Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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You guys are just wrong. Besides, I gave up wearing pantyhose after that one little "incident."


Thanks for all the tips ( I think). I took Brians suggestion to take a cold shower. I got used to them.........I was married 28 years.

Anyway, I did get some glassing done today. Before I can start putting the floor in I had to finish up some work on the interior of the firewall. One thing I had to correct was the hole where the steering shaft goes through it. Originally I was using a Corvair steering box, but when I replaced it with a Flaming River "Corvair" box, it is slightly different. The steering input shaft goes in at a lower angle, so I had to cut a new/ second hole a little lower. This left the first hole that needed filled.

What I did was slip a piece of pvc into the new hole to retain the shape, built a temporary plastic dam on the inside, and filled the old hole with Bondo. It will adhere to the wood and fiberglass pretty well, and I am going to put fiberglass mat over the outside of the hole to seal it up. The Bondo is simply a filler to take up the space between the two layers of glass.

After it cured I removed the dam and pvc tube and proceeded to glass up the inside of the firewall. I laid up two layers of mat to bond the wooden firewall piece to the fiberglass body, then I laid up one more piece of mat over the entire firewall interior to waterproof it an make it stronger.

My camera batteries went dead after the first few pictures, so I can't show you the final result until tomorrow, but these will show how I filled the unwanted hole. That white stuff you see around the edges of the plywood in the last picture is more Bondo. I filled up the entire seam and leveled it before I glassed mat over it, so that I would have a clean strong edge there.

Tomorrow I get into serious grinding of the entire surface of the body to remove the wax and get some tooth for the rest of the wood to adhere to.

Don

Yea we could be wrong but then we'd back you all the way
Thats a fare days labor. go eat diner

Jeez, I missed a couple of days and you almost finish your car. You got a lot done, looks really good !

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

YBesides, I gave up wearing pantyhose after that one little "incident."

Ya know, I don't mind a little b.s., but I can't let that slide. Most of you read Don's story about why he left the boat yard................something about new owners or some such story. Yeah right!

I've got spies. If you note the timing of the "lay off" it fits just about right. Apparently the Valentines Day office party got a little out of hand when Don showed up in costume!

Hi, new to this board and this thread.
This is a great project.
I think you can come pretty close to your goal of $3K

I built my first HotRod, a '27 roadster, about 5 years ago.
When I first started thinking about the project, I got connected with a club of local guys who had done it all before.
I bought a lot of stuff new like a frame and body and some suspension bits but I still managed it for just under $6000.
BUT, as mentioned way back in this thread, I couldn't have done it without making some new friends AND a lot of good luck.
I got a $200 donor Malibu with a 350 (recently rebuilt I later discovered) and a short tailshaft TH350.
I used everthing I could from it, engine, trans, wiring harness, steering column, seat foam, some brake parts, driveshaft (shortened), etc.
I traded, swapped and finagled for everthing I could.
For instance, I got a set of barely used Coker ProTracs on Cragar SS's for $50.
I traded the Cragars for a set of 15x10 slotted mags.
I bought a fresh 327 block crank and double hump heads at a yard sale for $200.
(yeah I know, deal of a lifetime etc.)
I traded the block and crank to a friend who runs a transmission shop and he went throught the TH350 for me. (BTW I just traded the heads and some stuff I got for free to the same guy for going through a BOP TH350 for my chopped and channeled '29 coupe with a 400 Pontiac in it.)
I got a set of round back spindles from an discarded axle my cousin had. I got a 3.00:1 8" rear axle for $50. I even scored a working 3x2 setup for $250. I got a '35 hulk out of a hedgerow for free and traded the rearend and radius rods with a guy building a "traditional" rod for a set of Sanderson headers with a little blue on them.
I could go on for a while but to make a long story short I really worked at finding deals and keeping a list of what I needed and what other people wanted that I could trade them. If I knew then what I know now I could probably have built it for even less.
P.S. Just so you know this wasn't a fluke, I'll probably have the coupe on the road this summer for about $8500 total.
If you are interested in more on the project, here is my site:http://home.nycap.rr.com/stovertown

D*** Bob, I thought with the beard no one would recognize me. Those Corporate types have no sense of humor.



Hey Smokey, welcome to the forum. See, you did it the way I originally intended, and you proved it can be done if you just have patience and use your trading and buying skills. I am still going to do it with the '29 cowl and doors I have laying around, just to prove the point. If I hadn't started digging this little T and decided to dump some money into making it a few notches better, I could have done it too, I bet.

