57 Nomad

Alright so this is the very start of our 57 Nomad build. It's a bare frame currently with stepped in rear spring mounts to fit some wicked 18 inch mickey thompsons. The frame is going to be fitted with 2 inch drop Springs, belstien coil over suspension, drilled and slotted disk breaks with the rear disk break conversion kit. This will all be accompanied by tubular upper and lower control arms and a brand new front end link kit. The rear end has also been swapped out and rebuilt with an Eaton posi differential, all powered by a crate motor 327.

Attachment 66307Attachment 66308Attachment 66309Attachment 66310

Few more pics

Looks like a good start........what's the sedan delivery body in the background?


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Originally Posted by Mike P

Looks like a good start........what's the sedan delivery body in the background?


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Going to be sourced for parts came with a brand new floor and rocker panels, as well as epoxy primed doors fenders and rear hatch.

Looks like the Nomad started life as a California car, one piece front bumper.

Heck three projects on the go at the same time, you either have a good size workshop or are better organised then I will ever be. I have a friend here in New Zealand that enjoys having two or more projects on the go at the same time as he likes the fact that if he gets stuck on one, he goes to the next one and by time he gets back to the problem on the first, he has a solution and feels revived to get into again.

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

Looks like the Nomad started life as a California car, one piece front bumper.

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I didn't know that, thank you for the insight. Is that one piece front bumper worth anything? We weren't sure so the mounting brackets are taken off and the bumper is just sitting on a shelf unsure if we will be reusing it.

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Originally Posted by Whiplash23T

Heck three projects on the go at the same time, you either have a good size workshop or are better organised then I will ever be. I have a friend here in New Zealand that enjoys having two or more projects on the go at the same time as he likes the fact that if he gets stuck on one, he goes to the next one and by time he gets back to the problem on the first, he has a solution and feels revived to get into again.

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The shop is only 22x30 but we have everything on those 4 wheel car skates so the cars can kind of roll past each other with a little bit of temporary reorganizing depending on what we are going to work on that week or month lol. And yes that is exactly it, mostly my mentor will get bored of working the same project or like you said get bored of a specific task, I mean hell at one point there was talk about selling the Buick because we couldn't think of anything to do with the that hideous boxy trunk... Except the end result of chopping 5 inches out of it lol. Pretty fun to have a couple of projects tho, that is one thing for sure.

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Originally Posted by Capecreations21

I didn't know that, thank you for the insight. Is that one piece front bumper worth anything? We weren't sure so the mounting brackets are taken off and the bumper is just sitting on a shelf unsure if we will be reusing it.

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I seem to remember that the one piece front bumper was a California requirement and I imagine it would be worth something to someone restoring one. The 57 Bel Air 2dr hardtop I bought in Anaheim in 66 had one.

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

I seem to remember that the one piece front bumper was a California requirement and I imagine it would be worth something to someone restoring one. The 57 Bel Air 2dr hardtop I bought in Anaheim in 66 had one.

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That's defenitely good information to have, it will hit eBay in a few weeks I'm sure lol. Thank you much for the info

Nice project you have going on here. Was the sedan delivery body pretty trashed?

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Nice project you have going on here. Was the sedan delivery body pretty trashed?

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The sedan delivery body was actually in excellent condition the 57 nomad body was a different story lol we are replacing much of the nomad sheet metal with that of the sedan Delivery

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Nice project you have going on here. Was the sedan delivery body pretty trashed?

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So everything picture is from the 57 except the epoxy primed door which is off the sedan delivery jus to give you an idea of how much better it was, we bought the sedan delivery epoxy primed as you see here

Attachment 66323Attachment 66324Attachment 66325Spent a TON of time removing all of the interior and exterior chrome molding on the nomad. These moldings are 600+++ a piece new. Getting ready to be sent out to sand blast

Yeah, she looks a little rough. You might want to look at MP&C's 55 thread he is restoring. He is a sheet metal genius and has a lot of great info in his threads from tips on welding to tips and info on shop equipment etc.

Very cool project. It'll be well worth all the sheet metal work when its done.

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Yeah, she looks a little rough. You might want to look at MP&C's 55 thread he is restoring. He is a sheet metal genius and has a lot of great info in his threads from tips on welding to tips and info on shop equipment etc.

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That's awesome I will definitely have to go give that a read and see what he's got going on, thank you for the insight. It definitely is a little bit crispy lol, we will see how she's looks when it comes back from sand blasting

Just a couple more pics of the 57, it's scheduled to get picked up to get sand blasted and epoxy primed any time after yesterday. You can see we added steel braces because of how bad the floors and rockers are it was actually rocking back and forth. We put braces Xed like you see in the back and 3 others, one at the bottom of the door jambs and the others running the length of the door where the rocker would have been.

