looking good, starting to come togther nice.
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looking good, starting to come togther nice.
The last time I used a MIG in a short-sleeved shirt, I got the worst sunburn of all times on the inside of my forearms . . .
Looking good so far.
Hope to see it at the Turkey Run..........All I have to do is drive 15hrs...LOL
Not like I would ever do something like that.
BradC
Thanks John, yes, he is starting to like the tig a lot. Today he used it quite a bit to weld the cowl all together and ever time he does a weld I hear him say "this thing is amazing!" :D The mig has really been a workhorse for us and I don't ever see the tig completely replacing it, especially on long welds, but it sure has it's place. What he has noticed is that it creates so little cleanup splatter, which the mig leaves, even with gas.
Steve, I think he will have about the same amount of time in building this one vs fixing the old one, but the real savings should be in prep time for paint. We were looking at the panels tonight and they are just going to need some high build primer and block sanding to get ready to shoot. The old body was, well it was 80 years old. It needs patch panels and a whole lot of straightening if it were going to go in gloss.
As for the flux core vs bottle, everyone seems to agree the bottle gives such better, cleaner welds. If you can get one I think you will be much happier in the long run.
Bob, thanks, but the stuff you do is absolutely nothing to scoff at either. We just hide our mistakes by not posting those pictures. :LOL: Sort of like "outtakes."
Thanks Matt.
Thanks Jack. I get sunburned from using the mig too. Because it is so hot hiere I usually work in just shorts, and I get a red chest with a white streak across it from where my arm shields the rays. I usually discover my burn when I jump in the shower that night. :eek:
Brad, this year stick around at Daytona for more than an hour. :LOL:
Today I was like a one armed paperhanger. Dan was working on his car and Don was getting ready to install the replacement transmission TCI sent him, so I would help one for a few minutes then go to help the other. I told them I was glad I didn't have 3 Sons. :) We are ready to drop the engine back in Don's T and will probably get that done next Monday, his next day off. Dan made major progress today and is ready to start channelling the subframe. We will start doing that some evening this week, probably.
Don
That is really cool how the body comes together, do you think it could be done to on that body I was showing on the "What is this car or trk" thread. I turns out it is a 31 chevy sport coupe, everything is there from the door latches forward.
Stay more than an hour I would have to get a Hotel room.......LOL
BradC
Don are you and Dan on vacation?? Haven't seen any update photos since 5/26. I know you've been on Don's car, but surely the work hasn't stopped on Dan's. When can we expect an update???
BTW, Dan says you are a picture taking fool, so let's see 'em.:eek: :LOL: :LOL:
Brick, sure, you could build everything behind the cowl out of either other car parts or fabbed up from sheet metal. There are always doors and back panels at swap meets or on Ebay. I bought 4 nice doors for $ 60 one time on Ebay. (of course it cost me $ 280 to ship them:o ) but they are out there.
Brad, I hear they have finally built some hotel rooms in Daytona Beach. You might be actually able to get one of those and stay for a while next time. :D
Bob, the reason for no updates is because we really did come to a halt for the past week or so. Not only did Dan spend some time helping get Dons car running, but he has been in a "pondering" mode. He is at the stage of putting the body together where he has to channel the subframe and he has been trying to figure the best way to do it.
The original plan was to cut the existing subframe up, move it up 4.5 inches and reweld it in place. But after a lot of thought he has decided to have some 1/8 inch steel cut and bent up to form angles that will form the sides of the drop and then run 1 x 2 inch steel crossmemembers off of that. We just finalized that last night and he is supposed to be ordering those pieces today from the local steel supply house.
What hurts a little is that he spent $ 500 for a subframe that will mostly not be used now, but there was no choice, we needed it to set up the body and will be using some parts of it.
