Why do I blog about this?

  There are several reasons, actually. One is certainly so that my friends and family can follow along with the progress. I am also doing it selfishly, to serve as a build journal for myself. Since I am a member of a few message boards that deal with old cars like this one, I do the blog so that as I make progress, I write a new entry for the blog, and then just put up a link on the message boards instead of writing it out three times.

  And the other reason. There are many people with the skills (or potential skills) to take on a project along these lines. But, they lack a huge budget, or a big, well-equipped shop to do it in, and soon find themselves overwhelmed at the prospect, and never do it. I know that feeling very well, as it held me back for a long time. The blog is to show people that it CAN be done on limited resources.

  Anyhow, when I last left you, I had just begun to make the center body brace for the driver's side. A bit more cutting, bending and fitting, and I had the shell of the brace tacked together

  There are two bolts that screw into this brace from underneath that fasten the body to the frame. I drilled out the holes, and made these two blocks

  Screwed bolts into them through the holes to ensure that everything will line up, and then tacked them to the brace

  Once tacked, I removed it from the car, and, it was ready to finish off.

Finish welded

ground smooth

  And a coat of weld through primer.

  It's almost ready to install, but before I do, I'll use it as a pattern to go ahead and make one for the passenger side, so I'll have it ready when I get to it.

  I originally planned to make my rockers from scratch, but I decided to spend a little of the money that I got for the Fairlane, and order up some new ones. After I install them, I'll modify them to Improve the car's styling.

  The bag with them is a complete set of body mounting rubber.

  During the time since my last entry, We passed the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chevrolet Motor Car company. While out picking up some primer for the Chevy, 51Kid and I made a slight detour to pay some respects

  Co-founder of the company. He had left the company within 5 years of its' founding, but it still retains his name.

  It's getting colder. I'll freely admit that cold weather adversely affects my motivation to go out to the shop, but I want to keep pushing forward, as I really want to get to the next milestone in the build by the end of next Summer, if not before.

Back to the grind. And cut. And weld

  Wow, was September a busy month for us! September is the car amd model contest marathon. First, we had Goodguys weekend, which also coincided with the Marion County swap meet. We snuck to the swap meet on Thursday, since I'm director of the model and pedal car contest at Goodguys, and am locked into the whole weekend there. Unfortunately, we didn't find anything for the car at the swap.

  Goodguys was great. It's now being held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway instead of Indanapolis Raceway Park. I miss the nostalgia drags that we had at IRP, but everything else about the new venue is better.

 After awards on Sunday, we got out a bit, and we met up with someone I was dearly hoping to see. Denise Sheldon is someone I know from the HAMB. She's a great person, and I really wanted Leigha to meet her because Denise is a true lady rodder. She does as much work as she can on her car, and she drives it. In fact, she came all the way from the Detroit area, and she drove her '47 Oldsmobile convertible all the way. No trailer queen, here.

  Leigha and Denise hit it off immediately, and Denise actually took Leigha for a ride in "Big Olds." Before the ride, Leigha had been on television, and had met Indy Car driver Ed Carpenter. A lot of really cool things happened to her that morning, but the ride in Big Olds was what she went on and on about all day.

  The next weekend was the double car show weekend. The Ducktail Run in Gas City and the James Dean Run in Fairmount. They're about a half hour apart, and both are excellent. We had to dodge a bit oif rain, but we still saw a ton of great traditional rods and customs

  A sea of cool iron at the Ducktail

  Then on to the the "Million Merc March" at the Dean.

  As if that weren't enough, the following weekend was the South Central Indiana Modelers Assn model contest. As a proud member of SCIMA, I handle the contest side of the show. It's always a great time, but it was starting to feel like I wouldn't ever get back to working on my Chevy!

  But that changed as we got into October!

  The second weekend of October, I made a huge step for the Chevy. I sold my 1968 Fairlane project that I'd owned for nearly 20 years.

  In addition to adding some funds to the kitty, this also frees up some room in the driveway. That driveway room will play HUGE for the Chevy in the semi-near future.

  But, believe it or not- I actually got back to the CAR!

    When we left off, we'd tacked in the rear body braces,m which was unpleasant and a bit gruelling. If I have not said it before, I'm not fond of welding overhead, and I absolutely DESPISE doing it in a tight spot. It's just never going to be enjoyable for someone who dislikes the scent of my own flesh burning as much as I do.

