55 Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

This morning, out of the booth. Still waiting on some sunlight, but a good shot of the two colors together...

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[Beagle]

I've seen a couple of vids on it now, looks fantastic!

[MP&C]

Oh shit.. forgot to add the sunshine videos...

and thanks!!

[oletrux4evr]

I like it. Looks like Christmas candy.

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys..


Well yesterday was homecoming, Jared and I drove up to Annapolis to pick up the body from Absolute Rod and Custom Paint. Really pleased with this green paint, it does catch your eye.









Gotta love a tilt bed trailer for loading a rotisserie...








All strapped down for the trip south...





A stop for fuel and then we headed to the Wednesday night meet at Leonardtown Arby's... I think that's the slowest traffic has ever travelled south out of Annapolis, we had quite a few people breaking their necks, slowing down to give the thumbs ups, etc..














With that done, we can finish our spring cleaning in the shop and get this set back down on the frame..

[MP&C]

Some basic metalshaping we did in the shop on Saturday, making a vent bracket for under the dash with 19 gauge AKDQ using a hammer and piece of pipe, just to show what can be done with minimal tools. Excuse the audio quality at the start, what you get for filming with an iPhone 6S. S stands for SUCKS... apparently the phone gets confused as to which of 3 microphones to use.

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[Beagle]

The longer video really helps somebody who knows squat about panel banging (me) to visualize the process. Thanks!

The wagon looks like it's levitating, no wonder people were gawking. lol.

[MP&C]

I had a question on another site on the whys and hows… too good not to share here as well...

Nice show and tell on that Robert... just curious , why not just weld the face to the 2nd piece without tipping the edge over..then dressing the corners..

Greg, EXCELLENT question!!!!

When you place a weld on a corner, and for an example, lets say we are patching a lower fender right up to the door opening to repair some rust at the bottom of the fender.... you lose the ability to control the two perpendicular sides. Let's say you blow a hole and have to re-weld in a spot or two. Or things just get too hot, period. The heat and shrinking is bound to pull at the weld, and now you are pulling inward in two directions. The weld seam directly in the corner makes it near impossible to planish. So you'll find that in addition to having low spots on the outer surface, you also have altered the door to fender GAP with little hope of fixing it without filler.. By shaping your panel as you want it, and then tipping a flange that carries the seam into the perpendicular side, the crease helps to hold things from moving. And with the weld seam far enough away from the corner that you can hammer and dolly, any distortion can be corrected. With the brackets we made Saturday, this was easy as we just used the pipe once again, this time as a dolly/anvil to planish the TIG weld once completed.

[DanStokes]

I had a question on another site on the whys and hows… too good not to share here as well...

Greg, EXCELLENT question!!!!

When you place a weld on a corner, and for an example, lets say we are patching a lower fender right up to the door opening to repair some rust at the bottom of the fender.... you lose the ability to control the two perpendicular sides. Let's say you blow a hole and have to re-weld in a spot or two. Or things just get too hot, period. The heat and shrinking is bound to pull at the weld, and now you are pulling inward in two directions. The weld seam directly in the corner makes it near impossible to planish. So you'll find that in addition to having low spots on the outer surface, you also have altered the door to fender GAP with little hope of fixing it without filler.. By shaping your panel as you want it, and then tipping a flange that carries the seam into the perpendicular side, the crease helps to hold things from moving. And with the weld seam far enough away from the corner that you can hammer and dolly, any distortion can be corrected. With the brackets we made Saturday, this was easy as we just used the pipe once again, this time as a dolly/anvil to planish the TIG weld once completed.

Another question: How sharp was the edge of the cut on your pipe/anvil? If I was to cut that with the abrasive chop saw (or the pipe cutter for that matter) I'd get a pretty sharp edge which seems like it would have a tendency to cut at the folded bend as you hammer. If I hadn't seen your work my tendency would have been to roll that edge over a tad on the belt sander but yours looks pretty sharp though it's hard to tell on the video.

Dan

[MP&C]

Dan, the pipe was squared up on the 12" disc sander, then the sharp edge broken about 1/32.. or so....

[DanStokes]

Dan, the pipe was squared up on the 12" disc sander, then the sharp edge broken about 1/32.. or so....

Thanks! That's exactly what I was thinking but couldn't tell for sure. I square up pipe (say, roll bar tube) on either the 12" sander or the 6" belt sander (I have a Woodtek combo unit) so at least you and I do SOMETHING the same! This was an amazing tutorial and something I think I could actually do.

Dan

[MP&C]

Well I think we're long overdue for a wagon update. Yes, it is back in the building....





And we should be setting the body back on the chassis this weekend. We've been buttoning up some last minute things on the frame before a body makes accessibility more of a challenge. The cable for the O2 sensor up to the EFI was about two feet too long, so we ordered another connector and shortened it up a bit.





In order to better hold things from bouncing around, a large Adel clamp is "massaged" to better fit the shape of the Bosch connector, and yet remain loose enough to remove the connector if need be for any future troubleshooting needs..

….and here's our leftover.





Next, we had transmission cooling lines to run, which means straightening a coil of stainless 5/16 line....





This should be straight enough....





We had to insure clearance around the inspection cover and starter, so those were temporarily installed...





We found these fancy stainless "cable ties" at McMaster, but even using a banding tool to tension it, the "tang" retention allows it to loosen slightly before the tang locks in.











Since I had recently picked up a pair of Pex crimpers at a pawn shop for cheap, we thought we'd give those Oetiker clamps a shot for keeping things snug.. Looks like this may work!





Top side...





Bottom...





The crimpers/pliers we used... $15 at a pawn shop...





Running the radiator ends...








And then some other superfluous stuff, we got the second vent bracket welded up last night











And even though it's off in the near distance, it's about time to repaint the tag so DMV can register it to the car (1955 only had one plate in MD)...

Thought I had some bus paint that was close, but looks a bit too light..





But playing with some mixing ratios online, I may be able to use some of my one shot lettering paint as a tint to get us much closer...





And since the rest of the bits are now being cut and buffed, we better get the body on the frame to make some room in the shop..











….and between all that, we made another set of window dividers, these going to Dallas for the restoration of a 57 wagon...

[MP&C]

Oh, and Dan, here's the chamfer used on the "anvil" pipe.....

[DanStokes]

Thanks! About what I was thinking.

Dan

[MP&C]

Last night we got some details crossed off the list, our radiator sits on the front side of the core support but the overflow can't stay on the front side as it would spew all over a painted splash pan. So we marked the core support baffle to align with our overflow AN fitting and as Jared was drilling the hole and installing the grommet, I got to bending some 1/4" stainless tubing. Now it will drain behind the frame rail...













Since McMaster had made a delivery we got some of the Oetiker clamps installed. Yeah, I think I like this cleaner look...





My buddy Jeff Ford down in Aiken SC was working on installing a floor pan patch and had omitted the flange in the radius corner below the toe panel.



So in addition to busting his chops, we put together this video tutorial so he could do the next panel in one piece. Hope it helps someone else as well..

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