So, maybe in the next couple of days when the new steel is ready we will have something to update on. :D
Thanks for asking,
Don
I think we have finally got this body thing figured out. :3dSMILE: If we were just building it as a stock highboy it would have been somewhat easier, but it is being channeled 4 1/2 inches, so we not only had to build the body from parts, but then we had to figure out how we were going to cut it up to lower it over the frame.
The original plan was to simply cut up the stock Ford subframe, drop it over the frame, and fill in the gaps with fresh steel. After a lot of thought (Dan's not mine:rolleyes: ) he finally decided to have some steel bent up to form new side rails, and then simply insert 1 x 2 crossmembers under it to join them together. The steel shop did a great job bending them up, as we needed one leg 5 5/8 inches and the other leg 2 inches, and we needed them bent to a 110 degree angle to match the door jam angle.
Friday night we went to the shop about 7 pm and worked until 5:30 Saturday morning, but we really made some progress. Today we put in another 12 hours and got to the point where the body is now temporarily sitting on the frame. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but it is finally shaping up into something that looks like a car.
Here are some pictures of where we ended up.
Picture one shows one channeled subframe and one stock subframe.
Picture two shows one channeled subframe and the stock one cut off all the way.
Picture three show the body installed with temporary bracing to see how it would fit.
Picture four is the mocked up car
Picture five shows the door jam with the door open.
Don
Looks really good to me, you guys have a good plan !
Ken
Thanks Ken. I have to admit it was a clean way to subframe it........really strong too.
Don
Great description and photos. I'm lost when it comes to this kind of stuff, Dan it is looking great.:)
Don - it's really looking great, with nice workmanship. I don't think I could do what you are doing tho - I'm too tall and would probably look like I was sitting ON the car instead of in it:LOL: :LOL: .
Just a note - with the Brookville doors - you will probably have to weld the door skin to the inner panel. Take the upper and lower corners while they doors are bolted on and lay your thumb at the joint at the bottom and give it a bit of a twist. You will probably see or feel some movement. I cursed mine - aligned it - and the bottom back was worked fine opening and closing. Came back the next day and the @#$% door bottom hung out again - out came the mig. Problem solved:) .
Thanks guys. We're gonna have to check the doors out. They looked ok from what we've seen but haven't really checked them out closely yet. Thanks for that info. Ever since we started putting this body together we have cussed out Brookville a couple of times, only to find out something we thought was wrong actually did fit once we lined it up correctly. If we were off a 1/16 inch in one spot it threw the rest of the body a half inch off in other places.
Getting the cowl straight was the biggest and hardest job. Once that was right the rest of it started fitting ok. If anyone else is thinking of doing one of these unassembled bodies the best advice I can offer is to drill 1/8 inch holes and use small bolts and wingnuts to hold it temporarily together. We did that and everytime we would have to break it down to do another step the holes and bolts assured us it was going back together in alignment. We tried using Cleco fasteners, but they didn't clamp the panels as tightly together as the bolts did. We plan to weld through the holes when we are all done, making the body all one piece.
We also thought at a couple of points "what the h*** did we buy an unassembled body for? " There were times we thought we would never get it together properly, but looking back, if we had bought an assembled body we would have had to tear most of it apart anyway to do the channeling. Plus, we would have had to deal with Brookvilles thick primer on the entire car. So I guess this was the best way to go.
We are down to 160 days before we have to leave for Turkey Run, and although that seems like a lot, there are still a million things to do on Dan's car. I don't want to get down to the last couple of days like we did with Don's T and try to take an untested car that far from home. We have to keep hustling on it every chance we get. And one way or another, this car is going to Daytona in November!!!!!
Don
Tha'ts killer. You guys are definitely doing a really nice build over there.
Jimmy Shine's '34 completely changed the way I look at these old trucks - I liked them before seeing that thing, and now I love them.
Don, tell Dan it's looking great, I like the stance already.
BradC
Thanks Steve. I'm like you, Shines truck is really cool. He does some very nice work........I guess that's why he does it for Pete C. :)
Thanks Brad. The way it's mocked up is the way it will end up sitting, so it is pretty low, but with a slight rake.
