Thread: '37 Dodge sedan

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Today's project was to sort out this thing area in the corner of the windshield. There was a drain soldered in there, but it was slightly above the low point, so water was able to gather here.

IMG_20190707_140442342 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

I didn't have any cutoff wheels for my small grinder, so the 4" was put to work removing the offending metal. Not my best work, but also not my worst.

IMG_20190707_141631812 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Wire brushed what I could get to, then gave it a squirt of Ospho to protect the metal.

IMG_20190707_141809517 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

No pictures of forming this piece, unfortunately, but let's just say it took me a while to get it right. Used a combination of shrinker/stretcher, hammers and dollies. The piece ended up with large waves through the flats after shrinking, so I cut off those bits and will weld in flat material later. My main objective was to get that flowing corner piece built and installed. Flat metal is easy to add later.

IMG_20190707_155237820 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

I love how you take care of these details. What metal stretcher / shrinker do you have and are you happy with it ? I will need one for my next project.

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

I love how you take care of these details. What metal stretcher / shrinker do you have and are you happy with it ? I will need one for my next project.

Seth, I've got the El cheapo Harbor Freight shrinker stretcher set. They're not the nicest ones available, but they work pretty well for the limited use they get in my shop. I'd really love to have a set from Lazze, but he's awfully proud of his products. I do plan to build a foot pedal setup for mine, though.

Couldn't relax knowing I left it unfinished, had to go back out to the shop and button up the windshield repair.

I took my time cutting out the new piece, making sure everything lined up properly. If this is wrong, the windshield won't seal properly, so it's the perfect place to be very focused on perfection.

IMG_20190707_200440761 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Not a great picture, but the fit and finish is good. I laid the windshield frame in place and verified that the gap is consistent throughout the area.

IMG_20190707_203326621 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

NICE. You do some great work. It blends in nicely.

Very nice work on making those patches!

Sorry to hear about your condition. Did they figure out the issue? Weak heart, genetics, or?

Don't over do it during all that banging and welding.

.

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Very nice work on making those patches!

Sorry to hear about your condition. Did they figure out the issue? Weak heart, genetics, or?

Don't over do it during all that banging and welding.

.

Ryan- I had a Bisected ventricle in my neck. Basically, we all have 2 ventricles that run up the back of our necks and meet together in the brain stem, then they branch off and feed blood to the brain. The ventricle on my left side had a blowout, we'll probably never know why, and started to heal itself naturally. The body's way of healing a broken blood vessel/vein/ventricle is to clot: essentially an internal scab. When mine started to clot, little tiny pieces of the clot broke off and found their way to the smaller vessels closer to my brain. Eventually a clot large enough blocked one of those tiny vessels and caused a loss of blood flow to that part of my brain: what we commonly refer to as a stroke.

What made my strokes interesting, according to the doctors anyways, was that the largest stroke (I had 3) occurred in my cerabellum. The cerabellum is the only portion of the brain that is part of both sides of the brain, so I didn't exhibit any of the classic stroke symptoms, and therefore went undiagnosed for over a week until I demanded an MRI from a doctor who really didn't want to give me one. The biggest lesson I learned is that you have to be your own advocate. Doctors mean well, but it all becomes routine to them just like our jobs do to us. If you don't fit the standard description, they'll move past something potentially serious looking for the next likely thing. They gave me CT scans, but they didn't show any signs of stroke. My strokes were so small that they barely showed up on my MRI results. Bottom line, if something is wrong with your body, don't let a doctor convince you otherwise: make them prove to you that nothing is wrong. Your family will be much happier with a huge hospital bill than they would ever be with a cheap funeral bill.

Here's a picture of the first two strokes. The arrows point to light grey spots, which are dead brain matter (stroke). I spent 2 days in the hospital after these images were taken and was released, spent 1 day at home and woke up the following morning having another stroke. Then I got to do it all over again at a significantly less desirable hospital. My advice: just don't have strokes.

26626 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Wow, I hope your feeling ok now, and thats great advice about doctors, had one try to kill me once because he didn't read my chart. Nice work on your ride .

Yikes! It's a good thing you got that MRI! I wish you all the best with getting past this!

A buddy and I pulled a long day in the shop prepping the exterior sheet metal. Only did the main body and doors, but it's in epoxy primer now and looking like somebody loves it. There's still a lot of work to do, but it looks so good in one solid color!

IMG_20190817_214340374 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Nice, that looks like real progress.

That is a real motivation booster! Just seen it in one color does a lot for the morale of a project, it's nice to get it sealed up in your environment to.

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

That is a real motivation booster! Just seen it in one color does a lot for the morale of a project, it's nice to get it sealed up in your environment to.

Motivation is indeed higher. I was blown away by how much less derelict it looks when everything is the same color.

Very nice! Seeing a change like that always helps me. Now to find the stop watch to keep time from getting away.