Looks like you have the one piece frame as well. Hang on to that front bumper, likely it will fit much better than any reproduction, just get it re-plated.. Holds true for the back bumper as well, if your original is still solid.

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Originally Posted by MP&C

Looks like you have the one piece frame as well. Hang on to that front bumper, likely it will fit much better than any reproduction, just get it re-plated.. Holds true for the back bumper as well, if your original is still solid.

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Yeah we have both front and back, no rot but a little crispy.

Robert is correct, both those bumpers are hard to replace..............which goes to why they are highly prized.

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Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Robert is correct, both those bumpers are hard to replace..............which goes to why they are highly prized.

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It's possible they may end up for sale if you know anyone looking for them give me a shout, I'm not sure what we are going to do but he doesn't seem to be leaning toward keeping them

Local company must be sleeping.. Still waiting on them to pick it up to be blasted

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Originally Posted by Capecreations21

It's possible they may end up for sale if you know anyone looking for them give me a shout, I'm not sure what we are going to do but he doesn't seem to be leaning toward keeping them

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Pay attention to the comment about how they fit. There's lots of sad people out there looking at the fit of aftermarket bumpers, and the one piece eliminates even more issues.

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Originally Posted by Capecreations21

Local company must be sleeping.. Still waiting on them to pick it up to be blasted

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Looking forward to seeing what you get back from the blaster.... It looks pretty rusty at the onset but then you do live near the ocean....

I restored a Chevelle SS and replaced the bumpers, I took the original and checked the thickness with dial calipers and ordered a new replacement from OPG (suppose to be good stuff) to my surprise they where exactly the same thickness! Now the bad part I could physically twist the repop with my hands, literally. The original good luck it was impossible to twist or bend a tab like the new one, the repro metal is crap, replate the old as mentioned and you get a better fit, safer and will last longer (better plating)

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Originally Posted by rspears

Pay attention to the comment about how they fit. There's lots of sad people out there looking at the fit of aftermarket bumpers, and the one piece eliminates even more issues.


Looking forward to seeing what you get back from the blaster.... It looks pretty rusty at the onset but then you do live near the ocean....

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Lot of talk about this, I guess I was not aware about how bad the repros actually are, my mentor and I both assumed would cost more to get replated than to grab new ones... I will let him know that the replating option is best. As far as the rust the car was totally wrecked lol, we just happened to be lucky enough to have picked up that 56 which the seller was generous enough to give us all the sheet metal panels he had already bought I.e rockers, floor, quarter patch panel. Between the two and a whole lot of fab it should be pretty slick. Thanks much for the reply !

A big apology to anyone following this build and being disappointed by no no up to date photos. Local truck shop took 3 weeks to sand blast and epoxy prime the Nomad. Here are the current progress photos. Got the drivers side quarter patch panel and floor pan. Toe pans are in the mail. Looking forward to the feed back from everyone

These things take time. No need to apologize. It is going forward. You sure have some cut, fit. grind, weld, and grind in your future! :LOL:

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

These things take time. No need to apologize. It is going forward. You sure have some cut, fit. grind, weld, and grind in your future! :LOL:

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Cut it all trimmed out and clamped ready for welding tomorrow

Some suggestions... Disclaimer: your car, do as you see fit with it. Others before you have learned by their own mistakes and those of others, I offer some of them now for your consideration. At the end of the day, the choice is yours to make.

Looking at the amount of pitting and holes still left in your quarter, I would look for a full quarter. The low crown area in the middle of the quarter does not have sufficient shape to hold things from going squirrely once the heat from welding starts the warping action. You will spend much less time in planishing welds and getting the quarter straight if the weld seam were up higher toward the top; there is much more crown to help hold the shape where it is less affected by the heat from welding. I installed "half height" quarters on the 55 wagon, and it was the biggest mistake made on that car. We have the quarters CLOSE to where they need to be now, but it has been labor intensive. Any money saved by using the half height quarters on the wagon was more than spent in the time to remove any distortion.

