'37 Oze build

This is actually a pic of my car. This car was built in Canada and I spent some time at the factory with the original Oze owners. I have read some of your post about quality. You have to keep in mind the plugs for these cars were hand carved by eye for the molds. You will not find exact side to side dimensions on these cars. My car is being built for the autorama show circuit thats why I have skin coated some of the body, It must be 100%. much of the skin coating you see on the roof is for the seems. You should not just sand the seems flush and apply primer, If you do you risk impressions of the seems coming up down the road. The seems should be sanded slightly below the surface and covered with Bondo (that process should be used on any glass body). All in all these are great quality bodies but will require work to make them perfect. My grill does has a small gap at the bottom but not anything like I see in you pics, and my grill looks like jewelry.

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Just a quick question: Are the doors reinforced where the rivets and screws are installed (inside door view)? if not, do you think the holes will woller-out over time, especially where they're holding the window operators?

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Great looking car!!! And especially with that beautiful scenery in the background... awesome@@@

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I know what you mean on that large front nose section. Hard to handle the way it is. The guy I sold my Oze car to took the front end off and cut the front nose section in half to make it easier to put back on and fit up each side on reassembly. he made an aluminum panel with brush finish to go above the radiator to use as a way to bolt the two sections back together and no one knows it is two pieces now. Wish I had done that originally. If you ever would need just one side off for maintenance or ??? you could do that. think about it.....

For your information and review, this is the SEMA Tag & Title information which compiles all of the definitions and policies relative to registering a street rod vehicle in Colorado. http://www.bipac.net/semaga/TagTitleToolbox_CO.pdf It appears to me that you will have either a "Kit Vehicle" or a "Specially Constructed Vehicle", but that's between you and the DMV. My '33 glass car in Kansas is a "2010 ASEV (assembled specialty equipment vehicle) 1933 Ford", taxed as a 2010 with value equal to the dollars spent to build it.

Ya' know Dave, you never ask for advice, so comments after the fact are about the only thing you can get but I've gotta tell you, my body/paint guy told me crystal clear that "bondo hair" or "kitty hair" or whatever other name you apply to the body filler with chopped up fiberglass mixed in is NOT suitable for a structural edge repair. That stuff is filler, to be used for relatively minor depressions or to bring an existing surface up to meet an adjacent surface. The proper way to extend an edge is to grind back the gel coat and 1/2 of the panel thickness a distance at least equal to or greater than the fill area, and then lay in layers of fiberglass cloth & resin to integrate the extended surface with the existing body. In the case of your passenger door, the "right" way to extend that 7/16" gap would be to grind back the body nominal 3/4" to 1" minimum, and then lay in glass to build the edge to the desired point. A common method is to cover the mating surface (your door) with aluminum foil, wax it and use it as a form to fill to with glass & resin.
Now I could be totally off base, but I trust my paint shop guy who grew up in the business and is approaching retirement. I don't expect that you're going to grind out the bondo, but you should if you want it right.... Just my $0.02, and others may shoot me down.

Good luck with the Colorado DMV. I had to jump through hoops to register my 73 charger.

AND. Their fees are exorbitant.

Dave, glad to see that you added new post / picss. I checked back for the last few days, hoping to catch up on your progress but I understand how things like "Life" and "Wife" can modify our plans. I just wanted to add, If you're in the market for the rest of your wiring harness, there's a great company called ISIS Power that I ran into on the SEMA and Rodder's sites. These guys have a totally different approach to wiring that not only reduces the cabling footprint, but also helps to simplify the installation and even helps with troubleshooting. Not sure if I'm allowed to post links to company's but if you're curious, Google isispower or even better, pop the name into You Tube. They have lots of videos and installs out there to explain their approach. BTW, great progress keep it coming.

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I'm having trouble understanding what you did. To clarify, are you saying that in the first picture in your last post above (#254) the area of concern was the stepped void where the outer skin back side is exposed in a nominal 90 degree flange, which gets wider toward the bottom? And that in the second & third pictures you've filled that void with "bondo hair", making it even with the surface immediately forward which you had smoothed & raised, also with "bondo hair"? How does that relate to the second picture in your post #248, which seems to show a nominal 1/2" extension of the front piece to bring it back to meet the door edge?

Also, when we use the term "bondo" it is generally in the generic for "body filler". What filler product line (brand name) are you using?

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Originally Posted by rspears

.....................so I'm going to back away and wish you the best on your build. I'll not bother you further.

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I had it right back several pages in this thread, but didn't resist the temptation to reply. I'll try my best to do better, I promise.

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Filler is for repairing small imperfections, not building panels........

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I figured out why there's an interference problem between my tires and the headlight buckets. The headlights sit much lower and closer to the tire than a "real" '37 Ford. I went to the NSRA meet in Oklahoma City and saw two '37 Oze 3-window cars, like mine. I was shocked, since far more of the hard-top models are sold.