The next project will be called " The REAL project $ 3 K." (this one was just practice )


Don


I just looked at your '27 site.........great car and pictures. I have a soft spot for '27's. Mine is on A rails and looks a lot like yours. I also am using a Montego rear axle, but mine is a '68 9 incher. Love the tripower setup on yours.

Brian mentioned he has done a fair amount of glass work, I know Hotroddaddy worked at a major boat builder, and suspect many other members have done this kind of work, so I thought this might be a good time to mention some things for the members who have little or no experience with this medium. If some of you can chime in with whatever info you want, it would be very helpful I'm sure.

As Brian mentioned, fiberglass work isn't rocket science, and the more you work with it the more you realize the unlimited potential for making things out of it. The average guy, using readily available items can do everything from minor projects to building an entire car.

The first thing anyone thinking of doing some glass work should do is buy a good book on the subject. Even though I have been in the marine business since '88 and had exposure to glassing, I still bought a very good book on boat building and found tons of info in there that also relates to what we car guys do. I also would pick the brains of every fiberglass guy we would use at the marinas and learn little tips from them.

Fiberglassing is actually called FRP, for fiberglass reinforced plastic. The cloth or mat you use is the actual strength of the product, and the resin simply encapsulates that cloth or mat and makes it adhere. When the two are combined they fuse into the product you see making up boats and Corvettes. There are two types of resin.......polyester and epoxy. Of the two, epoxy is the better, stronger product, so naturally you would think it was the only one to use. Not necessarily, and I am using Polyester on my T, and the majority of boats on the market are made with the same product.

The reason is cost. Epoxy is more expensive (significantly so) and polyester does a very good job anyway. Where epoxy works well is when you are going back to do a repair, it bites in better in that circumstance and creates a better bond. But for initial construction, polyester resin is fine.

There are also various cloth products available. One is mat, and this is the one that you see with random strands running all different directions. Another is cloth. This is the one you see with a uniform pattern, and it looks like it was woven into a grid pattern. I usually work with mat because it conforms better to corners and bends, plus it will adhere better in the first layer. It has less tendency to pull away from stress. I think the stuff I am using is called 1/2 ounce mat, and it is the product normally used to repair and modify boats and the like.

I am going to close out this post because my computer has been freezing up, and I don't want to lose all that I have typed above. But here is a picture of the common tools I use to work with the stuff.

Don

The second picture above is mat that I have cut up into various sized pieces. You want to do this before you start fiberglassing because your fingers are going to be sticky during the process and you won't be able to do it then. Plus, the resin once catalyzed only gives you about 15-20 minutes working time, so you have to keep moving quickly or the resin will "kick" on you and get hard.

I save every little scrap of mat because you can fit little pieces into corners or string many pieces of it together to get a long run. It is just as strong this way, and conforms to corners and tight spots better than one bigger piece that will wrinkle up.

The tools shown are just common household tools, except for the two rollers shown. The one with the big wheel is a corner roller, and us used to compress the wet mat or cloth into tight corners and get a good joint. The roller that is longer is used to roll down large sections of the wetted out mat or cloth to get bubbles out and get a uniform layout.

What you do is paint down a layer of wet resin, then lay your mat or cloth into it and press it down. Then you take your throwaway brush and start dabbing more resin on top of the dry cloth. I say dabbing, because if you try brushing it like paint it tends to pull the mat or cloth away. You want to put enough resin on top until the mat or cloth becomes translucent, but not so much that you over saturate the cloth. This is something you develop a feel for. If you get too little you get a resin starved, dry cloth situation. If you put too much you get a resin rich, brittle situaltion. It takes some trial and error to learn how much is right, but there is some latitude for error, so don;t let this scare you.

Before you start laying up the glass you need to prep the parts first. If you are glassing something into a fiberglass body, like I am doing, you need to grind the interior very well, after wiping it down a lot with laquer thinner. What you are doing is removing the wax that rose to the surface when the body was built. THe reason there is wax in there is that fiberglass resin will never cure tack free unless the air is kept away from it. It cures by inhibiting the air, so they mix wax in the resin to do that.

Just thought of something on that subject. There are two types of resin.......laminating and finishing. I mistakenly bought laminating when I did my '27, thinking that I was doing "laminating" so that must be better. Problem is, laminating resin has no wax, and will remain sticky forever. It is made to allow you to continue laying on layer after layer without grinding. What you want for most projects is "finishing" resin. You do not have to grind between each layer of mat you put on, as long as you do the layers at one time. If you go back after the resin has cured (like the next day) you do have to dewax and grind the surface as the wax has already risen to the surface and the new stuff won't adhere.

