Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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Very nice! The LH bottom rear corner of my door on my 40 sticks out farther than the quarter, but the upper half is flush. When I get to that point, I'm going to have to get your take on how I should fix it as I don't want to ruin the door.

On a painted car, this involves rolling down the window, wrapping a 2x4 in a towel, and place the 2x4 between the door jamb and the center part of the door that fits. Then lean on the door above and below the 2x4 to "tweak" the fit. On a car without paint, save the wear and tear on the towel.


With the lower corner of the door fitting better, it becomes all the more obvious how poor of a reproduction these outer rocker panels are. The "concave" radius does not match the fender to the front or the quarter to the rear of the rocker. This would have been a good fix using the Wheeling machine with a Go Kart slick, had it been noticed before installation.





Matching the lower anvils of the Wheeling machine to the radius on the quarter, this one fits the best. Also notice how it doesn't fit as well in the rocker panel..








At this point I thought I'd try a "portable" version of the Wheeling machine to add a bit more radius to the rocker panel.








Built in guide......





After some "wheeling", and some bumping of the leading edge with a door skin hammer:


Just to show the comparison, before



After:

Originally Posted by MP&C

On a painted car, this involves rolling down the window, wrapping a 2x4 in a towel, and place the 2x4 between the door jamb and the center part of the door that fits. Then lean on the door above and below the 2x4 to "tweak" the fit. On a car without paint, save the wear and tear on the towel.

I used that same method on my '37. Worked like a charm!

Originally Posted by randyr

I used that same method on my '37. Worked like a charm!

An old telephone book works well,too.. Even better than a block of wood in some cases..

Matching the lower anvils of the Wheeling machine to the radius on the quarter, this one fits the best. Also notice how it doesn't fit as well in the rocker panel..
At this point I thought I'd try a "portable" version of the Wheeling machine to add a bit more radius to the rocker panel.
After some "wheeling", and some bumping of the leading edge with a door skin hammer:

Lost me.... You mean you was bumping your die ? Or the rocker just in front of your die ? Thanks.

This was basically a glorified "rolling" operation, as there is no access to the back side like you would have with using an actual English wheel. So for applying pressure, I started on a creeper and found the casters counter-productive.


Once I put the piece of diamond plate on the floor I could get a bit more pressure applied. Rolled it back and forth a few times with pressure applied. Even though it has a guide, by adjusting height location of handle end, you could move anvil's path up and down on the rocker about 1/2 to 3/4 inch. So I worked it front to back and then moved position slightly and repeated. About ten minutes time overall, took longer to make the handles than to use them.

It didn't appear to pull the gap open any farther. In watching the movement as I was rolling, what appeared to happen is the reproduction panel has rather bulbous radius on outside corners where factory is sharper. So looking at this crude depiction, I think it is just relocating metal and forming sharper creases in the process.





Where the front end of the rocker has an end plate spot welded in, the roller didn't have as much effect there, so it needed more persuasion right on the end. Hence, the door skin hammer..

Very nice work. Cool solution to working with everything in place. Also nice tips on door adjustments!

Wow, great work and thanks for the tips. Once the body is bolted to the frame I will try that!

More progress today, working on some metal bumping on the drivers quarter, so a profile template was needed... Took a 1-1/2 x48 piece of 19 ga and used the mag brake to fold it, then the bead roller to flatten.





Then used the kick shrinker to get it to match the contour of the rear of the door, this will give us a close match to the front half of the quarter...








If you shrink too much, no need to change dies, just shrink the rear portion of the template (away from the body)





Ends are radiused...





Then the factory battery tray (firewall mounted) was dissected to use with the "Factory AC car" parts, in order to mount the battery in the passenger front corner behind the core support.





...and all the parts were media blasted. We have some sheet metal plugs to punch out tomorrow for use on a couple of repairs of thin spots, and then the works will get mocked up on the inner fender for placement, weld the parts together, and off for powder coating.





One more tip for those doing mock-up/door fitment without latches, this will hold the door flush with the jamb. (Thanks to Laszlo Nobi for that idea)

Great work and thanks for another great tip!

Thanks!


Tonight we turned our attention to inner fenders. We've got some items slated for powder coating, and these will get added to the pile.





The front edge that bolts outside the grille is showing remnants of water retention...








Mountain Dew template





Bead details to match the originals.....





Bead roller was set up with a backstop die...








Skateboard wheel and "rolling" wheel used to add radiused ends....











Grabbed a suitable scrap from the pile and used the sander to make a bead ender tool thingie, used on the treated 6x6 anvil...











Clamped and tacked....








More tomorrow......

Adds meaning to DO THE DEW!

Great work! I really need to get a bead roller!

A must have tool when doing floors

Ryan, the bead roller is one of the most versatile tools in the shop, highly recommended!


Well the Wheeling Machine finally has paint!


Napa Econo-etch primer....





H/K Pavo Purple and Flo Klear. I tried playing with the camera settings to get it to capture the true color, but it just wasn't happening. It may look blue in the pic, but it's about as close to Chrysler's Plum Crazy as you can get without putting a HEMI under the hood..











Here's the actual color...





While I was finishing up the paint on the English Wheel, Kyle stripped the driver's inner fender. This one has the same issues in the front as well as a spot up top where the flange of the fender had some rust issues we previously repaired..








Looks like our same template will work here as well..














And while I was trimming more rust away, Kyle was working on the passenger side learning the fine art of dressing welds...