Here's a picture of a car owned by Morris Schweickhardt of Prosper Texas. He put a lot of work into the hood hinges, so the hood opens in the normal fashion, rather than sideways, like most Oze cars. He says that he used the hinge from the '40 Ford variation of the Oze car. The rear half of the '40 car is the same as the '37. Just to the right, you can see the headlight of a real '37 Ford. It sits a lot higher, relative to the lower edge of the fender. Also notice the beautiful polished stainless steel grille that Oze in Canada used to sell. The workmanship is outstanding.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...psac3b6b50.jpg

I'm trying to decide whether to go this route, or use the side opening hinge provided by Oze. I'm still trying to find a decent hood latch. I bought a latch and hinge kit from Smooth Parts that has two nice looking 5/8" pins that drop into the 1" square steel tube hidden under the side of the hood, but I was sent a kit with the pins spaced too far apart. They sell a kit with 7" closer spacing (17-1/4") that would work, but it would still require machining an adapter plate for each latch pin, to provide some adjustment of the pin position. The hinges in their kit will work with cars that have thin metal hood sides, and use a 1" square steel tube support for the hood side, but they won't work with the Oze body.

Here's a picture of picture of the standard Oze hood hinge, with latch pins that were offered by Oze, a long time ago. There's still no adjustment for the latch pins, as far as I can see. If there is, it would have to by means of a floating nut plate, between the inner and outer skins of the hood. Mounting the hood appears to be a 3-person job - two to hold the hood in position and a third to put the bolts into the hood.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...psd964f785.jpg

Here's another example of a 3-window Oze from the Oklahoma meet. It was also made in Canada, with the same fine grille work.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6fa171d7.jpg

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I finally got a new grille to replace the one that I returned to Oze months ago. The grille is improved overall, with a much better fit at the bottom, where there used to be 1/2" gaps between the grille and the body. 1/4-20 tapped holes have replace the old 1/4" through holes, so no nuts are required to mount the grille.

Unfortunately, that's the end of the good news. My grille fits great on the driver's side, but the other side comes up nearly 1/4" short of reaching the top of the hood side. If the hood is set to have 1/8" of gap with the body, there will be 3/8" gap between the hood and the grille, on the passenger side. I spent quite a few hours elongating the mounting holes in the body and getting the best fit that I could, before taking pictures.

The chrome plating is also poorly done, with a lot of deep grinder marks marring the top surface of the fins, where they are easily seen. They're still using unsightly MIG welds right down the center of the grill too.

IMO, Oze is doomed, unless they can come up with a better grille. The one that I have doesn't come close to the quality of the stainless steel grilles that came with the Canadian built cars.

The whole idea of offering a chromed plated steel grille is not good. It's very difficult to get the copper and nickel to throw into the small cavities on the back side of the grille, and the result will be a grill that rusts quickly, if every washed.

What's needed is a stainless steel grille with TIG welding.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...pscdc623b7.jpg

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...psba355345.jpg

At this point, my project is on hold. I've got to decide whether to do a little more work on it in order to drive it as an unfinished rat rod, with A/C that works, or just put the thing up for sale and take a big loss. There's no point is trying to fit the body to such a poorly made grille.

I notice that Oze is trying to sell their display roller on hot rod hotline.

1937 Ford 5-window by OZE ROD SHOP : Ford

I never did get a response from Tim Taylor at Oze about the poor quality of his latest grille offering. Hopefully, he'll take the criticism seriously.

I decided to proceed with some more body work and removed the running boards, front fenders and hood sides, for more work. That only took an hour to do, so it will take a couple of hours to put the parts back on. The car now looks just like it did back in December, when I first drove it. I won't reinstall the hood sides until I receive a hood latch kit from Smooth Parts. I really want to get the hood latched, but it requires replacing the square steel tube that runs from the vertical radiator support, back to the main body. I've also got to do a little tweaking on the radiator supports, to move the hood sides, slightly toward the driver's side, to improve the alignment of the hood to the main body and the hood sides.

I did manage to find seats that will fit in the car and support a 3 or 4-point racing harness. I looked at the dimensions of a lot of brands of racing seats, but found few that weren't too wide or too tall. I ordered a Cobra Imola seat, first. It would barely fit in the car, but the seat's interior width was too narrow for about 90% of the world's population. I only weigh about 140, so I could sit in it, but my wife couldn't and neither could most men of average size. Trying seats is expensive. Shipping a seat from California to Colorado is $78 from the dealer, but $120 for me to return it (by UPS). After speaking with the dealer, he recommend a cheaper Cobra Clubman model. The Clubman did fit in the car and it's barely got enough room for me or my wife. I got the one seat that I ordered, bolted in place, with a 3-point harness. The slider has about 4 inches of travel in both directions. I managed to get the seat bolted in, where my 5' tall wife could drive the car with the seat all the way forward. I still want to add a retraction device to the 3-point harness, so I can lean forward to see traffic coming from the side. In the Oze car, you sit so far back that you can't see the traffic to the right, if a corner is over 90 degrees. I plan to buy a pair of retractable lap belts and put the retraction unit on the single belt that attaches to the V- shaped shoulder belts.