Tonight we put in a few more hours when Dan got home, and decided to work on the back panel of the body. It is made up of a rear section and two side pieces and they have to meet up perfectly at the seam on either side. Out of the box that didn't happen, there was a fair amount of trimming and grinding on each side, and we probably had it apart a dozen times until we got it close enough to call it good.
After that we slid the front part of the body up against the rear section to see how the gaps and alignment were. We still have a bit more tweaking to do but it is a lot closer than it was a week or two ago. :D Now we have to concentrate on getting the rest of the subframe done and then we can start installing the floor, transmission hump and driveshaft tunnel.
Here are a couple of pictures of where we left off tonight.
Don
Whoops, forgot pictures. :o :o :o
Don
Gotta love that new sheet metal! It makes me jealous just thinking how nice the paint is going to lay on there!
Don,
Whenever I see one of your photos, I know that I should have completely disassembled my Brookville and reassembled it "right". Mine has so many out of spec/alignment panels, though will never be seen by most, but I will know they are there and know what I had to do to even get it close(I know, more whine from me:whacked: ).
Yep Steve, this is the most "rustfree" model A body I've seen for a while. :D Looking at that new metal has Dan thinking shiny red paint........we'll see if that is where it ends up.
Dave, I understand what you are saying.........these bodies are nice, but far from ready to paint right out of the crate. As I mentioned before, Dan and I have a steak dinner bet that when we take a close look at the display bodies Brookville has at Daytona this year we find a lot of areas that need finalizing. There is no way in the world they could or would spend the amount of time we rodders would to make it perfect...........just too labor intensive.
As an example, we spent five hours last night just fitting the back panel together. Dan is a fanatic about things fitting, so we kept disassembling it and he would get out the dremel or air grinder and remove another 1/16 inch of steel so we could try it again. It is still a long way off, but getting better each time.
I'm glad ours came unassembled because we would have ended up doing exactly what you said, disassembling it to start over. I would hate to think of drilling out all the rivets they use to do that.
Oh Dave, about the door movement within it's own skin............last night when we were fitting up the doors temporarily the drivers door is right on, but the bottom back corner of the passenger door is out about an inch and a half. I called Brookville this morning and spoke to a nice guy there named Dale, and he says they leave the skin loose on the doors on purpose, so that you can tweak the doors into perfect alignment, then insert two vice grips up through the big cutouts and clamp the outer skin to the inner skin, then you can pop rivet or weld the bottoms of the two skins together.........just like you did. He said if they didn't leave it loose there is no way to get a perfect jam fit once the car is bolted down.
Don
I guess I'll add some more B'ville war stories.
In general I'm pretty pleased with the overall assembly fitment of the body. Most of what I'm going to "improve" are the areas around the dash where the originals weren't all that nifty to start with. Below is a picture of a pile of scraps that don't look like much, but were the result of repeated on and off placements of the body on the frame (a few pieces are missing, no idea where I tossed 'em). This body was purchased with the extra cost option to fit a pinched '32 frame. Well, as it turns out it's modified by B'ville to fit THEIR frame, which doesn't have the stock Ford shape to the rear kick-up. In their configuration the body ends up about 3/4" above the side rails. So I ended up nibbling away at the subrails to get a better fit and to get the body down where it needs to be. Some material will have to be welded back to regain some strength and seal the floor. To be fair to B'ville, the large rectangular piece was removed from the trunk floor to clear the Model A rear crossmember, my choice not theirs. The other picture shows how I deal with repeated body removal when by myself.
I didn't even know you had that one Bob. Looks like you are going the traditional route on it........pretty cool.
Don
Bob,Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter
I have looked at the B'ville frame and from what I can see, it's a near(exact) replica of the earlier TCI chassis where their rear cross member goes over the top of the differential. The later version of the TCI chassis loops in back of the diff. While it's a pretty good mod for TCI, it did present some problems with fitting up my '32 style gas tank. B'ville was at York this past weekend, but they didn't seem to have much product out while I was wandering by. This is a view of my chassis - but with the gas tank fab added for a comparison.
