BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

TURNA

Rocket Powered Basset Hound
Jul 24, 2009
10,941
19,990
113
Socialist NY
Holy banana dick!
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 1 user

pagrunt

Geezer
Sep 14, 2014
9,122
15,255
113
Elderton, Pa
Wow there were alot of shops I used to service at the old supply store & they were no where near to set up you have for the air. Even the shops that we set up with the blue lines wasn't even that nice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user

69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
8,089
17,300
113
Holy banana dick!
Totally agree! o_O

EDITED by GP403.... Yeah, I'm all for peppering the posts with GIFs, and I do have the "ratings" turned off for the plugin, basically, but we do need to keep things basically family friendly. There's a few others I've seen lately that I've cringed at and if I can find them again I'll be editing those as well. Don't want to sound like a jerk, but... yeah. Doesn't bother me, personally, but when I get multiple complaints about posts like that, then, well....
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Winner
  • In Love
Reactions: 3 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,152
23,828
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Time for this week’s update.
I’ll start off with the quick and easy stuff first, then move onto the heavy fabrication.

The rear inner AstroRoof brace had some corrosion damage in the right rear corner. Pretty simple fix, determine the size of the patch needed, and cut it out of some fresh stuff.

24635F6D-097E-4FE2-A531-1BBE5DC96A74.jpeg


Note how I kept the part of the patch that’s eventually going to be cut out. This helped me to get everything spaced and aligned correctly, in case the location of the notch is critical to anything.

The patch in place, with my template in view. I got to use an old trick I had almost forgotten about, if you look closely you can see a thin magnet poking out from the underside. This is an old fridge magnet, they work great for holding small pieces of sheet metal in place. Strong enough to hold the piece in place, but not strong enough to pull your weld puddle when you strike the arc.

E55FB91F-7A71-498D-99F0-F516AC84648C.jpeg


All finished up:

19299B8C-18D7-466D-878A-A3BBD02BDCF5.jpeg


Ok, with that done, the front and rear braces need nothing else until it’s time to reattach them to the outer pan. They’re set aside for now.

Speaking of the outer pan, a thorough evaluation led me to the fact that what was left there to work with simply wasn’t gonna cut it. In these next three pictures you can see the chunks of outer flange missing, as well as the heavy pitting from the rust that had taken hold:

76326DCF-B272-48FF-9C32-2551625F90DC.jpeg


48D0CC59-8099-4587-BCC8-E61B20C3ACD5.jpeg


B66F470E-DC9E-4725-BC24-2903F3D31A1F.jpeg


So what does one do when a part is unobtainium and he has more time and tools than cash? You man up and create what you need from scratch. That’s hot rodding baby.
Starting with a flat piece of sheet metal roughly 2” wide by 24” long (that’s as long a piece my metal brake will take) I marked out the center line...

E3CC5591-2B8B-48EE-BA2B-F38AB9709866.jpeg


... and put a 90 degree bend in it. I wasn’t satisfied with the sharpness of the bend, so I put it in the vise and crisped it up a bit with the body hammer.

End result:

4E4F708D-A2C8-4902-A0EF-CB1C8DE647CF.jpeg


Now that I had a starting point, I had to shape it to the correct curvature. This particular part has to curve in two different directions, from front to back as viewed from above, but also up in the middle and down on the outer edges when viewed from the front.

In this early pic, I’ve got the rough shape mostly formed, it’s a little wavy still, but it’s very close. The shaping was done with my Eastwood shrinker/stretcher, shrinking along the horizontal plane provided the curvature front to back, and stretching along the vertical plane provided the curvature top and bottom.

089B9210-F619-419E-BC1E-5FD22E4C063F.jpeg


After a lot of trial fitting and small adjustments, I got the curvatures pretty near spot on:

62F7E930-4CA6-4D2C-9EEE-B25367F31131.jpeg


977E892B-4892-4D05-BF6C-8B523BD2E5C8.jpeg


357032F7-8F9D-4F85-80EC-32ABD73DBB61.jpeg


04F58088-1308-4D27-8C11-BC1894130206.jpeg


With the shape finally established, I marked out the old flange for cutting...

A54A73BB-47D8-4C42-9FDF-2E9B472EBF1F.jpeg


...and once that was done, the new piece was trial fit. Note the Sharpie marks around the heavily pitted area, that was going to be cut out and replaced as well. No sense leaving that there if I was this far into it anyways.

F731B905-0773-418A-932F-0EE5F093D94A.jpeg


872C3C63-FE4E-441A-84F8-45CD3871F7F1.jpeg


Time to get serious about fitting it. The horizontal part was trimmed to match my cut line on the pan, then the pan was flipped over and the patch was held in place with more magnets:

0E6C9435-BCAA-4A73-B522-7EE7301AA7F5.jpeg


ED826CDF-1E1A-4E50-B4F0-FBE1D5953385.jpeg


You can see the pitted area I finally cut out under this magnet:

0B6EE443-A624-49E4-ABB4-29DF545FBA7A.jpeg


First row of tacks to hold everything in alignment. I left a small “shelf” underneath where the vertical patch would have to go in, this’ll help hold the patch in place when it’s time to burn it in.

07CF9293-E794-4A29-AF03-A4ECD7F84220.jpeg


Starting to look pretty good:

97217DD0-32AE-492C-8C3B-0404CEA90AB0.jpeg


Vertical patch being fit, more holding power via a cut down fridge magnet. Put those RockAuto magnets to good use for something other than holding up your kids pictures guys!

1AE9C7C4-E80D-4C40-9376-96C180C6BB62.jpeg


77B4CFE5-79BA-4E3B-9EAB-8C8905AEFBDC.jpeg


The backside of the vertical patch, after it’s all been burned in and smoothed out:

21395B2A-DAE3-4273-8088-F92A45F7C1EF.jpeg


Go time on the remaining 20 or so inches:

3AB9453E-3F73-488C-B6A8-73D1823EEC54.jpeg


Continued >>>
 
  • Like
  • Winner
Reactions: 12 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,152
23,828
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Working on getting more of it completed. Starting to look like something.

5F893506-2ECC-4681-9CB7-8157A3639D17.jpeg


The topside, now that all the welding has been completed on the inside:

05980737-58CC-49E1-9BEE-EF730B1BC512.jpeg


Looking inside the flange from the outside, at least I’ve got good penetration. Downside is, all these will have to be ground down and made smooth so as not to interfere with the weatherstrip seal that has to go inside this channel.

DF1BF08C-3D17-49EB-9262-E2FF119C40B2.jpeg


E92E38A7-7FF6-407F-B690-DFC7C522FC32.jpeg


Inside shots of the finished pan, welding done and smoothed out. My metal finishing is also getting better.

BF3A85C5-98AD-4BCD-9DF1-BFB7E953DCAA.jpeg


D964E8F3-8C0E-4A59-B057-0594D7161727.jpeg


32594850-EC66-4A94-AD21-0B23EDDBC250.jpeg


Remember all those weld penetrations inside the channel?

7070E4ED-7976-40A4-AAEF-279928CAB89D.jpeg


E8286C92-9D17-4AA2-B5DC-5A111A98F206.jpeg


3D8F0302-C947-4B08-A02F-0DC50D72EC67.jpeg


Time to get those addressed. A very steady hand and a boatload of patience is what was needed here. Only thing that would fit was the edge of the cutoff wheel in a die grinder.

E1604AC2-56AE-4ECA-917F-6665928EF246.jpeg


2C891859-72EA-4E09-8985-FC9B528B0F8F.jpeg


Time for a test fit on the car. Because this pan is designed to fit up from the inside and I had no way to hold it in place temporarily to check the fitment, I had to just set it on the outside of the roof.

Back still looks good...

FB3D0C67-C5C1-4208-BB83-E22A005064DF.jpeg


...but the front is a different story. Sometimes guys, you can do everything right and still have things go sideways on you.

DB47E92F-9747-4FE9-8611-7885F1F49A61.jpeg


It’s all in how you deal with the adversity. I didn’t panic, even for a second because I had a couple of indicators as I was working that this might be happening.

I grabbed a couple of 2x4’s and created a clamping fixture to try and get everything to stretch out and return to its proper shape:

827FC446-5AE5-4A40-B0E3-EE809F7377D3.jpeg


After a couple days clamped like this, it had actually come back a long ways. I still had about a quarter inch of unwanted gap between the curvatures, but I had a feeling that with it clamped again and a little heat put to it, it would come back the rest of the ways.

To that end, I clamped it again...

D9373C94-7FE1-4591-B8C6-5A8AC15414FA.jpeg


...and ground, yes ground down the excess material from the vertical flange. Doing it this way instead of cutting it put a small amount of heat into the piece, and when it cooled it should have relaxed and retained the correct shape.

Grinding down the flange:

735F25C9-D371-4FF9-BB80-D744A1BACBA2.jpeg


1B598526-95E0-485F-8A16-2DF7F527821C.jpeg


And all done now, the flange at the correct height:

DEABF123-288D-44E5-97AD-BD1B9FC6E1BA.jpeg


357DA836-8BC1-41CE-BB29-931497177A0D.jpeg


Time for another test fit to see if my hunch was correct, success!!!

F1E20187-A1D1-4F1D-8458-237B9534A498.jpeg


Cross that one off the “to do” list.
Next was to weld up all the spots where the OE spot welds were. I don’t want to have trouble with my plug welds blowing through the parent material when it comes time to reattach the inner braces.

385E2E78-4568-4BBA-A1C4-CB065CEFC278.jpeg


2B00D4BA-9582-4337-9354-B2838D687EFE.jpeg


The finished underside:

ADC13300-E891-4B6F-9430-38C14403C9A5.jpeg


I left the penetration part of the welds in place on the topside for now. It’s going to be nice to have this additional material on the underside for the spot welds to work against. I’ll grind them smooth after the braces have been reattached.

C0A79F5D-7982-4C0A-9870-D885A6C8C64D.jpeg


That’s all for now, it was quite a week of heavy fabrication. I’ve got a brand new AstroRoof weatherstrip seal on the way, so once the pan is completed it’s restoration, I can get that in place and hopefully be able to reinstall the whole assembly.

Thanks for checking in on the weekly updates guys, it’s much appreciated.

D.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Winner
Reactions: 16 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,152
23,828
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Guys, I had a small hiccup compiling the second part of the update. It posted before I was done, so please go back and reread to get the rest of it now that I’ve corrected it.

Thanks all,

D.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 4 users

ssn696

Living in the Past
Supporting Member
Jul 19, 2009
5,543
6,662
113
Permanent Temporary
Amazing work. Like Geology. I just finished re-watching Shawshank Redemption. It's all about time. And pressure. Another example of the $15 hammer and the $15000 knowing where and how to apply it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4 users

GBodyForum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon, the Amazon logo, AmazonSupply, and the AmazonSupply logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Please support GBodyForum Sponsors

Classic Truck Consoles Dixie Restoration Depot UMI Performance

Contact [email protected] for info on becoming a sponsor