I only bought one seat to start with, because the dealer charges a 20% restocking fee, unless you buy a different model of seat from them, to replace a model that doesn't fit. With the Imola, that would have been another $190 down the drain, in addition to the 2-way freight.

Cobra Imola Pro-Fit seats at Subesports : Cobra Seats

Cobra Clubman seats at Subesports : Cobra Seats

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hfm-sb3pxbk/overview/

I'm glad to hear you decided to keep stabbing away on it instead of sell it and take a loss. That really sucks about your grill. It does look better than the other one from the pics I remember seeing on here. Hey, at least your ac works! :LOL:

This thread almost makes me happy I bought a Gibbon body . . . . almost . . . ;)

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

I'm glad to hear you decided to keep stabbing away on it instead of sell it and take a loss. That really sucks about your grill. It does look better than the other one from the pics I remember seeing on here. Hey, at least your ac works! :LOL:

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Actually, my A/C doesn't work yet, but it's the minimum I need to drive the car for very long in the summer. Right now, I take it out in the morning when it's cool. The side windows don't roll down either, since I never glued the run channel to the body. That has to wait until after paint.

The car might still end up a rat rod, but at least it will have a hinged and latched hood and a couple of tolerable seats. With any luck, I might finish the body work in the next 4-6 weeks. Then I'll decide whether to go farther with the project. I don't work many hours each day, with all the yard work I have to do. I'll have to remove the dash to get the A/C ducts and vents installed.

Did your Gibbon body come from the shop in Nebraska? My brother bought a '33 from Gibbon, probably in '92 or '93, to rebuild the steel bodied '33 sedan that he rolled. He thought that his body was great. He claimed that it took little work to get the body fitted and ready to paint.

I haven't mentioned all of the issues with the body, to spare OZE some embarrassment. Another big problem is sealing the trunk lid, so the car can be washed or driven in the rain without filling the trunk with water. There's a gap of 1/4 to 3/8 inch between the lip that holds the weather strip and the trunk lid. Oze recommends a weather strip that has a thickness of 1/8" at the peak. All it does is serve as a decorative cover for the lip. I have seen an Oze with a flat foam strip applied to the trunk lid, to make a seal. It's not pretty, but it might do the job, if combined with the thin weather strip over the lip.

I could also post some pictures showing the poor trunk lid fit and lengthy runs of external corners around the trunk opening that had to be rebuilt due to thick gel goat the was full of big holes.

The "issues" that you've mentioned fall into the category of why one buys a fiberglass replica body, which is the ease of making modifications for aesthetics, or to correct fit & finish problems. Provided one uses the right techniques, cutting back all gel coat plus nominal 1/2 of the thickness of the parent material, extending edges and building new surfaces with mat & resin is really not that tough and will be strong. Some time back we had an excellent thread where one of the guys was restoring a mid-50's Corvette, and that thing had problems, like the hood profile being off from the body line by a bunch. As I recall his "fix" was to wedge cut the inner panel bracing which "freed up" the outer panel enough that it could be "pulled down" or "pushed up" to conform. Once the amount of push & pull was measured the panel was locked in the necessary position and the inner bracing was re-glassed for strength and the panel fit exactly. Unfortunately the hood was not the only place that had become mis-shaped over the years, so he worked similar magic on doors & deck, too, plus headlight trim, tail light trim, and bumpers.

The point is that glass is easily worked to fix just about anything that might be wrong, and fix it right. Just gotta jump in and do it, or back away and sell as a stalled project to someone who's willing to do the work. How much fun is it going to be to finish half-assed, and every time you take it any where explain time after time why you chose not to finish the project? I would think that would be a very frustrating way to participate in the hobby, but to each his own....

Dave, mine was bought from the South Carolina shop just before it went belly up.

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Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Dave, mine was bought from the South Carolina shop just before it went belly up.

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.....and Jack did a Yeoman's job of turning a sows ear into a silk purse, too!! Hats off, raucous applause and adulations!! :D:D:D:D:D

I didn't buy a fiberglass body, expecting to do major rework in many areas of the body, due to poor fabrication by the seller. If a person bought one of these cars and planned to leave the body and paint work to a local shop, he better plan on paying for 300-400 hours of labor, in addition to the paint job. The body work alone might cost more than the purchase price of the body.

Although it's not difficult to fix the issues that I've had with my OZE body, it is time consuming and should not be the norm. Gel coat is not supposed to by 1/4 inch thick and riddled with large holes. The entire length of the trunk opening had to be rebuilt on the driver's side and about half the length on the other side. I probably could have done the whole 13' perimeter. With my body, you never know where the next problem area will be found. There's also the possibility of more problems showing up, after the car is painted.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/...ps049efb23.jpg

I'll probably finish the car, but I'll still have to explain the poor quality grille, particularly when it starts rusting.