55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

Been going through too many sanding discs lately so I decided to pony up for the ceramic ones by 3M (especially since Jegs has them on sale...and free shipping over $100). The sanding discs I was getting locally were about $0.95 each and I would have used about three doing what I did tonight. The sale price on these 3M's worked out to just over $1.50 each. I'm still on the first one and it's still going strong. I think these are going to be another of those "getting what you paid for" type things. Should have bought these long time ago.

[JOES66FURY]

I may have to look into this. I eat through my H/F sanding disks like candy when working on my junk....thanks for the tip!

[SuperBuickGuy]

I so support your statement. we got so used to Japan selling us stuff that was as reliable (or more so) for less money that we buy Chinese stuff expecting the same and are usually disappointed.

[MP&C]

So this weekend the core support was mocked up and some "sample" radiator hoses bent out of 3/4" EMT. Once bent to fit, these samples were taken to the local NAPA store, where they have become used to me sizing up radiator hoses in the store room. The lower hose was from an S10 pickup or Blazer, but with the battery bracket in place, there was interference to the hose.














So our battery bracket is modified to provide clearance for the hose, and a "hem" added to the inside.


































The upper hose has no such obstacles, so we should have smooth sailing there.

[silver_bullet]

Very nice!

[MP&C]

Well the past few scheduled shop nights (and days) have been a bust, between college open houses and extracurricular activities...














Back in the shop we needed to finalize our console lid design as some parts are getting ready to go for upholstery. Our piano hinge showed to have clearance issues when using it in "hidden" mode..









....as shown here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puZl_3KBzMg

We could notch the rear of the console and lid and move the hinge flush with the rear, but that would leave the hinge visible when closed, and now require and lanyard to keep it from flopping all the way over..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2AKHWuSlyY

We started looking at hidden hinges at one of our local cabinet maker. Although this one looks plenty stout, it was far to wide for our present design, and would require quite a bit of rework..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBqo7m20H34

With the new options, we narrowed our search to a cabinet hinge that was narrow enough to fit within our side confines, and found this one online..









Test fit, a straightedge is clamped to the hinge, aligned with the rear edge to see what interference this may have. Looks like this is the one..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4lPQKqBC8

Hope to finish the hinge details up tomorrow. We also took delivery on our stainless mesh samples to make a decision on our speaker grilles..

[MP&C]

More progress on our console, with the new hinges we got for the console lid being such an afterthought, the room provided in our void openings was going to drag the sides of the angle bracket once upholstery was wrapped inside the slot.









Better to make changes (and weld) before the upholstery goes on. So we made some new rear corners that bump us out slightly more than a 16th and use a slightly larger inside radius for a bit extra strength.
























This is much better clearance than we had before, one more corner to go and we can fit up the lid.

[MP&C]

More progress on the console, the rear corner is opened up for hinge clearance..

















8-32 machine screws cut off and sharpened to serve as spotters for our hardware location in the lid..







8-32 rivet nuts installed in our match drilled holes for attaching the lid to the hinges..



















video version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkk9KTbdjJ0

.

[pintoboy77]

Man it's amazing how many man hours you can get into a project like this. Looking great though.

[MP&C]

My wife's cousin JB, who works at Interiors by Shannon, contacted me the other day about making him a dimpling punch and die for installing door panel fasteners..













There's always room for improvement, so I thought I'd add a flat to one side of the lower die so it could be clamped in a vise for more stability. A short piece of V-block was installed in the Aloris tool holder and viola! We have a Southbend Milling Machine!













The alignment pin was added to the bottom die to help keep the panel aligned during the punching process, a 1/4" hole will be added to the panel where fasteners are needed.










Installing into the vise...









Our .06 aluminum test panel...


















….that should work...

[pintoboy77]

Sweet!!!!

[milner351]

Amazing work, there's no end to what you can do!

[MP&C]

Some days I can't leave well enough alone. I thought I'd see how stout my fancy hinges were before we get too far along in the upholstery stage of the console. I guess I had a gut feeling on these, but some slight side to side deflection rendered the hinges loosened, and the swage of the semi-tubular rivets showed some cracks...







We're a bit too far down this rabbit hole to change directions again, so I checked my inventory of semi-tubular rivets and found these HD items.












These are used in securing latches and hinges to the HD saddle bags and tour packs. When I paint the Harleys, I break these things down to nothing to get fresh paint everywhere, then reinstall the hardware with new rivets. These are stainless and have shown in the past to be rather robust, so we'll drill out all the off shore rivets and install these..







Comparison...







One set done, one to go..

[pintoboy77]

Nothings more American than harleys and 55 chevys other than putting them both together. Good job!!!

[DanStokes]

You DO know that you're the only guy on the planet who would replace those rivets, right? As usual, perfection is not up to your standards!

Dan