Thread: '56 hit by a deer this morning...

Tweet

I'm sorry for your loss. Good choice on cutting the rest of that rocker off. That thing was no bueno. That poor car had a lot of not good choices made on it before. Poor thing! Keep up the great work!!!

.

Getting the rocker welded in, cleaned up and treated on the inside is one step closer to finishing this side. With this done the inner can go in for the last time and I can get the floor welded in...

This will take a little bit of mud to get smoothed out.

A bit straighter then it used to be.

Welded the seam where the two pieces come together.

I'll do some clean up here as well but I think this looks so much better then the other one...

Mark

One more post and we are all caught up.
Spent today getting everything ready to weld in the floors and inner rocker. I had to enlist the help of the better half to play fireman under the car as I was welding from the top...

The rear corner. I will build a patch for the rusted out inner tomorrow.

The front floor. This also shows the front floor brace welds and the floor patch. I can't believe how strong all of this is now! Sure does make a difference in how the floor "rings" when you drop a wrench on it...

I've got the welder dialed in and it is making some beautiful plug welds!


I also got the front seat brace welded in and the plug welds along the bottom of the inner rocker. I need to rebuild the last crossmember at the rear and will work on that as well tomorrow.
Mark

Thanks for the condolences guys, very much appreciated!
And yes, this poor car was a mess. The stuff I am doing is far from perfect but it is whole lot better then what was there.

I haven't posted much on the wagon repairs but stuff has been getting done!
Last weekend was spent rebuilding & replacing the back half of the outer rocker. As you can see in my previous post I had to rebuild the front of the rear wheel well also. It was 1/2" to high once I got the new outer in place and lined up with the new front half.

I built the new piece from scratch as the old one was pretty rusty inside and the shape just wasn't right to blend into the new rocker.

The shrinker dies did a good job pulling that 16ga around. I thought it would wrinkle up worse then it did.

The corner of the wheel well was a 2" radius and I got the new piece pretty close.

Got an outer piece fit in and this is ready to weld up.

The new piece got welded to the rocker and, with a little grinding, looks like it is one piece. I finished the inside as well. This will all get painted on the inside after I get it welded in.

The new wheel well edge looks great! I still have a bit of trimming to do though.

Thanks for following!
Mark

Fire watch is good idea I have set the undercoating on fire before That will get your heart pumping.

Originally Posted by cffisher

Fire watch is good idea I have set the undercoating on fire before That will get your heart pumping.

Yup, she was busy, that's fer sure...

Looking so much better - hard to remember it the way it was, now.

Originally Posted by 34_40

Looking so much better - hard to remember it the way it was, now.

Well, I wish that was true... I have saved ALL of the sheet metal I have removed from the car... Two buckets and a couple of cardboard boxes full... I am going to lay it out and take a pic when I get a clean shop floor to do it on...

I now have a deadline I need to meet and I don't know if I can do it. I have the car signed up to do the Back To The Bricks Promo Tour the first week in June... That's three months from today. The shop I was going to have do the painting keeps putting me off. He first said early January now he has it bumped to mid-March. I can't wait that long so I am going to strip the car and paint it myself.
The paint needs to be done by the end of April so I have some time to put the car back together... Needless to say I am in a crunch...

With that said I have all of the floor braces ready to weld in. I had to slice up the brace just like i did the other side to get it to snuggle up to the floor and inner rocker. Welded up the cuts and got it ground down yesterday.

I finished up the rear patch piece tonight with drilled holes for the plug welds and some paint.


Tomorrow night I will get this welded in and most of the repair work will be complete... On the body...
I still have a passenger side fender to finish... Rust repair AND smoothing out what is left of the deer hit...

Mark

Well, I finally got around to finishing up the crossmember welding. All four crossmembers are welded in with the rear patch done and this thing is SO strong now it is hard to believe! The door still shuts with a click and everything is solid. The car sounds different now when the doors are shut, honest!
It is supposed to be 60 degrees here in Michigan this weekend. The car will get moved outside and the stripping will begin! Wish me luck and good weather!
Mark

Originally Posted by astroracer

The door still shuts with a click and everything is solid. The car sounds different now when the doors are shut, honest!
It is supposed to be 60 degrees here in Michigan this weekend. The car will get moved outside and the stripping will begin! Wish me luck and good weather!
Mark

I can believe it is far more solid now. Seeing all the rot worm damage that was cut away, it isn't hard to imagine how much more the solid feeling it now enjoys.

And good luck with the stripping. ( that just doesn't sound right! )

How goes that battle Mark? Get the paint stripped and primer put on ?