As was also mentioned, buy lots of throwaway chemical resistant gloves, and either buy lots of mixing cups in various sizes, or start saving your Cool Whip and margarine tubs now, because you will use lots of them. Also, put down plastic sheeting under your work, because this stuff sticks to everything around it when you are putting it on.

I hope some others have more to add on this subject, but I have put off going to do my grinding as long as I can, so I have to go do that now.


Don

That is some great reading Don and very informative to me. I am going to be doing some glass work soon and I have learned alot, thanks. The car is looking great, won't be long and the ol' paint gun will be coming out!

Thanks Brick. I'm certainly no fiberglass expert, but it doesn't take too much practice before you can get pretty good at it. After you do it a while you realize how forgiving of a product it is. If you screw up, you grind it out and start over again.

Today when I was working at the shop I thought of a funny story about fiberglass. I worked at one time for West Marine, and a customer came in all irate. He had bought a gallon of resin with hardner and started to do a job with it. So he mixed up the whole gallon with ALL the hardner in one batch.

Now, fiberglass resin cures by heat. When you mix the hardner into the resin, heat is produced. If you mix up the whole gallon and all the hardner LOTS OF HEAT IS PRODUCED.

The container got so hot he couldn't hold it, so he threw it into a garbage can, which promptly caught fire. It was hard for me to keep a straight face as I said " tell me you didn't mix up the whole gallon?" He somehow felt we were responsible for NOT TELLING HIM to not mix it all together at one time. We gave him a new free gallon and this time told him to mix small batches only at one time. I guess that is why they put warning labels on plastic bags "DO NOT USE AS A TOY." You have to idiotproof everything.

I did get some work done today, but not the grinding I thought I would. I realized that once I glass in the floor my dash roll bar will never ever come out again, so I had better make sure everything is done in that area before I seal it up. So what I did was paint truck bed liner onto the entire upper dash section before I put the roll bar back in. I did this for two reasons: !) I am going to use bed liner on the entire interior surface of the car and under the floorboards for sound deadening and also to make the body less prone to have shadows through the paint. and 2) I wanted a smoother and more finished surface up under the dash than the raw fiberglass. I figure it will look better and be kinder on my knuckles when I install the wiring and gauges. I also rounded off the transmission bellhousing hole to give me a little more clearance around it. I figured a little more room now is better than interference later on.

Fiberglass bodies have a tendency to let shadows show through them, especially cheaper bodies like mine........they are thinner than the more expensive ones like Wescotts. The gold/ orange color I am going to paint it won't do much to hide these shadows either, so the black inner liner should become a good barrier to light.

Anyway, here are some pictures of what I did in that area. I better sign off this post before my stupid computer freezes up again.

Don

While my stuff was drying I decided to get some more work done on the misc brackets I have yet to build. One of those was the bracket for the electric fuel pump and water seperating fuel filter.

I had a nice area just behind the drivers seat to do this, so I made up a flat steel bracket that we will weld in place. This way the fuel will come from the tank, to the filter, then to the pump. I learned a long time ago electric pumps do not like any dirt, so I always run a good filter before it.

I wanted to let all my stuff dry overnight, so I called it a day. For a change I will get dinner and a shower before midnight.

Here are some shots of the fuel pump bracket.

Don

The black on the inside is a great idea. The inside of 'glass bodies need to be protected and waterproofed. Over time, unprotected fiberglass that is subjected to moisture will begin to delaminate. I coat the inside of all fiberglass cars I work on. Besides, makes them look nicer til you get around to putting upholstery in them!!!!

Dave---You bring up an interesting point there. When I built the roadster pickup, I used fiberglass fenders, running boards, and splash aprons. The exposed outer surface has umpty-jeesus coats of yellow paint on them, but since the inner surface was black, I never painted it with anything. The roadster pickup is a "sunny day" driver, but even so, it gets caught in the rain once or twice a summer. I have never actually given any thought to it needing to be painted, but now you have planted a seed of doubt.---???

Dave, I never thought of the waterproofing aspect, but you are right. Funny you should mention the nice look until upholstery happens. I had exactly the same thought today, maybe I will drive it sans upholstery for a while and the solid color will at least look better.

I really liked the Duplicolor Truck Bed Liner I got. It brushed on quick and easy and didn't dry like some of the liners I have seen that are like sandpaper. This stuff is pretty smooth.

Don

Brian, I also understand some type of undercoating under fenders keeps down rock chips and stars. I never run fenders so I didn't pay attention to what product guys use.

Don