Body Work
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Stock firewall. Left hole is for fresh air-has a damper to switch or blend recirculated air from fan that draws from the other hole. New air conditioning system has inside fan. Don't need that hole. Fresh air will be fed to the inlet of the new A/C fan inlet. I pretty much like to run the system with all outside air unless it's REAL hot outside, or on startup.Fresh air for the driver's side will be blocked off and abandoned. Around the first of December, 2014, I decided to use a 4" marine bilge vent fan with three speed switch to bring outside air into the cabin. No damper necessary, as I always want fresh air no matter what.
Welded up all the unused holes and first layer of 3M Gold two part putty. New hole and mount for power brake booster on the right. Didn't do a lovely job around the PB Booster because when it's mounted, you can't see the firewall there.
Two or three layers of primer and body putty to smooth up the weld spots and old dents in firewall.
Had a couple of big dings on top of firewall. Beat them out from the inside and puttyed.. is that a word?.. a few more layers of bondo took care of them.
Ready for paint? Close.
Had to trim off the bottom of the passenger side inner fender to clear the upper A-arm. Decided to cut out about 2 inches and move the bottom piece up and reweld it.
Not particularly pretty, but one will hardly notice since it's down in the engine bay.
After sandblasting/hand sanding, applied 3M Gold 2 part putty.
Passenger's side inner fender clearance above upper A-arm. Welded fins back on where mistakenly cut off. I ain't no Chip Foose.
Inner fender number one is done. Reassembled with Stainless fasteners and 3M 5200 black marine caulk. Frame will be pulled out, cleaned again, and repainted in glossy over the truck bed liner paint.
Front of inner fender. Rectangular hole next to fresh air intake is for the condenser piping already fitted up. Made two cover plates that will mesh up with the lines to minimize bypass air on the radiator.
Inner fenders and firewall cleaned up/blasted/sanded/primed/painted. Next is to make and install brake line from the proportioning valve to passenger side brake then take it all apart again to refinish the frame and install 2 inch dropped spindles.
Driver's side. This is the way it's supposed to look, but the passenger's side was FRENCHED, and for whatever reason, I never did like FRENCHING anything. Note the unfinished/crack at the top of the mount area. This mount was fully "fixed" so that the new tail lights would fit. The Chinese replica tail lights had the wrong curvature relative to the shape of the tail light mounting surface. See other pics.
So even though a prior owner did a pretty good job, I'm restoring it to the way it should be, so started chipping and grinding to remove the frenching of the tail light. he did only the passenger side.
Well, he didn't do such a great job after all. There was rust under the left side. Had to put a black glove inside so the exposure and focus would come out right. HA. The guy seems to have used a solid shaped 3/8 inch rod to french the light, and welded it all the way around. GRRR. It took about 3 hours to get this far. Decided my grinding wheel was worn out, so got a new one, and 30 minutes later I was done !
Looks a little rough, but after sanding, more 3M materials, it's starting to look like it should.
Getting closer.
Closer even still.
Driver's side. The CHINESE F'ing tail light assembly does not have the correct curve (left to right) on it, so I had to build up the ends about an eighth of an inch, and of course add the sharp edges.
Just about there.
I think this is about as good as it gets. But probably will do a tad more sanding before paint. Still looks a little bit lumpy.
Pretty dang good fit.
Underside of hood. Missing the hinge bracket. GRRR. Anybody who could help me out finding one...I'd be most grateful ! UPDATE: July 2015..I found the bracket at John's Salvage in Seguin. See Tips and Tricks where I derusted it via electrolysis, as it was VERY rough with rust.
Hood has already been "peaked", though not a very sharp one. Lots of work. I decided to make the peak "sharp". You can see the work further on in this gallery. And if you happen to check out the "Painting the Car" gallery, there's quite a difference between this picture and the finished hood. There is hardly any peak at all on the original hood and is is covered with scratches, dings, and the rear edges (in hindsight) were bent, with no support to hold any forces from bending up or down.
This was the first attempt to "fix the hood". So I did all this in the following few pictures, only to cut it all out to rebuild the mounting area for the hinges. See the "Hood Hinges Retrofit" gallery to see what it took to get the hood hinge mounting area corrected for '51 hinges. ..................In the area of the hood mount bracket, two areas in the locations of the mounting bolts had stress cracks from the hole locations all the way around to the top of the hood. Don't know if bolts were loose for a long time or what, but it was a mess, and paper thin at the cracks after getting rust off.
Sanded down just for the heck of it. Next is to do a "destructive test" to see how well the cable is stuck to the piece of metal. If it's very hard to get it loose, I'll use this to put a really sharp peak on the hood and maybe the front and rear fenders. OK....crazy....I'll not be using 3M filler since I've found Robelo Maxifill. It's just great to work with and sand.
Shavin' the door handles - removed the previously installed bear claw latch and covered the solenoid to avoid getting any "stuff" in their workings. See "The Doors" gallery for the reworking of the "innards" of the doors. The patch piece is carefully positioned so that the surface is below the surface surrounding it, and the welds are ground down to assure that the Roberlo epoxy covers it all without any metal "showing through".
This damned trunk lid doesn't even look like it came from the same car. Horrible fit nearly all the way around. See "Trunk Lid Hinges Retrofit" gallery for the hinge swap. Look closely at the bottom right corner of the picture and you can see a hairline crack. Well that turned out to be rust under the original leaded joint between the two fender pieces.
Both sides touch when the trunk is closed, but I'll readjust the hinges to shift the lid to the left, so I'll just have to do most of the work on the left side, then minor work on the other side. If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see that the trunk lid curves in too much...will figure that one out in the next few days.
There was a hairline crack on driver's side trunk area on the top of the fender, so I decided to grind down a little to see what was going on. What I found was awful. The original leaded joint between the two parts of the upper fender and piece behind the rear window was rusted under the lead. So going to do some more grinding and repair before I widen the width of the trunk fenders so the trunk lid will not contact the fender. As I ground down, hairline cracks were evident all over this area, so I got out the torch and melted the lead out. Not finished in this pic. Just got started. Look how thick the body putty is that a prior owner applied to get things straight. A LOT !
DAMN.. the prior "body man" ground down the edges of the top of fender to the point that they are paper thin. But if you look closely, you can see that the gap is pretty good now after slicing the top of the fender and some hammering. At least for this small area. Will weld a small area at a time to so adjoining area can be hammered in shape a lot easier and accurately.
