Thread: Project '49 Shoebox.

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Should have made him finish the other project first..........LOL
Everybody needs some distraction, but I want to see his truck at the next Turkey Run. I don't want to drive 15hrs and miss seeing his truck. The chop looks great.
BradC

Nice work! You guys came a long way in a short time. Even the bracing looks nice. I swear Dan was an artist in a previous life...

Thanks guys. Actually, I'm pretty surprised at old Dan, he is moving pretty quickly on this one. When I help him most times I go off and do some other stuff when I see him get to studying some aspect on the car because I know it is going to be a while before he makes his decision on how something is going to be done. He treats each part like it is going on the Space Shuttle or something. But on this project we just kept moving right along. We would briefly talk about the best way to approach something, make a decision, and out would come the sawzall.

He and I were planning on going to the shop last night to plan our next move, but both of us were too tired and sore from the day before, so maybe tonight. I'm going over today myself to work on my '27. I plan to continue cleaning up parts and putting them in baggies.

Don

Don,

I'm excited about this build. The nice work you guys crank out will really show here too, I'm sure. I've got a 51 coupe here in my shop so I'm very interested in how yours goes together. Keep up the good work!
Mike

Thanks. BTW, you better keep an eye on your doors, Dan is looking for another tudor door. After pulling off four of the ones on his car we have gotten pretty quick at it, so your's might disappear before you know it.

Don

Don---I have to sign in here, just so I will be notified when you add more to the post. I am impressed by what your son is doing, but somewhat dissapointed that he didn't stay with his other project untill it had reached a conclusion. I know what happens when I do that------Brian

Don-If I'm guessing correctly, your son wouldn't allow vintage Michigan (read-rusty) doors on a project of his. With all the rust repair, it would be easier to use the fordor ones and weld them together.

Brian, he and I have talked about the fact that he is diverting his energies to this car now rather than his '29. I think he needed this break, he has been knee deep in the '29 for about four years now (of course that is because he keeps scrapping it and starting over ) but I think some of the fun has gone out of it for him. He said last night that his plan is to fool around with this '49 for a month of so then get back on the '29. From working side by side with him on this new project I have to say it is more fun than any other project we have done in a while. Even my other Son Don said it was like old times the night we got the car home and spent hours just drinking a few beers and washing all the dirt off of it. Something about an old junky car that makes it fun to tear into. I am going to make sure he is reminded often that the '29 is pretty close to being done so he doesn't forget about it.

Tonight we spent a little time just moving some of the metal around to get some idea of what we need to do to get it to all line up. The front windshield posts were now off about 3/4 inch per side because of the 4 1/2 inches we removed from the top, so we started making some slits in the area above the windshield to see what it would take to push the top portion out to meet the bottom portion. We used a portapower and with just a little pressure things lined up pretty well.

We are nowhere near done with the front posts, the top will be on and off a whole bunch more times, trimming here and grinding there until we get a tight gap all around. The top on my '39 Dodge was probably on and off 30 times until we got the tight gaps we wanted. This one should be about the same. At least I am getting a good workout benchpressing it each time.

Here are some pictures of where we ended up tonight, like I said this is only the very beginning of a lot of trimming and pushing until things come together, but at least some of our fears are put to rest now that things were not going to line up at all.

Don

wow!! looks great so far don..

Thank you. Long way to go yet, but it is coming around I guess.

Don

Don good pics. It helps those of us who would never think of doing this, to understand how it's done. I get the cutrs, to allow the window frame to expand wider! You must have lots of patience to get it exactly right, not to mention some skill!
Nice side project for Dan too. I think the cats must be happy to have you guys there all the time again!

Yeah, Scooter and Sniffy love getting out of their nice air conditioned office and getting all dirty in the shop.

To be honest, we weren't really sure where to slice the header panel so that it would stretch out the inch and a half it had to go. We considered one cut per side, but then we figured that three slices per side would make each gap a little smaller, requiring less filling. It seems to have worked, we got very little distortion and what we did get can be bodyworked out once we weld the top part of the post to the bottom part.

The thing that you just have to keep in mind is that it is only steel, and with enough patience and work you can move it around any way you want. But I can't say we didn't have some moments when we wondered if it would meet up the way it should. That is why we HAD to cut an try it last night, to put our minds to rest that we hadn't gotten in over our heads.

Don

Don the top looks great at the windshield. Is he going to put opera windows in the sail panels or fill it with steel.
BradC

Another interesting project, Don. Guess I'm just not spending enough time reading the threads since I just found this one too!


I know it's easy to burn out sometimes. These projects have a way of consuming you when you build at the level your son does. Hope this "diversion" helps to get his energy level back up.

I've never really been into customs, but I can certainly appreciate the talent it takes to build one. This one will be worth watching too!

Damn Don, how did i miss all this action? You guys are not messing around. Its looking real good.