  But, I did add a few more tacks, and they're in securely enough for the time being. I promise we WILL finish weld them later. I also filled all of the holes left from cutting out the old ones without the benefit of the spot weld cutter, and ground the welds down a bit on the inside of the car. Next, we move forward, and that starts with removing the drivers side rear footwell.

  The most forward section of the footwell, where it meets the front seat riser. Remember when I promised to demonstrate how slick the spot weld cutter operates?

  With a small drill, you drill a hole for the pilot of the cutter

  Then, you cut through the top layer with the spot weld cutter. A little prying pressure between the pieces lets you know when you've successfully cut the weld. You can see with the weld on the left that the two pieces have separated.

  With the top piece removed, you can see that instead of leaving 3/8" holes in the lower piece, you only leave the small holes from the pilot drill. In this particular case, it won't matter as much, since we'll be replacing most of the brace, too. But, it does show how the cutter reduces work.

  Before I cut out the brace, I have to think a bit ahead. While I highly doubt that the brace is carrying a lot of weight, I have to be careful. If I cut something that's supporting a lot of weight, the entire body could sag, which would mean a TON of work to correct.

  This brace is tack welded to the frame at the bottom, and to the roof at the top. This should keep things from sagging.

  And when I removed the bolts through the brace, and cut the end of the brace off, the slot didn't close up at all while I was cutting. That tells us that nothing moved on us.

  The old brace sitting next to where it came from. Thge outboard end of this brace is totally gone, as is the one on the other side. Again, if I were trying to make it look exactly as it did originally, I'm pretty screwed, here. But, since I don't care about original appearance, I'm only concerned with work that is strong and cleanly done.

  I learned from the mistake with the rear braces. I'm doing this center brace with access to it from top and bottom, and will build the brace before the new footwell goes in.

  Since this brace is more complex that the rear braces, I'm going to actually build it in place. It has compound angles, and the easiest route is going to be to build it in three pieces, and build it where it's going to live.

  Here, I'm starting to form the bottom of the trough. I need to be able to remove it at various points of the construction, so it's only attached with Tek screws and clamps for now. If you look closely, you can see where I've made two small marks just past the frame. The brace dips but about 1.5" here, and the marks show where to bend it to make the dip. 

  While I'm building this, I have to make a few decisions about the exact order to attack things, but at this point, I'm pretty sure that I will be finishing the driver's side all the way to the firewall before returning to the passengers side.

 

Over the hump

  I hope. Clearly, looking back- I should have done the rear body braces before I replaced the sheetmetal in the rear seat riser. That certainly made the rear body braces a LOT more difficult.

  In our last installment, we fabricated new braces. Now was the time to install them. As much as cutting, grinding and welding are a huge thrill, when you're lying on your back, in a confined space, and working over your head- a lot of the fun drains right out of it. But hell, if this stuff was easy, anyone could do it.

  When you're welding upside down, you get an extra safety concern- your welding puddle, which normally lays right there in the work area, can sometimes be overcome by gravity. When it does, you don't want ANY part of your body directly beneath the weld zone. If you're wondering if I learned this the hard way, yes I did. The worst burn I've ever had in my life was incurred while repairing body braces on that blue and white '59 Chevy you saw the picture of in an earlier post.

  So, I put on a  cap to keep debris out of my hair, and got the biggest eye protection I had, and ground the surface for the passenger's side brace clean. Of course, I had to cut off the end of the new brace to get it into place, but welding it back together won't be a problem. I did a little trimming, and then tacked the brace into place.

  The darker gray rectangle running from top center down and slightly to the right is the new brace. It's disappearing under the tabs on the frame where body mounting bolts go through.

  For the driver's side, I had my new spot weld cutter to use, and now that I've used one, I can't believe I haven't had one before now. It's hard to take pictures under the car, but when I get to some work out on more accessible areas, I'll show you just how well it really does work.

  It took less time to get to the same point with the driver's side.

  With both braces tacked into place, We can now move forward. I need to do some more repairs to the top of the seat riser, since I did some damage removing the braces. Once that is done, I'll finish weld the braces, and then we'll be on to replacing center body braces and rear footwells. And we'll do both at the same time, which should go a lot faster than the rear braces.