Butt welds vs. lapped joints

with a butt weld you have the option of planishing out the weld to remove some of the distortion afterward. With a lapped seam, not as much. The other issue with a lapped seam is that they promote ghost lines in the paint. When you have two thicknesses of metal to one side of the weld, and one thickness on the other, the two layers will expand much slower when exposed to sunlight/heat, and similarly so in cooling. So now we have differing expansion/contraction rates as the panel heats and cools. Given enough of these heat swings, the differing expansion rates will show a line exactly where your seam is, right through your finish paint. Sure, your molding will hide much of the horizontal, but rest assured that vertical seam will be visible. I would recommend practice in fitment, trimming, and getting your weld seams to a zero gap butt weld. Consistency is key in minimizing distortion from welding. Inconsistency in gaps will require more weld in some areas than others. More weld, more heat, more shrinking, more work to eliminate the distortion.

What type of welder are you using? Mig, Tig, O/A gas? If using the Mig, in the interest of achieving full penetration welds, we are forced to limit the weld pass to either single dots or short passes. The MIG therefore is a quick hot spot, and quick cool down. This unfortunately also provides the maximum amount of shrinking, for more work in straightening out the panel. If you have TIG or O/A and are fluent in its use, you can tack the panel from one end to the other, then follow that up with a continuous weld from one end to the other. The longer weld passes will give you a gradual heating of the panel as you travel across, and similar cool down effect, for much less shrinking than with the MIG, for less cleanup. (especially the grinding part) This assumes that you can perform full weld passes with those processes to minimize shrinking effects and maximize consistency.

The consistency in welding starts with fitup and accurate trimming, and goes all the way through to consistency in ALL your methods, to include welding, planishing, and grinding (as needed). Anything you can do on the front end to improve the processes working through will give you easier time of planishing and straightening out the weld issues, giving a much better result in the end. If you are green at the welding game (this applies to any of us) it is highly beneficial to practice on scrap pieces to hone your skills before diving in on the outside sheet metal of the car, and this especially applies to the fitment and trimming part.. This is why I've always suggested that anyone should use the opportunity of floor pan installation to practice those fitment and trimming processes vital for butt welding. This helps to develop those skills needed for consistency..

[QUOTE=MP&C;562053]Some suggestions... Disclaimer: your car, do as you see fit with it. Others before you have learned by their own mistakes and those of others, I offer some of them now for your consideration. At the end of the day, the choice is yours to make. QUOTE]

Robert, in this case ( and capecreations can correct me of course) it isn't his car but a project brought into a shop he works for. He's learning along the way and your sage advise would be something that he should read / study / ponder. If he's seen any of your threads, he'll know you're speaking from experience. And again, Thanks for sharing!

I wanted to point out that the patch needed to be higher, but my procrastination allowed others to state the point more poignantly.

Nathan, please don't think I'm picking on your work, Lord knows there's many ways to get to the end result. I've personally redone work on the 55 wagon that I wasn't happy with or didn't do it as correctly as I could have. Not everyone starts their project using the optimal methods, and with all the dis-information you can find online, especially manufacturers selling the flanging tools claiming what an advantage they are for installing panels, it's easy for anyone to make the same mistake. Case in point, here is my start of the quarter panel installation, and based on the flanging hype and the fact that the manufacturer of the repop quarter installed the stepped flange, I took for granted that using the flange was the preferred method.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...10wagon025.jpg

Luckily I hadn't fully welded the seam when I found out about the ghost line issues, especially as long as those quarters are, as well as add to the headache of trying to planish out the seam afterward.

I didn't get pictures of the complete process, but my fix was to use a .035 cutoff wheel to cut the "new" quarter at the bottom edge of the "upper/old" quarter, then grind the plug welds from the back side that went into the remaining flange to release it from the old quarter. Then, hammer and dolly the stepped flange back flat again, which was about perfect to make up the thickness of the cutoff wheel. Then, the two were butt welded together, as I should have done from the beginning.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...Picture345.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...Picture531.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...cture014-1.jpg


So I hope I'm not stepping on toes. But as shown in the pictures above, I sure wish someone had said something to me while the panel was still only clamped. The step flange is now long gone, as are most of the pinch weld seams that hold moisture and create rust pockets.

Looks good. I'm learning to do patch panels myself on my stude. Seems the metal always wants to shrink and I can't get behind most of what I welded to hammer and dolly. Thank god for body filler.

When I was patching the lower rust on the dodge, I was experimenting with lightly crowning the panel before I welded it in. When the metal shrank around the edges of the patch, it would pull the crown flat, leaving the panel in correct shape.
I didn't quite get the knack of it, but the procedure showed promise.

I also tried a very slight flange at the panel's edge, where I had clear access to planish. Flattening the flange after welding relieves the shrinkage stress on the panel. That technique also showed promise.

Another good thread to follow. Like the Nomad!