Thread: '37 Oze build

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I finally got a new grille to replace the one that I returned to Oze months ago. The grille is improved overall, with a much better fit at the bottom, where there used to be 1/2" gaps between the grille and the body. 1/4-20 tapped holes have replace the old 1/4" through holes, so no nuts are required to mount the grille.

Unfortunately, that's the end of the good news. My grille fits great on the driver's side, but the other side comes up nearly 1/4" short of reaching the top of the hood side. If the hood is set to have 1/8" of gap with the body, there will be 3/8" gap between the hood and the grille, on the passenger side. I spent quite a few hours elongating the mounting holes in the body and getting the best fit that I could, before taking pictures.

The chrome plating is also poorly done, with a lot of deep grinder marks marring the top surface of the fins, where they are easily seen. They're still using unsightly MIG welds right down the center of the grill too.

IMO, Oze is doomed, unless they can come up with a better grille. The one that I have doesn't come close to the quality of the stainless steel grilles that came with the Canadian built cars.

The whole idea of offering a chromed plated steel grille is not good. It's very difficult to get the copper and nickel to throw into the small cavities on the back side of the grille, and the result will be a grill that rusts quickly, if every washed.

What's needed is a stainless steel grille with TIG welding.





At this point, my project is on hold. I've got to decide whether to do a little more work on it in order to drive it as an unfinished rat rod, with A/C that works, or just put the thing up for sale and take a big loss. There's no point is trying to fit the body to such a poorly made grille.

I notice that Oze is trying to sell their display roller on hot rod hotline.

1937 Ford 5-window by OZE ROD SHOP : Ford

I never did get a response from Tim Taylor at Oze about the poor quality of his latest grille offering. Hopefully, he'll take the criticism seriously.

I decided to proceed with some more body work and removed the running boards, front fenders and hood sides, for more work. That only took an hour to do, so it will take a couple of hours to put the parts back on. The car now looks just like it did back in December, when I first drove it. I won't reinstall the hood sides until I receive a hood latch kit from Smooth Parts. I really want to get the hood latched, but it requires replacing the square steel tube that runs from the vertical radiator support, back to the main body. I've also got to do a little tweaking on the radiator supports, to move the hood sides, slightly toward the driver's side, to improve the alignment of the hood to the main body and the hood sides.

I did manage to find seats that will fit in the car and support a 3 or 4-point racing harness. I looked at the dimensions of a lot of brands of racing seats, but found few that weren't too wide or too tall. I ordered a Cobra Imola seat, first. It would barely fit in the car, but the seat's interior width was too narrow for about 90% of the world's population. I only weigh about 140, so I could sit in it, but my wife couldn't and neither could most men of average size. Trying seats is expensive. Shipping a seat from California to Colorado is $78 from the dealer, but $120 for me to return it (by UPS). After speaking with the dealer, he recommend a cheaper Cobra Clubman model. The Clubman did fit in the car and it's barely got enough room for me or my wife. I got the one seat that I ordered, bolted in place, with a 3-point harness. The slider has about 4 inches of travel in both directions. I managed to get the seat bolted in, where my 5' tall wife could drive the car with the seat all the way forward. I still want to add a retraction device to the 3-point harness, so I can lean forward to see traffic coming from the side. In the Oze car, you sit so far back that you can't see the traffic to the right, if a corner is over 90 degrees. I plan to buy a pair of retractable lap belts and put the retraction unit on the single belt that attaches to the V- shaped shoulder belts.

I only bought one seat to start with, because the dealer charges a 20% restocking fee, unless you buy a different model of seat from them, to replace a model that doesn't fit. With the Imola, that would have been another $190 down the drain, in addition to the 2-way freight.

Cobra Imola Pro-Fit seats at Subesports : Cobra Seats

Cobra Clubman seats at Subesports : Cobra Seats

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hfm-sb3pxbk/overview/

I'm glad to hear you decided to keep stabbing away on it instead of sell it and take a loss. That really sucks about your grill. It does look better than the other one from the pics I remember seeing on here. Hey, at least your ac works!

This thread almost makes me happy I bought a Gibbon body . . . . almost . . .

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

I'm glad to hear you decided to keep stabbing away on it instead of sell it and take a loss. That really sucks about your grill. It does look better than the other one from the pics I remember seeing on here. Hey, at least your ac works!

Actually, my A/C doesn't work yet, but it's the minimum I need to drive the car for very long in the summer. Right now, I take it out in the morning when it's cool. The side windows don't roll down either, since I never glued the run channel to the body. That has to wait until after paint.

The car might still end up a rat rod, but at least it will have a hinged and latched hood and a couple of tolerable seats. With any luck, I might finish the body work in the next 4-6 weeks. Then I'll decide whether to go farther with the project. I don't work many hours each day, with all the yard work I have to do. I'll have to remove the dash to get the A/C ducts and vents installed.

Did your Gibbon body come from the shop in Nebraska? My brother bought a '33 from Gibbon, probably in '92 or '93, to rebuild the steel bodied '33 sedan that he rolled. He thought that his body was great. He claimed that it took little work to get the body fitted and ready to paint.

I haven't mentioned all of the issues with the body, to spare OZE some embarrassment. Another big problem is sealing the trunk lid, so the car can be washed or driven in the rain without filling the trunk with water. There's a gap of 1/4 to 3/8 inch between the lip that holds the weather strip and the trunk lid. Oze recommends a weather strip that has a thickness of 1/8" at the peak. All it does is serve as a decorative cover for the lip. I have seen an Oze with a flat foam strip applied to the trunk lid, to make a seal. It's not pretty, but it might do the job, if combined with the thin weather strip over the lip.

