Proper Care

10-23-2014 When I visited the shop this week, Dan was at a metal-working "school" in Shelbyville, Tennessee.  He and his metal craftsman buddies (all of whom are tied together on the Internet) periodically assemble at someone's shop where one individual will hold classes on some special technique.  This week, a group was assembling at Street Rods by Michael, a rod-building shop about thirty miles north of my home.  The instructor is a metalworker from Australia, Peter Tommasini.  Peter, a classic car restorer, is conducting a series of classes across the USA.  In the meantime, Dan was concerned that my car, now almost completely block sanded and ready for paint, might get dirty.  He made sure that wouldn't happen:

 

Isn't it nice to work with a shop that takes such good care of your property?

While I was there, Deron and I discussed the process that he will start soon on the chassis -- modifying the front tubular axle to accommodate '40 Ford backing plates and hubs, installing one of the Mustang rear ends that he acquired, fabricating and installing gas lines and brake lines, etc., etc.

We still have a fair amount of work to complete...

Another Transformation

9-27-2014  I visited the shop yesterday.  Dan had finished masking off the main part of the body in preparation for its final black epoxy primer.  The hammer and dolly work is now completed along with all but the last sanding before the final red primer.  He is very meticulous in applying the masking tape, as he says the black epoxy primer is really difficult to remove if you need to do so.  And in the last picture below, he has moved the body outside for spraying.

  

 

... and transformed the car!

A Bumper Option

8-24-2014 - One idea I'm considering is using a non-stock front bumper.  As a tribute to Del Wilson's '32 Plymouth Model PB roadster that placed third in the "C" class open division of the 1954 Hot Rod Hill Climb in Georgetown, Colorado, I've thought about using a 1941 Lincoln-Zephyr bumper.  Here's the only picture of Del's car that I'm aware of:

The '41 Lincoln bumper is very hard to acquire.  It was constructed of several pieces and the center portion is both vulnerable and delicate -- a bad combination.  I'm trying to track one down that includes all the pieces, but it may be too expensive to include in this build.  Time will tell.  Here's a good picture of the '41 bumper on its original car:

More Fender Work

15 August, 2014 -- Today, when I arrived at the shop, Dan was outside sanding the underside of the right front fender (the one with the most pitting).  He applies two or three coats of high-build primer, then sands by hand until eventually the pits are filled in.  If you look on the second picture, a close-up of the fender brace, you can see some of the pits that are still visible.  It's a slow process, but we want to do the car correctly to a very high standard.

  

  

Front Axle

7-26-2014  Deron and I have often talked about the options we might have for the front axle.  Because I would like self-activating drum brakes on the front and have already purchased finned Buick drums, a relatively simple option might be to install a 1940 Ford front axle on the car.  Parts are readily available and this is a commonly-used hot rod option.  There is a fundamental difference in the design of the 1932 Plymouth axle that prevents me from simply adapting Ford brake drums and hubs to the 

stock axle.  The king pin joint in a 1930's car consists of a central bushing surrounded on each end by the "knuckles" of the opposing part.  The king pin connects the whole assembly.  In the Ford axles of the period, the knuckles are part of the wheel hub assembly as shown here:

Note that the knuckles rotate and the central bushing remains stationary as the wheel is turned by the steering mechanism.   In the 1932 Chrysler products, the design was the reverse, as shown in this photograph of a Model PB Plymouth steering joint:

On this joint, the central bushing rotates with the hub and wheel, while the knuckles remain stationary with the axle -- the exact opposite of the Ford design in 1940.  (Interestingly, the Model T Ford was designed like the 1932 Plymouth in this respect,  Go figure...)

One surprising drawback I have learned is that the Ford axle, while 8 years newer than the car, is about 4 inches narrower in the track (the distance between the hubs).  Another option is to substitute a tubular, rather than a forged, axle.  These are common in 1950's era hotrods, so it would be authentic to the period I'm trying to achieve.  In fact, the 1933 and '34 Plymouths used a tubular front axle that had a design similar to the 1940 Ford axle.  I have looked for one of these tubular axles for several years, to no avail.  Until today...

I saw the following ad on eBay:

The Tubular Axle as shown on eBay

“FOR SALE.........VINTAGE...... TUBULAR DOUBLE DIP  FRONT AXLE......1933 PLYMOUTH ( CHECK AND MAKE SURE)....WITH RIGHT AND LEFT FRONT SPINDLES........NO HARDWARE FOR THE SPINDLES....NO BUSHINGS,KING PINS OR GREASE FITTINGS........MY FATHER USED THESE FRONT AXLES ON HIS 1933 WILLYS   A/GASSER.........AXLE IS IN GOOD CONDITION......SOLD AS IS.................AXLE IS 50 INCHES FROM, SPINDLE HOLE TO SPINDLE HOLE.....WILL SHIP GROUND FREIGHT.......PLEASE ASK ANY QUESTIONS.;.........GREAT AXLE FOR A/GASSER........HOT ROD OR RAT ROD.”  The pictures that accompanied the ad were promising.  It should arrive late this week.  Unfortunately, I'll be out of town on business, but as soon as I return, the "new" axle shall be delivered to the Shady shop.

