Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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Saturday we had about a three hour drive to our next stop southeast of Cincinnati, at Cornfield Customs. Mike Wagner is among the premiere craftsmen in the country when it comes to metalshaping, it was nice to get to see his shop and some of the projects he has going on.





Mike's shop is a mix of both new and vintage equipment, here is an early Pettingel power hammer that came out of a local warehouse. If only it could tell stories of it's past life...





One of the projects, an all aluminum fabricated hood for a Galaxie, complete with tear drop hood scoop.





Before leaving I had to get a picture next to his 61 Unibody Salt Flats push truck.





Mike, thanks for the hospitality!! From there I had about a 9-1/2 hour ride home. Here's what 11 states worth of bugs looks like...





I had noticed that the fuel economy appeared to be getting better. Or more precisely, that it was taking less fuel to fill up at about the same mileage reading using the tape notation method. So I broke out the calculator again, the last tank was 14.1 mpg. My driving started at about 4 pm in Oregon on Wednesday evening and I was home all safe and sound back in Maryland Saturday night at 9 pm. Quite an adventure.

Looks like a very nice rig. Under 33k original? Had to laugh at your comments about sleeping in the cab at rest stops, been there, done that, banzai runs........................but that's more for you youngsters now.

Bob, it's actually 133xxx. Still not bad for a 58 year old truck.. The paint is about 90% original, it has a couple of small boo boo spots that's been repaired.

Thanks for sharing, love cross country trips, and have done my share on motorcycles, and trucks!. Nothing like trying to sleep in a rest stop in Oregon, and being told by a police officer, it's not legal and to have to leave at 2:30 am after driving over 14 hours. That was in the early 80's where rest stop meant bathroom, and leave!
I think he saw the Californian plates and he was expressing his dislike of us. Hasn't changed much, living here with so many radical individual idiots makes it hard to ever want to stay here. 4 more years, then retirement and endless new possibilities. Was eyeing Idaho and told by a friend there , rent a car before crossing over on a house hunt, as they don't want you here, assuming we are all the same ....not!

Great ride Robert, Nice pickemup too! Speedy Bills museum, I went there a number of years ago, Could'a stayed a week! What a place! Kinda just like the Garlits museum... Bucket list stops for sure.

What an adventure!! Speedy Bill's is a day trip away for me and I've not yet been there!! No reasonable excuses, either!

Been playing catchup for a while since my cross-country venture, time for some long overdue updates. Finishing up on our tailgate, the last stainless pieces of the puzzle came from McMillan Rod and Custom in WI. Pretty good source for polished stainless trim pieces...











We had emailed them dimensions for existing holes in the tailgate, and the welded studs were spot on.

















All our stainless parts added for a test fit/pre-drill/pre-screw of all the hardware to insure they'd go in straight during final assembly. Here's my contribution to the upholstery effort on the car....

















And our tailgate installed....











And our update would not be complete without the requisite back up and punt moment. As we were closing the tailgate there was a slight binding as the tailgate was all but closed. Hey, you know my luck by now. Seems our trial fit in bare metal showed no issues but now we had multiple layers of paint that didn't want to play nice. The hinge notches in the bottom of the tailgate skin were digging into the inside of the hinges..











At this point a hinge is an easier repair than a completed tailgate, so the hinges were milled down .080 on that face and the countersunk holes deepened that much as well..











Then about three rounds of epoxy, block, repeat to eliminate the casting flaws, and on to the organic green kandy basecoat once more...











And then groundhog day, install it once more, with much better results this time.

Such great attention to details!! Amazing work, Robert.

I had mentioned earlier that you must be planning on a Riddler entry, but I read the other day that entries have to be introduced at the Detroit Auto Show, with absolutely no previous publicity, including pictures on social media!! I had no idea! Dave Kindig said that the TwelveAire '53 clone was built in a top-secret room that had strict limited access for a five-year build, with filming of the Bitchin' Rides show in the rest of the shop through it all!

Guess you'll have to settle for "Best In Show" at everyplace else the owner chooses to enter the Nomad!

Roger, besides all the "leaked" pictures of the build, I'm quite certain this car would not be a contender for Riddler, we don't check off enough boxes for unnecessary widgets. I mean, it has a stock frame and 383 stroker. That is so last century.


Some updates on the shop truck... When I picked up the vintage farm tags in Delaware the gentleman was having a men's yard sale with plenty of car parts, etc. I picked up some stainless hub caps and trim rings, I just needed to hammer out some dings and paint the letters.








I had installed a used SUN tach to keep track of the rpm's. Not the one I wanted, but you just don't find used Rotunda tachs sitting on a shelf. Or do you... a couple weeks after installing the SUN I found a gentleman in Idaho that rebuilds the Rotunda's. He did have one rebuilt, ready to go. I will say the Rotunda is like a fine Swiss watch when compared to the Sun, a high-quality movement.





The Rotundra did come with a stainless flat mount for installing on a dashboard, and I needed a column mount so let's fabricate...














Another thing I was looking at doing was to fill out those rear wheel wells with a bit more tire. I had searched far and wide for a 15 x 8 stock steel wheel but they always seemed to have the wrong back spacing. I finally had more luck when a friend said he had some Jeep wheels in that size, with the correct bolt pattern. A test fit showed the back spacing to put this one about as dead center in the wheel well as you can get.













Now we have the wheels media blasted and dropped off for powder coating.











The tires installed should have about 3/4" clearance on either side..