Endless Sanding

12-1-2013  I visited the shop this week to find Dan sanding the rear fenders.  He uses progressively finer grades of sandpaper as he prepares each part for final painting.  It's a case of putting paint on and then removing most of it to create the smoothest possible surface.  He also maintains a hand-written "spreadsheet" to keep track of his progress.

Care and Covering

11-8-2013  The car is resting under cover as Dan works on a station wagon project.  He didn't want to get dust on my car.  That's the kind of care you dream of in a restoration shop.  Thanks, Dan and Deron, for caring so much.

   

More Red Primer

11-4-2013:  Today I visited the shop and noticed that many new additions had been made to the inventory of pieces in the red primer.  This is the last stage of the elaborate sequence to get the surface prepared for finish painting.  Each of these pieces will now be sanded with progressively finer grades of sandpaper to get them ready.  I'm getting antsy...

  

More About Running Boards

10-18-2013  Got to see a little progress this week.  The rear fenders are now back from the sandblaster.  Dan got them primed this week.  Also, he got more body filler on the running boards, having finished stripping and blasting them.  He discovered that the patent stampings are still intact on the undersides of the running board panels.  Quite remarkable really, considering how much these have been exposed to the elements for 81 years!

 

      

The subjects of the patents are as follows:

#1,660,307:  Entitled "Running Board" -- This invention relates to running boards for automobiles, and has for one of its objects to reduce the number of parts and the number of operations in constructing, finishing and applying running boards to automobile chassis.

#1,660,308:  Entitled "Runningboard or Other Tread Member" -- The subject matter of the present application embodies certain improvements, particularly in the shape of the metal body and the manner in which the rubber covering is interlocked with the body.

#1,784,781: Entitled "Composite Steel and Rubber Article" -- This invention relates to a steel and rubber article of the type wherein rubber or similar non-metallic composition is attached by vulcanization or equivalent treatment to a metal base such as a base stamped from rolled sheet metal.

#1,784,782:  Entitled "Composite Running Board" -- The invention relates to running boards for motor. vehicles formed from an elongated stamped sheet metal body with a layer of rubber vulcanized and interlocked to the running board body.

Who would have thought that so much design and patenting would have gone into something that looks so simple?

Rear Axle

9-6-2013  Today, while at the shop, I learned that I'm now the proud owner of an 8-inch Ford rear axle donated by a derelict Mustang (Yes, there'll be a few Ford components in this almost all-MOPAR build.).  There is a salvage yard near the shop and people are forever stopping to ask the Shady boys 

directions to the salvage yard.  One fellow recently asked directions, explaining that he was clearing out a piece of property with dozens of old cars.  The ever-vigilant Deron asked if there were any mid-'60's Mustangs with five-bolt brake drums (The 6-cylinder cars had only four bolts.).  Today, when Deron came back from lunch, this had been deposited by the fence.  We think of ourselves as recyclers.  Before it is installed, it will be cleaned, inspected, and have all new bearings and seals.  Depending on what gear ratio it has (yet to be determined) it may get new gears as well.  The overdrive on the T-5 transmission may allow us to use a somewhat higher gear ratio in the rear end than the most common 3.00:1 that came on Mustangs and Falcons.  Yes, this axle dates to the time of Ford Falcons!

Running Boards

8-29-2013  Dan has started working on the running boards.  On the original parts, the rubber was vulcanized directly onto the steel using heat and pressure.  The underlying steel panels were perforated with dozens of tiny holes to allow the air to escape and some excess rubber to flow out as the pattern was pressed into the heated rubber.  After 80+ years, it takes a lot of manual effort to remove the brittle hardened rubber.  I was fortunate a few years ago to find out that the Canadian Plymouth 4-Cylinder Owners Club had reproduced the running board rubber and I was able to buy one of the last available sets.  After the steel is cleaned up and sandblasted and primed, we'll fasten the new tread using a superstrong contact cement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How the car looked today (8-29-13): 

Blisters VI

8-29-2013  And as of today, the left side hood panel is pretty close to being finished:

                                                                                                              

BTW, sometimes it's fun to just stand back and appreciate how far we've come on this project...

Blisters V

8-22-2013  As of today, Dan is working on the left side hood blister.  If you're a close observer, you might notice that the left side blister is placed slightly forward of the right side (Count the fins forward of the blister.).  It's because of the slight offset in the banks of cylinders in a V-8 engine, which places one rocker arm cover slightly forward of the other.  The goal here was to place the center of the blister (the point of highest clearance) Directly over the highest point on the rocker arm cover.