Thoughts of Final Paint

19 July, 2014 - Even more progress was evident when I went out to visit the shop today!  Notwithstanding that it was Saturday, I found all three of the "boys" at the shop.  They immediately began showing me what's been taking place.  First of all, I saw that the body is now off of the frame and resting on the platform that Dan had built when we removed the body in 2011.  

As I looked at the body perched on its stand, I couldn't miss 3 test panels of paint that I had asked Deron to get.  As I have seen certain paint colors that I've liked and thought might be usable on this car, I've determined the paint sources and passed these to Deron.  Here were three of them in "living Color."  I brought them home today to show Mary Ann to see if she particularly cared for any of them.

As I moved toward the rear of the shop, I spotted lots of parts -- doors, hood parts, and others -- in their final primer coats.  What a beautiful sight!

And then I walked over to the chassis, now exposed in all it's Chrysler-engineered glory, and saw the front fenders lying on the chassis and an adjacent table.  During my last visit, these fenders were at the bead blaster's shop.  Now they were in primer.  Dan said they were in remarkably good shape.  He had observed one interesting fact.  The right (passenger side) fender had substantially more pitting on the underside than the left fender.  We could only speculate why this might be the case.  Perhaps the left fender had been replaced at some point, or maybe the salt on the Ohio roads where this car was driven tends to concentrate nearer the edges of the roads.  Who knows???

Matters of the Hood

4 July, 2014 -- Big forward movement!  I decided to visit the shop while running a bunch of errands in Huntsville.  When I got there, Dan was in the shop.  Deron and Daniel (on Summer break) had not yet arrived.  As I approached the car, I noticed that the rumble seat lid and doors were off and the hood, radiator, and all four fenders were now among the missing.  Dan asked, "Do you notice anything different?  I walked around the car but failed to notice the obvious -- The car is now detached from the frame:

Dan is preparing to mount it on its dolly once again to do the final prime coat in preparation for the "real" paint.  He also said that the work on the front fenders was completed and that they are at the media blaster to be cleaned and pickled in preparation for their primer coats.  He had been working on the top panels of the hood.  The side panels are ready for final prime coat.

The hood of the Model PB Plymouth is an interesting subchapter in the history of automotive styling.  In 1932, most automobiles had hoods that extended to the firewall.  There was a distinct line between the hood and the front of the cowl area.  The 1932 Ford is a good example of this design.  

The Chrysler design team decided to extend the hood all the way to the windshield on the entire Chrysler product line for the "1932" models, including the Model PB Plymouth (The model changes didn't always coincide with calendar years.).  This design introduces a challenge with regard to ventilation.  It required that the hood and the cowl each have vent openings with vent covers that could be operated from within the car.  It was a clever design with one serious flaw.  There was no way to drain the channel in the hood in which the rubber seal cushion resided.  These soft rubber gaskets always absorbed water, stayed wet, and eventually caused the steel channel in which they were cemented to pit and ultimately rust through.  Such was the case with the hood for this roadster.  It was better than most, but had some pinholes rusted through.  The challenge to the restorer is that if we try to weld the pinholes, we stand a good chance of introducing warpage and distortion into the smooth curves of the hood.  Dan solved this problem nicely by scouring the channels to rid them of any corrosion, sealing the underside of the hood with tape, and spreading a thin layer of two-part epoxy in the channel.  This seals the channel, doesn't require any welding, and will be totally invisible since it will be covered by the rubber seal.  And the repair will never rust!

The underside of the hood vent opening has all the complexity of the hinges and attaching point for the vent cover adjustment mechanism.  This entire assemblage extends through the vent opening in the cowl, which is larger than the hood vent.  The whole thing worked and allowed the '32 Chrysler products to look longer and more stylistically uncluttered.  All that and the advantage of bugs and rain having direct ingress when the vents are opened!  You can see the result in this picture of my other 1932 Plymouth taken today with the driver's vent opened:

The effect of the continuous hood is even more dramatic on the 1932 Chrysler Custom Imperial Phaeton shown in this factory photo: 

More Blisters and Louvers and Exhaust Clearance

6-1-2014  I heard from Deron today, who sent me an image that "might be of interest."   One issue we had run into when we went to place the front fenders in their correct position is that they collided with the exhaust pipes on both sides of the car.  The inner edge of the fender is finished off with a stiffening bead that was stamped into the metal.  The only answer is to cut a semicircular notch out of the fender and to extend the bead along the edge of the cutout.  I knew that Dan had been thinking about this for several months.  He has now begun to create the clearance cutout.  

I took some additional pictures of his process and include them here:  

  

Dan has also finished more sanding and priming on the hood sides with their modified louvers and clearance blisters.

Still More Sanding

5-14-2014  At a visit to the shop this week, I got to see more of the progress in the endless "prime, sand, prime, sand" process:

 

More Sanding and Priming

3-21-2014 All that beautiful primer you see above has been block sanded again practically down to bare metal to make the surfaces as perfect as possible.  In the pictures below, you can see the final coat of primer that will bond to the final colr paint -- if I can ever make up my mind on a color!  This week's favorite:  1961 Lincoln "Black Cherry Metallic."