  And, I have a new side project. When I got this car, I really hoped it would be a family project. I've encouraged the girls to get involved as much as they want. 51Chick seems to be happier doing parts searching, and 51Kid seems to enjoy getting hands-on (and hands dirty).

  During the body brace work, 51Kid wandered into the garage one day and said she thought she was ready to learn to weld. Needless to say, work on the car stopped cold right there for that day!

  Within a half hour that first day, she was doing decent tacks with the MIG. The next weekend, she spent another half hour or so doing tacks on 16 gauge, and was consistently getting very good tacks.

  If you look close, you can see that there are welds from both the top and bottom of the workpiece. Notice the ones from the other side have excellent penetration.

  When we get back to the sheetmetal work on the inside of the car, I'm going to have her do some welds that will actually be putting the car back together. It's starting to become more of a true family project!

Slowdown

  Yuck! Hit a bit of a snag. Remember this picture from when I started the driver's side rear seat riser?

  The rusty piece running from left to right in the picture is the rear body brace. And, as you can see, the outboard end is pretty well dissolved.

  Fortunately, the one on the passenger side was in much better shape. I decided that my race across the floorboard better slow down a bit. At least long enough to do the body braces underneath the floor as I go.

  So, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to get the rear body brace out of the passenger side to use as a template for making new ones. Replacements can be bought for $65.00 apiece, but there are three rows of them, and two sides to each row... That's about 400 bucks that I can spend better elsewhere. And making stuff is more fun than just buying it anyway, so we'll remove the one on the passenger side, and use it as a pattern to make new ones.

  Well, it sounded easy, anyway.

  First step was to drill out the old spot welds to get it loose from the part of the floor we didn't replace. Y'know- I've seen special tools for cutting spot welds before, and always laughed. I figured "What does that give me that a drill bit doesn't.?"

   I know, now.

  I spent the better part of a day just finding, and managing to drill out the old spot welds. Slow, frustrating work. Once I'd managed to get it free, the large holes from drilling made that spot weld cutter look a whole lot more valuable. The only semi-bright spot in that was that the metal I had to drill the huge holes in has some rust damage, and I'm going to need to replace it, too. So, I'll get away with it. And I ordered some spot weld cutters for the rest of the car, since I now understand the need for them. Oh, and I found one more nice little fact: Even when all of the attaching welds are cut, the body brace cannot be removed with the body on the frame!

  But, as I've mentioned before-until the bottom of the body is strengthened back up, removing the body from the frame could be a colossal mistake. Gives me a nice little "Catch-22." I can't remove the body until I rebuild the bottom of the car, but I can't replace the braces with the body on the frame.

  Okay, there's two solutions. One would be to remove the brace through the floorboard. But I just finished repairing the floor there! It would mean cutting out work that I've just finished! The other solution (the one we chose) is to cut the end off of the body brace so that it can be removed. Once it was out, I tack welded it back together for use as a pattern

  It was really not in too bad of shape. It might have been repaired, but it was needed as a pattern.

  There are two ways to make the replacements. They could be formed from a single piece, which would be delightfully challenging. It would also take forever, so I decided to make them out of three pieces.

  They are diffrent from right to left sides, but are mirror images of one another, So I cut two leading sides, two trailing sides and two tops. When I put the bends in them, I bent them exactly opposite of it's counterpart from the other side. After a few tack welds with the MIG, I had this:

 

Starting to take shape, but a lot of work remains. I could just keep tacking with the MIG until they were solid, but MIG welds are harder than Oxy-Acetylene welds, and therefore harder to grind. I need more practice with doing the OA welds on sheetmetal before we start working on exterior metal, so- time to fire up the torch.

  And nail these things together the old-fashioned way.

51Kid photography

  After a bit of work with the torch, alternating back and forth between the two to avoid too much heat buildup, they looked like this. Complete, solid welds from end to end. The OA weld beads are not only softer than MIG beads, they also don't stick up as far, which means...

 About ten minutes with a flapper wheel on a grinder, and they look like this!

  Yes, that's a bit excessive on the metal finishing for something that is going to be hidden underneath the car, but it was also good practice for the work that will be visible on top. And this is the exact method I plan to use.