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i8...d/Exhaust2.jpg
Now why does a chainfall look familiar while installing a body by my lonesome??
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i8...ld/Gone-on.jpg
This weekend Dan had off, so we had all of Friday night and all day Saturday to work on his RPU. Put in a couple of long days but it really paid off, the body is now off of the wooden platform for what we think is the final time.
We spent both days getting the door gaps very close and we tied the rear section of the body into the subframe. Instead of welding it we decided to make up some brackets that are bolted on so we have a lot of adjustment to fine tune the body as we go along. We did weld up the 3 rear sections and once we bolted in the brackets we made the body really started to get solid. Now we can't move any of the panels in any direction, and we still have a couple more brackets to install in the rear and also build the entire crossmember system. Once all that is done and the floors and tunnel is welded in the body should be very stable.
We pulled it off of the wooden platform and put it on the frame to see how it is going to look. Dan had to prop a seat up in it and see how it felt behind the wheel. I think I heard some engine noises, but I can't be sure. :rolleyes:
Tomorrow we are going to install the engine and transmission so we can cut out the firewall for bellhousing clearance. It will be good to see the motor back in there again. Here are some pictures from tonight.
Don
Don it looks great. I bet that body is getting pretty heavy with all the parts being added on. Looks like it is coming together very nicely! I know you guys are once again on the Daytona timer, but it is nice having goals to work towards! Keep up the updates! :D
Yep Steve, it is gaining a little weight, but it's sure a lot lighter than the sedan he turned into a roadster pickup, that thing is way overbuilt. :) The jump we took this weekend puts us in pretty good shape timewise, we should be able to make it now I hope. But we have to keep pushing every chance we get to spend some time on it.
Don
Looks great Don! Maybe a bit overbuilt, but it sure as heck shouldn't suffer from the "bouncies" like some of the featherweight cars I've seen... Should be a very nice, stable car for cruizin'. Certainly no corners have been cut on the chassis or body supports that would comprimise safety issues....
Really NICE guys! Dan is as close to a true perfectionist as I've ever found (I think). I thought I took a lot of pains with things, but he sure goes beyond that. Extremely good craftsmanship (from all three of you). Great going. Perley
Thanks Dave, yeah, I don't think he will be able to hurt anything on the car when it's done. With that heavy Olds up front it's probably a good thing he is building it as stout as he is. :)
Thanks Perley. He used to drive me nuts when we worked on things together because he analyzes every little detail and if he is a hair off he cuts things off and starts over, but I'm starting to appreciate that because he does get good results. When I see him get into his thinking mode I just go off and pet the cats for a while or sweep up the place until he gets it figured out in his head, then we start working again. :LOL:
We want to get some time in working on it again today, but Dan and Don tell me we are going to knock off early so we can take our two T's and go out for a bite to eat for Fathers Day. That should be fun. :)
Don
Happy Fathers Day
Don, I’m sure your Sons are proud of you, and the dinner will be a well deserving treat.
The Roadster pickup is really top shelf; Dan will be a popular builder if he wants to continue doing this, and will have plenty of people standing in line for one of his builds, with help from his No 1 Dad. Good job guys.
