.

 

White Northern ash was the prime wood used in the auto industry because maple and oak tend to split where screws are used. The e-rating (modulus of elasticity) of white ash is much better suited to auto body framing.  While it is not as rot resistant or strong as white oak it has much more side strength in the grain.

 

So, you have to un-nail hundreds of small clincher nails (often with the heads soldered over so they won't pop paint) from the edges of the sheet metal to replace wood.  Very often those nails are rusted into the wood and it's difficult to get them out without causing damage to the edges of the sheet metal.  That's why it can run into the tens of thousands for a pro wood shop to replace the wood in early cars. 

 

One carpenter did one body with pieces roughed from patterns. Often that caused variation in the sizes so that with some body manufacturers the parts would not interchange, such as swapping doors. Some big shops used jigs to do some of the assembly of door wood to get accracy. A fellow antique auto wood worker from Elmira NY met a man who had been a carpenter for Fisher Body in the early days. He asked what were the tolerances they worked to. The answer was plus or minus 1/8 inch. That was close enough for the metal shop to make the final fit.  However, replacement wood has to fit and support the sheet metal that is on the car, so accuracy during replacement has to be far greater than that. I work at least down to 1/ 128th of an inch - often using  an assortment of verniers calipers.   The only other wood workers I know of that work with calipers that read in thousandths of an inch, are foundry pattern makers. And when your replacing rear tub framing where the sheet metal has to wrap around a long length from rear door to rear door, the tolerances are so close that if you put on one too many coats of paint on the wood to seal it, the sheet metal won't reach to wrap over the nailing edges at the door jam edges.

 

And I had to make a lot of the specialized layout tools, plus a set of coach builder's curves to match those used by early body designers and carpenters.

 

Few have the equipment and knowledge and experience to do that with wood. I learned it growing up with wooden boats and working in boat yards doing wood boat repairs, back in the days when it was called repair and not restoration. The first decade and a half of my full time restoration business I was primarily doing antique auto wood restoration.  Antique car and truck wood is most like boat and carriage work, not home construction or finish carpentry. Two totally different mindsets as to how to measure, and how to do joints that have to withstand being bounced along poor roads. Over the years I've had to redo alot of house carpenter work on car bodies.

 

Think about how the body was built, and you'll have most of your answers how to disassemble. And believe it or not, that's the easy part. Accurate replacement gets even tougher. Then you have to think like a wooden boat restorer.

 

Paul

Edited December 31, 2019 by PFitz (see edit history)

[John_Mereness]

On 12/29/2019 at 10:44 PM, trini said:

Hello TIMURF will you mind PM me please. I am coming up with the same question. I am looking for the aluminiun drip rail for my 28 Dodge Senior . I sought information on this forum for replacement rails and no body was able to tell me where to find such part.  That is amazing. 

The rails on my car was nailed with 1 1/2 inch thin headless nails into oak lumber and by removing  the nails the  soft rail got twisted up.

Harry in Thornhill , Ontario

For replacement Drip Rail try the Model A Ford places - Snyder's perhaps has. 

 

As to the twisted up rail - they are very soft aluminum and you can often work them back straight - takes time though and often a little heat.

[John_Mereness]

On 12/30/2019 at 4:43 PM, PFitz said:

 

 

 

Yup. Most likely white ash, which some mistake the grain for white oak, or chestnut. White ash was the most common choice of American car builders for body framing. Some bodies were built with maple where it was more plentiful out in the Midwest than white ash, which was more plentiful in the Northeast.

 

Oak was used in commercial vehicles  that would take abuse, such as truck beds. And white oak is more rot resistant for exposed wood bodies of trucks.

 

Paul

Auburn and Cord (and I assume Duesenberg bodies built at Central too) had a thing for Poplar - surprising any of the cars survive (good thing they were good looking and ...). 

[John_Mereness]

As a sidenote, I have become partial to putting vinyl or leather windlace cording in around doors when upholstering cars and asking my upholsterer to calk such in as well as staple/nail it - they bulk, but it adds an extra layer of protection in keeping water out of cars that do not have rubber weatherstrip around doors (and I still may ask on a car with rubber weatherstrip when putting in a quality interior). 

[TMURF]

That is a good idea. I may use that suggestion when I do the interior of the car.

 

Tom