  At this point, they're almost ready to go in. I still need to make and tack in the gussets where the body to frame ataching bolts will pass through. I also need to- yes- cut the ends off of them so that I can get them in. Once in, I'll weld them back together.

  Once these are in, we'll be off to the races with the rear footwells and center body braces. I'll try to think ahead a bit better on the center braces, and maybe not have to put them in in two pieces!

  Also, 51 Chick was busy in her role as "Seeker" this week, too. If you remember, the last thing I bought for the car in 2010 was an engine and transmission from a '55 Chevy. In February, she found me the '57 Chevy rearend that I wanted. The only other driveline pieces I was missing was a driveshaft and transmission slip yoke.

  Well, she found a guy about 15 minutes from 51Kid's school who had a '57 Chevy driveshaft with slip yoke attached. The next morning, I dropped 51Kid off at school, and went to check on it. Sure enough, the slip yoke will fit the '55 transmission. The rear yoke will match up perfectly to the rearend, since they're out of the same make, model and year of car, and this driveshaft has been recently reconditioned!

  I may need to have the shaft lengthened or shortened slightly. A 1951 Chevy and 1957 Chevy have almost the exact same wheelbase. Exactly where I put the motor mounts will determine for sure, but this thing may be perfect as it is. We'll see.

 

 

 

One piece at a time

  And it didn't cost me a dime. Well, I can wish that part were true.  Last year, soon after I'd gotten the car, the coolest nephew in the world was over, checking out the new toy. He mentioned that it seemed an intimidating project. Yeah, yeah- I KNOW he's right, but if a person allows himself to dwell on how intimidating a project is, they will end up talking themselves out of doing it at all. All I said in response to his (Accurate) observation was:

  You do a big project the exact same way you eat an elephant- one bite at a time.

  A year later, he's into doing heavy bodywork for himself. He's restoring an '88 S10 pickup that has been in our family since it was brand new. He bought it from my father, who bought it from me. He's cutting out rusty cab corners and rockers and welding in new ones. And he's getting good at it. He's hit snags and worked his way through them, and his truck is coming along nicely.

  But, on Saturday, July the 9th- he didn't get SQUAT done on his truck. He came to the 51 Ranch for a day in the garage. Unlike the times before, we didn't spend the day leaning on the car and talking about making it better- we spent the day doing something about it!

We cut out the rusted driveshaft tunnel

  We then formed up a new tunnel. I put a little bit of extra height in the new tunnel. I'm going to lower the rear of the car, and when I do, that little bit of extra clearance may be huge. Then again, it may not be enough, but if not- We'll deal with that when the time comes.

   The guy who stood in my garage and told me that he'd probably never learn to weld?

  Here he is, in the same garage, welding in the new driveshaft tunnel. He's got plenty of ability and potential, and he's starting to believe in himself. I'm beyond tickled that I got to play a part in lighting that fire.

  I found something interesting while we were working. During a BS break, I picked at a piece of cracking bondo on the quarter panel to flick at him. (It's a "guys in the shop" thing. If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand).

  Well, I actually pulled off a fairly large chunk, and was amazed at what I found

  A bit hard to see in the picture, but when the "bodywork" was done before, they actually used patch panels! Of course, while the previous "bodyman" had the parts and tools to actually do a good job, he still failed miserably: instead of cutting out the bad metal and flush fitting the patch, he just slapped it over the bad metal, tacked it in place, and bondoed the heck out of it to (sort of) blend it in. Personally, I think this makes him even worse in my eyes- he had everything he needed to actually do a proper repair, and still failed. I hope he never touches another old car again.

  Speaking of patch panels, looky what I got from Chevs of the 40's:

    The following weekend, we took off to celebrate 51 Kid's birthday with a weekend in the woods. Camping, fishing, and swimming in a rock quarry. While we were up there, we stopped to check out a wooded area where there are dozens of old cars hiding in the woods. We've known about it for years, but now that we're old car owners, this sort of place has more interest for us. We didn't trespass, only looked from the road. 51 Chick is going to try and find out how to get in touch with the owner of the property- I could see a couple of '51 Chevys in the woods, and they could potentially provide us with a part or two. I'll keep you posted.

  Back home to following weekend, it was time to start on the rear seat riser for the passengers side.

  The body brace is in better shape on this side. I'll still have to remake it, but this one will at least serve well as a pattern for making the new ones.

  Everything tacked into place

  Most of the finish welding done.

  Once we complete the finish welding and grinding on the passenger side seat riser, we're going to be ready to rebuild the rear body braces and put in rear footwells. I'll also be incorprating some solid mounting points for seat belts. I know that seat belts aren't exactly traditional, but they're not a negotiable point for me. The car will have them- tradition and opinions be damned.

  I also added a new tool to the stable since I last updated this blog. When I started this project, I planned to do all of the work myself, excepting machine shop work, glass cutting and upholstery. Well...

  Now, please be aware that my entire experience with sewing machines begins and ends with making a guide for one of the machines used in the alterations department at work. But, this is a commercial quality machine. It's strong enough to do leather or naugahyde. It's a good machine for doing upholstery work. Carl found me a killer deal on it. Of course, I have almost no idea as to how to use it, but look at the pictures above- those are pictures of where the back seat goes. I have time to learn!

  Looks like Justin isn't the only one adding new skills to the arsenal.

 

AFU!

  How am I feeling on the project lately? Actually, Sammy Hagar outloined my current feelings pretty well:

90 days on the road is what I need
When my axe cuts me deep, I let it bleed
On the stage, off my strings, down my face
And all over me
Pumpin' up for the show
Feelin' like something's gonna blow
S'got me all fired up
Yes, I'm all fired up
Through the ice into the fire
Blowin' steam
North and south, east n'west, right n'left
I'm always extreme
Don't like the middle squeezing me
I don't like nothin' in between
Yes, I'm all fired up
Got me all fired up
When the rest have packed it up
I'm alive, I'm electric, inspired
I, I'm naturally wired
Wired, naturally wired
Wired, wired
I'm naturally wired
Naturally wired
Wired, naturally wired
Wired, naturally wired.

  Why am I fired up and feeling invincible? I AM FIXING RUST, that's why! As a car guy, I hate rust. We ALL hate it- we're conditioned to hate it. But, I've come to realize something about myself in the past couple of weeks: I LOVE fixing rust. Absolutely love it. It's a huge rush to see myself fixing something that most people would give up on. It's a bigger rush to enjoy it so much!

  Blah, blah- enough touchy-feely stuff, let's show what we've done, what we've found, and where we're going next.

This area was of special interest to me. The day after I brought it home, I pulled the rear seat bottom out and noticed that in this corner, I could see daylight through the car. That bothered me, so I saw fit to attack this area first. What you're looking at is the rear seat riser and driver's side rear wheelwell from the inside of the car. Notice that through the hole, you can see the rear tire. I almost got ahead of my photography- you can see the cut mark made with my ever-present Sharpie.

Bad metal on top of the riser cut away. The rusty piece running from side to side is the body brace, and will be replaced. The part running up and down is the frame, and it has only surface rust, which is easily dealt with. I expected to find the top of the frame to need some serious repair, but I'm finding nothing worse than minor surface rust on it.

The first piece of new metal tacked in place. I'm starting to feel good.

And, a couple hours later, the whole corner and seat riser is rebuilt. Still needs finish welding and grinding, but I'm starting to feel REAL good! The car now has less rust and more solid metal than it's had over the past 3 owners!

  Of course, there's always more rust to be found in a car this bad. I expected that.

No, I'm not pointing to something with an abbreviated digit. I still have all my fingers in their stock length. What you can't see is sticking through a rust hole. Gonna have to make a new trans tunnel.

  I also decided to take the door threshold plate and trim off the rocker. Once I'd done that, I was able to remove the inner and outer rocker with my bare hands! Yes, the rust was bad, but a little detective work showed that there was more than just rust at work: When it recieved the botched "bodywork" by the jackweed previous owner, they had actually installed a replacement rocker panel- with screws into rusty metal underneath.

With the inner and outer rocker off, it makes for a somewhat graphic and frightening picture

Yee-haw! This is gonna be fun. Seriously- I'm gonna have a blast with this!

  Next steps are to replace the trans tunnel, and duplicate the rear seat riser repair on the passenger side. After that, we'll rebuild the body brace under the seat riser and then replace the rear footwells. Tomorrow is going to be a blast- Coolest nephew in the world is coming over to help work on it. A year ago, he stood in my garage and told me he'd probably never learn to weld. A month later, he owned his own welder and was doing heavy work on his pickup truck. Tomorrow, he becomes guest welder #1 on the Chevy!