I could also post some pictures showing the poor trunk lid fit and lengthy runs of external corners around the trunk opening that had to be rebuilt due to thick gel goat the was full of big holes.

The "issues" that you've mentioned fall into the category of why one buys a fiberglass replica body, which is the ease of making modifications for aesthetics, or to correct fit & finish problems. Provided one uses the right techniques, cutting back all gel coat plus nominal 1/2 of the thickness of the parent material, extending edges and building new surfaces with mat & resin is really not that tough and will be strong. Some time back we had an excellent thread where one of the guys was restoring a mid-50's Corvette, and that thing had problems, like the hood profile being off from the body line by a bunch. As I recall his "fix" was to wedge cut the inner panel bracing which "freed up" the outer panel enough that it could be "pulled down" or "pushed up" to conform. Once the amount of push & pull was measured the panel was locked in the necessary position and the inner bracing was re-glassed for strength and the panel fit exactly. Unfortunately the hood was not the only place that had become mis-shaped over the years, so he worked similar magic on doors & deck, too, plus headlight trim, tail light trim, and bumpers.

The point is that glass is easily worked to fix just about anything that might be wrong, and fix it right. Just gotta jump in and do it, or back away and sell as a stalled project to someone who's willing to do the work. How much fun is it going to be to finish half-assed, and every time you take it any where explain time after time why you chose not to finish the project? I would think that would be a very frustrating way to participate in the hobby, but to each his own....

Dave, mine was bought from the South Carolina shop just before it went belly up.

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Dave, mine was bought from the South Carolina shop just before it went belly up.

.....and Jack did a Yeoman's job of turning a sows ear into a silk purse, too!! Hats off, raucous applause and adulations!!

I didn't buy a fiberglass body, expecting to do major rework in many areas of the body, due to poor fabrication by the seller. If a person bought one of these cars and planned to leave the body and paint work to a local shop, he better plan on paying for 300-400 hours of labor, in addition to the paint job. The body work alone might cost more than the purchase price of the body.

Although it's not difficult to fix the issues that I've had with my OZE body, it is time consuming and should not be the norm. Gel coat is not supposed to by 1/4 inch thick and riddled with large holes. The entire length of the trunk opening had to be rebuilt on the driver's side and about half the length on the other side. I probably could have done the whole 13' perimeter. With my body, you never know where the next problem area will be found. There's also the possibility of more problems showing up, after the car is painted.



I'll probably finish the car, but I'll still have to explain the poor quality grille, particularly when it starts rusting.

Well, I don't want to burst your bubble but if you simply ground out the bad gel coat as it's shown and filled that corner with one of your "bondo" products you're asking for future failure all along the edge. IMO the repair of that corner would entail grinding away the gel coat at least an inch back from the edge, then grinding into the base fiberglass ~1/16" to 1/8" deep tapered back to good material, then laying in layers of glass mat & resin to re-build the corner and topping it off with a skim coat of quality filler to level. I don't care what material you used, if you bonded to gel coat you're asking for trouble. That said, it's just my opinion and you've never yet asked anyone for advice here that I recall, so I don't expect that you really care about my opinion anyway.

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Originally Posted by daveS53

The repair process has been discussed before. See posts # 176, 262, and 264....... IMO, bondo glass filler is totally adequate for the edge repair, since the body is not lacking in strength - there's a thick layup of fiberglass in the corner area. All that's needed is rough sanding and tapering to remove all of the thick gel coat, prior to applying the filler.

Yes, you've described your "repair process" before, and we'll just agree to disagree on the value of "bondo glass filler" with it's small, random glass fibers in a low quality substrate.

I'm not sure why I came back to your thread and commented again, but I won't make the mistake again. I'll wish you best of luck on your continuing saga, and bid you adieu.

I agree; there is no point in repeating past criticism. Since I'm the builder, I'm making the decisions on when to use resin and fiberglass mat or a fiberglass reinforced filler. Your method would certainly work, but it would take much more time and it's just overkill for what I consider a cosmetic repair.

I have to rebuild the upper part of the grille mounting flange on the nose section, where the OZE folks buggered it up to install the original ill-fitting grille. I'll 36 grit sand both sides and probably use 6-8 layers of mat to build that flange up thicker than when new. I'll post some pictures that you would approve of.

Don't know,Dave,,if it's going to be much comfort to you,,but,, the main reason why you have the issues around your trunk opening,,and possibly other openings,with a corner,like the trunk opening,,is because the monkey who was supposed to be on roller duties,,didn't roll the glass into the inside corner of the mold..As most of these companies probably use a chopper gun to lay up the bodies,,the lay up quality is nowhere near the same as a hand laminated body..Plus all the other issues with a lot of them,,such as the development of items like your dash,,and anything else custom built,,an item is made(the plug),,then fitted..''yup,,close enough'',,then prepped,painted,and prepped for the mold.. If the plug isn't in the mold for at least three weeks,curing,,and the mold braced well,,it will shrink,and go out of shape..I have seen a few of these OZE bodies down here,in NZ,,but only as finished cars,,so am not sure,even by looking at pix,,what the overall quality is really like.. All I can say,,is battle on with it,,and if you fancy replacing it with a Deco Rides Lincoln Zephyr body,,forget it,,specially the sedan delivery body..Mate,,you will go krazy... I have first hand experience with one of these,,and know very well,that they are all to be avoided,if you want conformity with dimensions from one side to the other...