Back on the Chassis (For Now)

And now, as we begin March, the body is coming back together!  The individual sections are now mounted on the "sills" (the full-length laminated ash beams that mount on the frame and support the body).  The next step will be to mount the sills on the frame and shim the sills to ensure that the body alignment is correct -- door gaps, etc.  Then we remove the body to finish restoring and painting the chassis.

And so, in just a few short days, as I was on a well-earned vacation, the body finally made it back onto the chassis.  It gets bolted down with shims pretty much matching the shims that were there when we dismantled the car.  Then Dan measures clearances on all the panels and doors where they meet,  He then removes or adds shims to adjust the body and get everything in alignment.  In fact, this is probably way more attention to detail than was originally done at the factory.

Looks Like Face Cream

It's time for a few touch ups with the hammer and dolly and a thin coat of body filler for final smooth sanding: 

 

Fenders and Cowl Work

Dan Shady has been working during January, 2012, on the rear fenders.  One of these fenders (the driver's side, I believe) had been damaged along its outer edge.  That one took a fair amount of work to get straight.  The other one was not quite as bad, but it, too, needed a little loving to be made ready to prime.  Speaking of priming, Dan got the cowl section back from the media blaster and had a warm day on which he was able to prime it with the epoxy primer.  Here are some pictures as of the end of January:

 

 

Doors are Mounted

Today (12-6-2011) the doors are mounted!

Repositioning the Rear Skin

12-5-2011  The rear body "skin" is back in position on the wooden framework and Dan is fastening it in position!  The body is held in place (believe it or not!) with dozens of tiny brads that go through holes in the sheet metal into the wooden structure.

     

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rumble Seat Floor

12-1-2011 -- The rear floor panel (under the rumble seat forward to the rear of the passenger seat) is now installed in the wood body framing!  Here are some pictures.  Black is so-o-o-o hard to photograph.  It looks better than new!

More Rear Body Work

11-2-2011 - Dan has just about finished dressing up the rear lower body panels that had suffered substantial rust damage.  After a little more sanding, he'll be ready to reprime this area.

11-23-2011  And now, Dan has started stripping both the hood pieces and the rumble seat cover (lid???).  The previous owner had started painting the car back in the 1960's and we are removing that paint as I don't care for the color or the type of paint.  He used old fashioned nitrocellulose lacquer and was painting the car black and bright yellow.  The good news is that this paint protected these pieces and the sheet metal appears to be in very good shape.

Dan has painted the floor panel shown above, using a two-part polyurethane paint.  The side you see here is the side that faces down!  It will be visible to anyone willing to crawl under the car.  You can click on this image to see it full size.  You had to see what condition this panel was in to start with to fully appreciate what Dan has accomplished.  I feel very grateful to have both Dan and Deron working on this car.  They are both extremely talented craftsmen.