A Gift of Great Savings -- Bumper Bracket

10 August 2013   I looked high and low and couldn't find the front bumper bracket.  Then one day the latest issue of The Plymouth Bulletin arrived in the mail (the quarterly magazine of the Plymouth Owners Club).  In the classified ads was a listing for a huge variety of Model PB Plymouth parts, including bumper brackets!  I called the seller immediately and acquired the front one, which had already been completely restored.  It arrived 8-8-2013.  Here it is right after we had the "unveiling" at the Shady shop:

                           

Blisters IV

8-2-2013  Dan has gotten back to the blisters and here is the result:

  

Notice how Dan is welding the cut ends of the louvers back into the side of the hood in such a way that the contour of the louver ends follows the upper curve of the blister itself.  I think the effect will be that this is the way the hood side was originally crafted.  What an artist in metal!

Lotsa Primer

And now (6-20-2013), Dan has applied high-build primer to some of the panels to start block sanding.  This helps reveal imperfections that might not have been visible before.  Notice the low spot in the upper right image, for example.  The red color primer coat (in anticipation of some version of red as the final paint) is applied over a black 2-part epoxy primer.  Any high spots will show up during the block sanding as black primer revealing itself.

   

Progress on Many Fronts

There have been many activities going on with the car that are not particularly photo-worthy, but represent progress nonetheless.  

• The rumble seat lid had a slight warpage so that when it was in its closed position, one corner stood high by about 1/2 inch.  Dan re-glued the corners (Remember, there's a wooden frame supporting the steel skin.) using corner reinforcement blocks and braced the lid in a compensating warp in the opposite direction.  When the clamps were removed, the lid assumed its correct shape.  It now fits perfectly.
• The spacing around the doors was imperfect.  Dan welded to build up certain areas of the door edge and filed other areas down so that we now have perfect gaps around each door perimeter.
• The doors were imperfectly formed so that they bulged out in the center of their curvature beyond the overall contour of the side of the body.  Dan heat shrunk both door skins so they are now fair to the curve of the body.

These are items that had to be done but don't exactly jump out at you when you look at the finished product.  Here are a few detailed shots taken on 5-10-2013 of the kinds of body "tweaking" that take so long and are invisible in the finished product:

 

 

 

 

You can click on any of these images to see them in more detail.

Bumper Impatience

11 March, 2013 -- Apparently Dan Shady got tired of waiting for me to bring out the front bumper mounting bracket.  On a recent visit, this is what greeted my eyes:

Replacement Bumpers

Dan and I discussed the need for replacement bumpers.  When I acquired the car, it included the original bumpers, which had been replated, probably 40 years ago.  As Dan would say, they had been "loved on" a little too much.  The plater had gouged the surface with a grinder in several locations, the surface hadn't been properly prepared, and the plating was coming off in several locations.  I mentioned that when I restored my coupe I had located a gentleman in Ohio who reproduced the Model PB Plymouth bumpers.  I couldn't recall his name, but said I'd pursue a new set of bumpers.

I finally remembered the bumper man's name -- Paul Bowling of Buckeye Rubber Products in Lima, Ohio -- and I called him.  He hadn't made any bumpers for a while and he no longer has a chrome plater that he can trust to do his work, but he's making us a set of bumpers that we can get plated.  This was a big deal!

11 January, 2013 -- Today I took Andy Jattuso, a long-time friend, out to visit the car.  He had not seen it in over a year and was quite impressed with the progress.  I guess it's harder for me to appreciate how far we've come, since I usually see the car at least once per week.  It was fun watching Andy go over the details of the progress.  That's Clint Rankin talking to Dan and Deron Shady in the background.

Tail Light Surgery

Tail Light Surgery...

The car was originally delivered with a single, left-side tail light and a single brake light (The right tail light was a $20 option that very few people opted for; turn signals were non-existent in 1932.).  I had acquired a spare left tail light stalk and asked Dan if he could cut and resection it to make a right-hand light.  We did this on my '32 coupe and it worked very well, resulting in the option for turn signals and dual brake lights.  A couple of weeks ago, I visited the shop and Dan and Deron suggested that the lights would look better if they were made shorter and lower to the bumper.  Today (1-8-2013) I went out and saw the results: