Remember me?

  Yeah- I'm the guy who used to have a blog about taking a '51 Chevy from rustbucket to dreamboat. And then I stopped. Let me give you some of my lame excuses for my two month delay since the last post:

  On August 6th, the day of my last post, I started a new job. Not only a new job, but also a move to day shift. I haven't been on day shift since 2001, so readjusting my schedule has taken some time. In addition, the new job likes to develop their employees, so I've spent three weeks out of town for training.

  Also, two years of building and disassembling the car, and collecting parts has taken a toll on the space in the garage. In other words- I was getting cramped.

  In the time since I last posted, I have made progress on the car, but I've also cleared out some room in the garage, and started reorganizing the heck out of the place. I'll soon be bringing home my english wheel, which will increase my metalshaping abilities.

  Anyway, on to some progress!

  In the last post, you saw where I'd removed the lower front section of the quarter panel on the driver side. The next step was to temporarily attach the new section so I could see the extent of the work neded to the wheelhouse.

Even temporary, this looks like progress!

 

  The next step was to rebuild the inner wheelhouse, which was just as rusted as the outer sheetmetal.

 

                   A lot of extra meat around the flange, but that's OK- we know how to cut it.

 Getting the wheelhouse back to solid. Pay attention to how close the toolboxes are to my back as I work.

 

 

  Look at the oldskool torch welding!

 

  The last day of September, I was preparing to head to Ohio for two weeks of training, but it was also the last day of the Ducktail Run 2012.

 

 

  Im pretty sure this car belongs to Ron Fowler. Ron is truly the real deal with respect to traditional hot rodding. He's also the guy I bought my Olds hubcaps from

 

 

  Studebaker pickup in bare metal. "Nudebaker."

 

 

  And we made a nice score at the swap meet while we were there: 1955 (or '56) Chevy steering wheel in very workable shape. Paid about half of what they bring on eBay.

 

 Back at the ranch, I paused the reorganization for a couple of days, simply because I HAD to work on the car some.

 

 

  If you notice, there's already more room to work, and I'm not even done with the rework of the shop.

 

 

  Here's a neat piece you'll never see when the car is finished. This is the outside of the wheelhouse. In addition to fixing rust at the bottom, it eliminates the factory access hole, and will provide a bit more tire clearance. I'll need that when we lower the ride height in the rear.