 

Starting to get REAL fun!

  Alright, we're going to start tackling the very worst that the body of this car has to throw at us. 51Chick has been a bit disheartened by the extent of the rust in the bottom of the car. I can see where she's coming from. 51Kid thinks that her Daddy can fix anything, so I can't let her down.

  When a car has rusted this bad underneath, you have to be ready for the possibility that things have moved, or that they may move when you start cutting out what is left. When the car has rusted this bad and lost a front wheel (running over it in the process)- even more likely. Working in our favor (about freaking time something does!) is the fact that this car is a sedan, not a hardtop. The fact that it has a "B" pillar helps strengthen the body.

  So, before we begin cutting, we need to brace everything up solidly. But, before that- we need to make sure that the cowl and B Pillar are correctly oriented to one another. There will never be a better time to correct this than right now.

  So, we start by taking a lot of measurements, and as luck has it, they look pretty good. Things look pretty square. However, if we consider the alignment of the doors NOW, it may make things a LOT easier down the road. The passenger door was aligned pretty close when I got the car, and it didn't take long to get it lined up perfectly. So, we used a bit of 1" square tube just to ensure things stay put.

  45 degree braces from the rear inner quatrter panel to the floor, and from the front door jamb to the trans tunnel. I tied them together with another piece of 1" tube.

  The driver's side is what worried me. The tire that came off hit the back of the fender near the cowl, and the fender was so weak that it didn't take much of the hit. After that hit, the car rolled over it, and the weak rocker got an upward bend to it, and actually broke loose at the front.  When I put the new door on it last Summer, I never was able to get it lined up very well. It always sat a bit too far to the rear, even with all of the adjustment taken out.

  That front fender that I can't use after all still has a purpose. I put it on temporarily to check the door to fender gap, and it showed an excessive gap.

  The primer on the door and the camera flash almost hide it, but the gap is almost 3/8"

    I got lucky again- I loosened the bolt holding the cowl to the frame under the door jamb at the front, and it sprang forward a slight bit. I still needed to slot the hinge mounting holes slightly (less than 1/8"), but after a couple of test fittings, the door was lining up like a champ!

  So, the next step is to brace up the driver's side the way we braced the passenger's side.

  Now, we're ready to start remaking the bottom of the car. But first- CAR SHOW BREAK!  My absolute favorite car show in Indy every year is the Road Rocket Rumble. It's a Friday-Saturday show, and I like going both days. Great cars and better people! It's a pretty deep resource for ideas and inspiration, and this year was no different.

  This '53 Lincoln was SWEET, And it had the lake pipes done the way I want to do mine. I'd never seen it done before, but in my mind, it looks awesome. This car proved that it looks as good in reality as it does in my head.

  Slick and sweet!

This picture was shot last month in Louisvile, but it was at the Rumble, too. This car is inspiring, to say the least. Many of the things he did are on the schedule for our car.  There is not a single unmodified body panel on this car.

  Back home after the second day of inspiration, it's time to start making some new floors.

  To start, these will be our most important tools

Besides these, but they're important tools in all of the jobs.

  The butcher paper is for making patterns. Once we trace out the pattern on the paper, we cut it out, and transfer it to the metal. If you try eyeballing this sort of thing, you're going to waste a LOT of sheetmetal!

  Getting ready to transfer from pattern to metal

Transferring (note: here's a really good sales idea for the people who make Sharpies- offer them with flavored caps.)

  Cutting. The Harbor Fright unishear surprised me with how well it cuts this thick stuff.

  And the first piece is cut! A couple whacks with the slapper to flatten it back out, a couple of bends, and it will be ready to install!

    I mentioned that the metal I'm using is thick. It's 16 gauge. We all know that older cars used thicker metal than today's cars do. In truth, the body of this car was all 18 gauge originally. On the bottom of the car, I'm going with the slightly thicker metal to add an extra level of strength. Over-engineering is one of my trademarks professionally, and I'm not going to stop doing it on my car. It's a bit harder to work with, but I want the car to outlive me, and this seems like better insurance to that end.

  It's almost time to start showing some serious automotive cancer surgery!