55 Wagon Progress

[mongocanfly]

thanks for the explanation...makes good sense...

[MP&C]

Finishing up our floor weldments so we can visit the local Line-x for "undercoating" this coming week.. Our bucket seats have one bolt that went through the floor, and we wanted to eliminate the need for two people to install/remove the hardware.. We came up with a plate fitted to the floor pan channel that we welded a hex nut onto. This plate will allow us to plug weld to the floor...
















The rear quarter also has some bolting pads where the side ears to the rear bumper is bolted through. We needed to make stiffener plates to strengthen this area.





We made use of some tubing in the scrap pile to make a punch and anvil... Everything's a tool...





Alignment marks in the centers of the tubes..

















Ready for Line-x

[AJCK87]

Been following along, your work is amazing!!!! Wish I could have you laid down some of your metal magic on my panel truck

[MP&C]

Thanks!


Doesn't look like we did much, but we got the wheel wells, floor pans, and cross members scuffed up this weekend. Then applied two coats of SPI epoxy primer to address the bare spots, so now we're ready for Line-X..

[MP&C]

We were blocking out the wagon's roof today, and had a few low spots to bump upwards. To locate the lows on the inside, I thought to use one of our rare earth magnets in the center of the low, and use the body hammer on the bottom side of the roof to pinpoint the magnetic pull. These are 65 lb pull magnets that we use for our paper patterns. By a stroke of luck (blind squirrel finds acorn) we noticed in scuffing the inside of the roof that the magnet location readily appeared, for a more accurate locating method.

Video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubq89aPMJjY




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[BlueJeep]

You widened the rear wheel tubs did you not? Do you have any pictures of that or the rear floor work? Thanks, and looks fantastic as always!

[MP&C]

We widened them 2-1/2" There are pictures in my photobucket, but as you know, that may be short lived. Rather than post them here only to disappear later, here's a link to the page with the wheel well mods..


http://s5.photobucket.com/user/rmcca...sort=3&page=40

[BlueJeep]

Originally Posted by MP&C

We widened them 2-1/2" There are pictures in my photobucket, but as you know, that may be short lived. Rather than post them here only to disappear later, here's a link to the page with the wheel well mods..


http://s5.photobucket.com/user/rmcca...sort=3&page=40

Thank you much!

[MP&C]

Had a couple questions on what the heck I'm showing in the video.. Haha... so let's clarify..


We were blocking out the primer on the roof and came across a few low spots. These were low enough to be seen in the paint if left alone, and yet mixing and sanding any filler "repair" would have taken longer than some simple bumping of the low area.


Since I don't have a Bullseye Pick, we thought to use some gentle hammering with a crowned body hammer beneath into a small shot bag on the top (outside) of the roof. We have some 65 lb pull rare earth magnets that we typically use for our paper patterns, and this showed to have enough strength to pull through the roof skin. So we placed the magnet in the center of the low area, and in order to locate on the underside, would skim across the roof from beneath with the hammer face to see where the pull was strongest. The location was then marked underneath with a sharpie, magnet removed and replaced with the shot bag, and the area was tapped into the shot bag until blocking showed the area where it should be.


On one of these "marking with a sharpie" efforts, there was a slight bit of dust on the bottom side of the roof, so I gave it a wipe with my hand to displace the dust and instantly saw the outer circle of the magnet. This was much more accurate than using the magnetic pull test, so we changed to this, and the metal bumping effort worked well. We surmise that this "dust" that clings to the magnetic field is likely sanding residue from the primer, or sanding residue from dressing welds inside the car, or both. In any case, it worked well to help transpose the low spot locations to the bottom side for more accurate hammering.

[MP&C]

Glad to help!



Well, we have the new engine dropped in place.











....and she decided on fuel injection over the 770 CFM Holley (still new in the box). Of course this meant and O2 sensor bung on an already finished H-pipe. The bung that came with the FI Tech kit matched well to the outside radius of the exhaust pipe, but was rectangular in shape, and included a gasket for a "clamp installation"... As we aren't having any of that nonsense, the bung found it's way into the lathe, where a round outer perimeter will serve better for our TIG welded installation..





And after some touch up at the powder coaters....











Next, our arm rest enclosures for the rear seat needed a base for the padded arm rests. So Jake used the Go Kart slick to add some radius to 14 gauge cold rolled steel in order to match the enclosure...











