Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Wow, great work! Thanks for posting this. I never gave a thought to using a compass for this. That's a great idea!

I hear ya...quite agree.
Perfectly logical when you see it done.
The greatest ideas are the simplest ones...ones that make you say: "Why didn't I think of that? It's so simple any mug could've thought of it."

Well this mug didn't!

Thanks Robert.

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Ok, one side left to go...











Trimming to fit..........





Welding the layers together....











After dressing the welds..... I do have a couple pin holes to fix, but the gap is looking much better.

Wow, very nice work! That looks amazing. Clear and move on.

Robert great coverage and pics of the repairs . This does give a great insight to doing some tedious work for alignment on the panel . I did it to the mustang doors and fenders .

Thanks for the comments fellas. Spent tonight working on the tailgate jamb area, touching up some factory welds in preparation of installing the rear tail pan. Wasn't too long before Murphy's law reared its ugly head, and the lower part of the jamb showed some signs of rust lurking inside.





Cut open an access hole and cleaned out the inside as best I could for welding in some new metal..








For making a replacement, I have an "anvil" I made recently out of some scraps from under the welding table...











Here's the anvil end we'll use this evening as matched up to the original...











Fitting, trimming, and welding...




















....and, as can be expected, one more to go... Until next time.

Robert, excellent anvil! That is an awesome idea. I have been thinking of making a die so to speak to put in my press. I'm going to remove the bumpers on my 40 and I thought I'd be proactive and make some rectangle pieces and put a curve in the center to agg rigidity and help it contour the fender/tail pan. This way if later on I decide I want bumpers again, I can just unbolt the covers and bolt the bumpers back on. Anyhow, keep up the great work. It's nice to be able to watch a pro and pick up what ever a guy can.

Ryan, some of those home-made tools are the most used..

Had a couple hours this evening so I decided to remove some mud daubers nest....











Used a combination of burr grinder, roloc sander, etc, to clean out the rust and scale as best I could. Once the car is up on the rotisserie again, the troublesome voids such as these will get a good flood of paint.





As this one needs a bit more flange turned in, the inside will need a bit more stretch to go with it. A suitable hammer with more heft will come in handy.











A couple fitments and adjustments, and this is ready for the welder...














and with it getting late, we'll cover the welding on the next update..

time and patients great work

Great work! You sure make it look easy!

You should see the scrap pile!


Time to finish this part up....











All cleaned up....

Starting on the tailpan, we were torn on using the pinch weld flanges. Some of the "subtle" mods we had done included removing the pinch weld flanges and leaded seam above and below the tail lights to get rid of a dirt trap/rust generator...








The pinch weld seam for the tail pan is also in the tires path, especially given the wider rear tires and mini-tubs it's now using.





So we decided to get rid of these as well, and butt weld the panel in. With the car still sitting on the frame, the standard offset snips had some interference issue with the frame rails...





Luckily my lovely bride had picked these up for me a couple years ago...





For a much better fit in such a tight area...








The tailpan was trimmed as well, leaving a bit extra to insure we had enough metal to span the gap...





Used the tipping tool to unfold the remainder of the flange and the door skin hammer to flatten it out...








After another test fit, the reproduction showed to be not that accurate, go figure....





After marking the new bend location, the bead roller was fitted with the tipping die to relocate the bend...





Now that the tipping die has left a crease indicator on the bottom side, a hammer and anvil is used to flatten out the incorrect crease...








For a much better fit.....








With tail gate test fitted....





Well that's about all for this go round, will start welding the tail pan in next time...

Holly cow! Great work. I would have probably junked 2 of those wrong pieces trying to put the correct bend/roll in it.

The tail pan and rear opening were prepped a couple days ago by painting some epoxy on the surfaces that would be adjacent to each other after welding for some rust prevention. Tonight holes were added to the tail pan for plug welding, and the panel fitted up..








Here's the epoxy, I use a letter A size (.234) drill bit for my plug welds, and to clean the epoxy from the adjacent panel, I use a letter A that has been flattened and backfaced to form a cutter similar to an end mill. It cleans the paint well, and hardly touches the metal on the adjacent panel..

















Butt welding the vertical seams...














Note the views from the back side show full penetration welds. Next, grinding the welds in prep for the next set of weld dots..

....and finishing the vertical welds...

Thought I'd spend some time this evening to see how I could clean up these corners....




Trimming out some of the excess...








Used the roll former die to make the radius....











Fitted, welded, and looking much better!