Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

Tweet

Very nice work! The console is looking sweet!

Happy New Year to everybody!


Had a visit by the shop this week from cousin JB, who works at Interiors by Shannon in Alabama. He was up for the holidays. They have recently picked up a bead roller so we did some practice runs on pre-stretched and non-stretched beads, and then some beads using the Lennox Nibbler. Finished up with some shrinking on the MH-19. We ran out of time to punch louvers. Great to see him again, nice to spend time "playing" in the shop.










Progress on the console this weekend... Mike is still in California visiting family, so Jake and I have been texting pics to him of what he's missing haha..


Corner number two, we've already shown some shrinking, so no we'll show stretching the inside corner..











Placing the part on a suitable flat anvil, a barrel roll hammer is used to provide stretch the inner corner...







You get to a point where flat is no longer useful, so then we use another anvil, this one in the form of a square tube. Works well for what we're doing here...







Fitted and welded....















Next, a pattern made of the rear hump for trimming the console.. we'll keep it snug for now for placing anchors and then trim later for carpet and sound deadening space.

More console progress today, started off using Rotacutter to put a hole in the transmission tunnel for the shifter cable. The bulkhead seal that came with the cable has some mounting holes, we'll use some AVK style rivet nuts for ease of installation/replacement.















More anchors welded to the floor, some "crossmembers" fabricated, and welded into the console.











To locate the holes in the crossmembers, some spotters are set in the anchors, console placed, and crossmember tapped from above to mark.











Next we need to close off the front of the storage cavity to give us an anchor point for the latch. So we started the fabrication but found some limitations in our acute dies for the press brake.







Not quite enough bend, so we opted for a piece of sharpened 12 ga cold rolled to give us a bit more....











Trimmed and welded in place...











Video version:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiOet_0AwO0


.

We were originally going to hinge the console lid along the passenger side, but thought it would be better accessible from either front seat if it was hinged at the rear. We're using the same hinge as we used for the widened glove box door. In our attempt to add a torsion spring to keep the lid upright in the open position, we couldn't find the size to fit our 1/8" diameter hinge pin with enough torsion to hold the lid open. (Yes, even McMaster failed us) So we decided to wrap our own. Here's a fixture we made for the Aloris tool holder on the South Bend to act as a guide for the 1/16" music wire.







We also installed the older 3 jaw chuck, but not before adding a "wire catch"







Here's a video of us wrapping the spring... As my South Bend lacks slow enough speed for such a task, we opted for manual rotation..




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvJAIk1-Cs4




Here's the positioning and function of the hinge with torsion spring installed...




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPPY2dVOzmQ




With our hinge now positioned, we also found we needed to move the hinge closer to the rear edge for better lid clearance while open. Back up and punt you say?

As always, amazing and clever! Thank You for another lesson..

Very nice work. I know you have told us before, but where do you source the hole locating pins you use? Those roto cutters are nice. I might have to start buying some of those. They look like they would work a lot better than a regular hole saw.

Ryan, the original.. Home - Rotabroach

you can find cheaper, I mean "more economical" knock-offs around.

Ryan, these were Rotacut hole cutters by Hougen, look at MSC Industrial or similar as a source. The arbor uses a spring loaded center, 1/8 diameter for the smaller sizes and 1/4 for the larger, IIRC. We typically extend the center and use set screw to lock it stationary, then use the cutter with a pre-drilled hole to accommodate the center pin. We've found this more precise than the spring loaded functionality slipping out of a punched divot.


*********edit********

Missed the locating pin part, do a search on blind hole spotters. Most Industrial suppliers carry them, you can get a complete set with about 6 ea size, but I believe Spellman makes the "originals"


http://www.rlspellmanmfg.com/spellma...leSpotters.htm


https://www.mcmaster.com/#3414a11/=1b59vyf

Very nice as usual, thanks for keeping us updated !

Didn't get as many pictures this weekend as I'd have liked. While I worked on some final details on the console, Jake made some cardboard templates of our rear armrests. These will also serve to hide the seat belt retractors for the front buckets, as well as the rear speakers.






Here Jake transferring the pattern to some 19 gauge cold rolled, cleaning up some of the lines as well...







I was welding in the front cross piece that Jake made to the console and had some underside welds to do. Sometimes we make it easier on ourselves, especially if we can't weld upside-down all too well..





Suspended from the door track...






The hinge at the rear now moved rearward, metal added for mounting the hinge and securing the "storage recess".

That looks great, and thanks for the links!

Boy this one has been a pile of work. but it's coming down the home stretch it seems.
I noticed Cosmo is looking on. He seems to approve. LOL

Scary if it meets Kramer's approval...


OK, here's our update for the past couple weeks..


We're working on getting the seats ready to go to the upholsterer, and these 2002 Monte Carlo seat belts just aren't cutting it...







This these belts are riveted to a bracket that stands off from the seat, and we'll need to stand off our replacement as well. So the rivets are removed and the new seat belt gets bolted to the same bracket using 1/2" bolt, grade 8. The "new" seat belts look much more vintage correct.













With console in place and bezel checked to proper height, anchors are set in place for welding to the floor pan. Bolted to shifter plate for proper alignment and standoffs used to provide space to get in there and weld...












Next, our replacement for the parking brake pull handle didn't fit just right so an extension was added that will use factory holes, we do need to drill the firewall for the studs out the front end..

Jake's progress on the rear seat kick panel...











Tipping wheel on the Fasti folds over the top flange that will hold our arm rest..







Bolting bracket that will secure the kick panel to the inner quarter..











And here we're cutting out our console lid...







Thinning bend lines for a more crisp bend...







A piece of round rod in our magnetic brake gives us radius-ed corners...






A few passes in the Tommasini Wheeling Machine gives a bit of crown for better support







Corner details TIG welded in...







Corner detail test fit...







There we go, all caught up!

Excellent!