.....and trimmed to fit....







These will be held in place with Mopar style door panel retainers, so we can still have ready access for any future maintenance on window mechanisms.

[jhrusk]

Work looks great, not sure what the plans are for fuel system but I would not recommend fitech frame mounted pump.

[MP&C]

In tank pump..

[oldman3]

Robert, been awhile, but nice update...Jim

[Bomp]

After 3 hours of studying this page I had better get out to the shop.
Thank you for the education.

[MP&C]

More progress.....Mike got the new fuel tank all prepped with the fuel pump...










Tank mocked up so we can do test fit/fabrication of the filler neck down to the tank...











An elbow will be needed to join these two together.







The local NAPA store had some smooth elbow exhaust pipe that we used to fabricate the complete filler neck, all the pieces were TIG welded together, and Dana powder coated the assy black for us.







Bracket we fabricated for bolting to the floor flange.















Next, the drip rail area was scuffed well and the car inverted so we can seal the bottom of the drip rail to the top of the quarter area. This is using the self leveling sealer, so we needed to counter the gravity effect.











Next time we'll get the top side done..

[oldman3]

Nice work...Jim

[MP&C]

Thanks Jim!


We found a flat spot in the drip rail that needed to match the rest, found a suitable worn jaw pair of Vise grips that was ripe for modification.


https://youtu.be/RgMLgJQ9Uqw

[MP&C]

Well, we've had about a month long hiatus as I've been in VA for the day job. Back to some wagon progress, we made a sanding block for the drip rail, this will get some PSA paper applied and sand away!







We did have a back up and punt moment. The factory style radiator that we had from Be-Cool did not have quite enough room behind the core support to use a cooling fan. Plus, it was questionable if the size would be enough for the 383 cooling needs. So we are going to use a cross flow, specifically the aluminum version for a V8 S10 pickup. Of course, this will require modification of the core support.







Shown above mocked up with the splash pan, the stiffening edge along the c-channel follows the splash pan. We need to insure any future version also clears the splash pan. Also note the three drilled holes in the side adjacent to the blue sharpie. These were added for our version of the AC car battery tray, so having the new upright just outside the old will allow us to bolt to the new upright on the inside, and keep the battery tray in the same locaton.







So the hired help started grinding out the spot welds that hold the lower radiator baffle in place.







After some modification, one side is taking shape. We will likely add some rings to the weldment to route the water hoses to the front side of the core support.







.....and more progress on the core support... Note comparison to old core support, we've added 3" in width to the opening.







As with most changes we've done to the wagon, we try to keep them subtle enough that they could be mistaken for factory.







Like so.....











Still need to add mounting brackets for the radiator and fabricate a new baffle, but happy with the results so far..



Yesterday we got some seam sealer applied in the drip rail. I had tried a few different brands over the years and have to say I'm really liking the Norton 97121 epoxy sealer. Really smooths out well.













Spreader was modified to help get things consistent, as well as pull the sealer up into the hemmed edge...







Also took delivery on a shop manual for the car, it's nice to have people looking out for you..

[mongocanfly]

that drip rail turned out really nice....
the manual is a cool touch....

[oldman3]

Robert, nice update and great work. Remines me of my 1956 Chevy, with a big block I had, I cut up the core support and installed a cross-flow rad. from a Impala, car ran really cool. Of course my work wasn't anything as nice as yours...Jim

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys!


So we had fabricated a duplicate of the 55 AC car battery tray to get the battery off the firewall. This bolts directly to the outside of the core supports "horseshoe".











So when we decided to widen the opening for a crossflow, the tubing had to be placed directly next to the old upright to locate our battery support in the same location.







This means the new uprights would also conflict with radiator necks. Dominoes, they do fall.... Core support now with relief holes for coolant hoses and lines. Thankfully side baffle plates will hide this ugliness!











Video Version:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRojQ4nWMhw





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[oldman3]

Very nice...Jim

[Nut Case]

Great build, strong work

Good to see you using your "top hand" on the project, about time.

Nut Case

[MP&C]

Thanks for checking out the progress guys!


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.

[Hammered 77]

Is that a 3M holder/pad that you are using with them? I have the old mil spec type which are no longer available, once my stock pile is gone I'm going to have to change over.

Rick