Richard
Happy Fathers Day Don. Have a great dinner. Sounds like a perfect day, shop time with family, car cruise and Dinner out!:3dSMILE:
Thanks guys, and Happy Fathers Day to you as well.:) :)
As far as Dan or me doing this for other people, we sort of have a running joke about that right now. When we ordered his body and saw there was about a $1500 difference by ordering it unassembled, I told him we should order a couple and take one to a big car show and sell it.........how hard could it be?? Well, after fooling around with for the past 4 weeks Dan keeps saying to me, "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't we buy a couple of these bodies and put them together to sell???" After all, we would love to work for $ 1.00 per hour!! :rolleyes:
No, we are too slow to ever earn a living at this stuff. Picking up soda cans would be more lucrative, I think. :LOL:
The guys bought me new chrome shocks for Fathers day and I got them on the front of my T. Really made a difference over the worn out ones. We are going to Hooters tonight for dinner. Yeah, the food is ok, but the scenery is about as good as it gets. :D
Don
I think I have had lunch at that Hooters.....LOL You know how I like to travel for meals out. Happy fathers day Don. I still see a sign ( 3D's Hotrod Garage )
BradC
Yeah Brad, they actually have FOOD at Hooters! Whoda thunk!! :LOL: :LOL:
The night really turned out nice. It sort of looked like rain when we all met at the shop but we decided to chance it anyway and take our two roadsters. Florida is crazy that way, it can threaten to rain for hours and then clear right up.
Luckily, it never rained one drop the whole night. When we pulled into Hooters we were immediately noticed by everyone on the outdoor part of the restaurant..... I guess two sets of open headers will tend to do that sometimes. :D After dinner we decided to take the long way home, and Don left Dan drive his T all alone because he had never seen it going down the road and wanted to watch it. His car is finally running great, all the bugs seem to be worked out, and it goes right down the road with one hand on the wheel, no more death wobble (Knock on wood). His engine is finally sealing up and running less rich, and the thing is a rocket ship. Even with 2:79 gears when we would pull away from a light I would have to push mine a little hard just to keep up with him, and he was barely on it. When I have driven his T I got a real push in the back when you just touch the gas. But, I get a lot better gas milage. :LOL:
Dan was grinning ear to ear about getting to drive Don's car, and the night was perfect for a long drive. It was cool out and the traffic was super light. We found out there is a car show the second Friday of each month at a local Denny's, so Don told Dan to take his car to the July show, since Don works every Friday night. There are also two shows in Cape Coral every Wednesday night, and since Don is off this Wednesday night we are going to drive both cars to one of those shows.
With a little luck there will soon be three cars to take. :) :)
Don
Don,
Looking at those pics, I feel like I can see a master at work. Let Dan know that the ride is looking first class.
Thanks Rick. BTW, I see Dan posted some pictures on the HAMB, some I didn't have. Here are some pictures of the two brackets we made up to support the rear of the body. They are pretty basic, but they really allow a lot of adjustment to line the back section up since they are bolted and we oversized the holes a little. To make it easier to assemble we welded the nuts to the bracket so now we simply have to insert the bolts and tighten down.
And, they only took us 5 hours to make the pair. :rolleyes: :LOL: :LOL:
Don
We went to the shop tonight with the intention of getting the firewall cut out so that we can do more work on finishing up the subframe tomorrow night. To do it we had to reinstall the engine and transmission so that we could cut just enough from the firewall. It went pretty well, and everything lines up like we hoped it would.
We need to shorten the frame 3 inches because the '30 body is shorter by that amount than the '29 body he built the frame around, but that is no problem. We just have to section it and when it is finally boxed you won't know we have been in there.
Here are some pictures of the body in it's final resting place on the frame. Of course we had to put a header on it and prop up a back tire to get the full effect. :3dSMILE: :3dSMILE: Tomorrow we should be able to get most, if not all, of the subframe bracing installed, then we only have to build the sheetmetal floor and transmission tunnel.
DOn
Lookin nice! I love the offenhauser valve covers, on his engine! In my opinion, some of the nicest covers ever designed! Wished the'd mimic that style for the 429!:D
The back ground shots of the shop look great too! I wish mine was half as organized!:CRY: :3dSMILE:
Don, Do you think the tri-deuce 455 will have enough power to move that metal monster down the road.:confused: :LOL: :LOL: Or do you think Dan's going to have white knuckles after the maiden run?:eek: :LOL: :LOL: