Thread: Followed Me Home, '33 Build

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I got off track a bit, asking questions about fiberglass and interior approach in other threads, and seem to have neglected the build page Unfortunately the winter months were not that productive for me, but I have done some things to push the never ending project a little more towards "finish".

Firstly, thank you Jack, Dave, RestoRod, Barb and Mike for the kind words.

Jack, it is registered as a 2010 ASV (assembled specialty vehicle, I think?) but there is nothing tied to emissions, just the tax base as 2010 vs antique . Also, as a ASV it cannot run period plates and does not get the reduced registration rates of an antique, and they now enforce "antique" to be restored vehicles with only safety upgrades like juice brakes - no modern driveline, etc even though I have friends with glass street rods that have been running antique plates for 25 years!

Mike, the Perma-smile has dimmed a bit over the winter, but still comes back when I crank the engine and listen to the rumble I think it will be back the first time the seats are back in and I cruise down the gravel road to the blacktop! I put almost 900 miles on the beast before parking it for the winter weather, and then dove into trying to learn about interior work. As with other things, I tend to procrastinate and stutter step with things that I have not done before, and interior work is no exception but in the last few weeks I've made some progress. No material stretched yet, but most of the panels are essentially ready, minus a bit of sanding on the filler panels around the corners in back. I did find a local interior shop where the owner has no problem selling materials, and he has taken me back into the shop several times to show me how things work together, and to provide some tips on approach - a great guy with a '64 galaxy fastback that's going to be awesome when done.

BTW, the breather caps and PCV cured the oil drips It has been clean and dry for the whole winter and hopefully continues.

Like I mentioned to Mike52 in another post, the headliner panel that Duane (N&N) does for the '33/'34's is only a top panel that tucks into a finished front valance panel and does not wrap down beneath the back window and form the corners behind the doors like he does with the '32's (another reason I should have bought the Deuce!!) When I picked up the headliner panel from him his right hand man, Scot, gave me a paper pattern of the piece he made to wrap the back, support the headliner panel, and fill to the door wind lace. That was a huge time saver, but even with that I delayed weeks cutting into my FRP panel for fear of it being wrong I first made a pattern from matt board, duct taped it in place and tried to get comfortable with how things fit, and finally cut the FRP, which is an ugly beige dense plastic used for shower walls, sold at Lowe's box store. I'll post a picture of the patterns and panel for those that might be looking for approach ideas vs mounting the panel solid and building up the compound, convex curves to form a solid base to glue to. My headliner "floats", supported around the rim, and the support panels are held with heavy duty industrial velcro that I also found at Lowe's (Thank you, Dave, for that pointer). There's also a picture of the curved area in the corners that gave me headaches for quite a while, too, the 1x1 brace that goes across at the top and middle, and the 90* corner at the bottom.