Battle of the Bulge Part 2

This past weekend was the annual Turkey Run here in Daytona Beach.

 Back to square (or triangle) one

The show's organizers allow owners of cars built before 1979 to purchase a show pass to drive into the event. The only classic I have to drive right now is my son's "66 Mustang (http://1966mustangresto.blogspot.com) so I made the drive on Saturday and took my place between a '71 Chevelle SS and a '72 Dodge Challenger. Parked in front of me was a '55 Belair with a nice paint job, so I spent a good amount of time admiring it while I sat and took a break between swap meet forays.
The thing I focused on was the finished look of the fenders, and realized that what I was doing with my bulging fender wasn't acceptable. There was still a good hump there, albeit smooth to the touch. I knew that once I got a good shiny coat of paint on the car it would stand out like a sore (bulging) thumb, so today I sucked it up and took all of the body filler off again.
This time, instead of simply cutting a line that I would try to pull together, I decided to cut a whole triangle section

Welded in, and hopefully a better contour to work with

out and put a new flatter piece in. This was also due to the metal around the old welds getting thin from so much grinding of the old weld.
The replacement piece went in really well, and a preliminary run of the hand seems to indicate that I might have resolved most of the problem. I didn't have time to apply any filler this afternoon, so the true test will come tomorrow after I apply a couple of layers and sand it down. Fingers crossed.

Battle of the Bulge Part 1

Trying to fix my poor workmanship with bondo

Back in 1999, when I made my first real attempt at restoring Old Yeller, I did a lot of cutting and welding to replace rusted floor pans, braces and fender sheet metal. At the time, I wasn't as savvy as I am now, so it didn't occur to me that I didn't have to use the whole replacement panel if an area had just a small problem. Case in point is the lower section ahead of the passenger rear wheel.
I can't remember what the condition of the original panel was, but regardless, I used the whole new piece, which meant I cut a large portion of (probably) good straight sheet metal out and welded in the whole new piece. The result, due to my crude welding skills, was a nice bulge right over the fender well where I have a seam that warped due to overheating. I remember at the time actually trying to fix the mess by re-cutting at the seam to give some space for the warped metal to flatten out.
I'm finally turning my complete focus on prepping the body, and this area is my starting point. I actually didn't remember much of what I did until I started really working
the area, trying to level it out with body filler. I quickly realized that it was going to take a really thick application to even come close to something smooth, so I immediately went to plan B.

Gave up on the filler. Time to cut and re-weld

As hard as it was, I got the cutting wheel out to try and create some space for the metal to lay down. This time, I decided to try cutting an "X" right on top of the worst area to allow the bulge to flatten. After some work with a dolly and hammer, it looked like the plan would succeed.
Once re-welded, I applied a new layer of filler. It looked like the plan would work. With the air file I recently purchased, I worked the area slowly with a finer grit (80) to the point where I think it will be imperceptible to all but the most astute Classic Chevy buff.
There was one small spot just above the lip of the fender that still had a pretty good bump, though. I again contemplated a thick layer of filler, but cooler logic prevailed, so yesterday I got the disc sander out and took all of the body filler off the reveal my sloppy, lumpy weld from 18 years ago.

A little more careful welding to pull things together

I decided to try and just grind the weld down more rather than subject the area to even more stress and heat. After I did that, I again got out the hammer and worked the spot until it felt like the majority of the lump was gone. I applied a new layer of filler and got the sander
out again.
After a number of thin layers of filler, with sanding in between each, I felt like I was finally getting to something resembling the original fender shape.

An Uplifting experience

In between other responsibilities over the past 12 months, when I haven't been able to work on my car, I've been slowly redesigning my shop to be more functional. I've torn down a lot of shelving that I put up initially to hold the pile of parts that accumulated from disassembly, as well as yearly visits to swap meets. Those shelves took up a lot of floor space, which made it difficult to add a two post lift to the garage, which is something I've been wanting to do for some time now.
Since I had enough ceiling height, I decided to build a second floor of sorts over the back of the garage. That provided a perfect spot to stash all of the non-car related stuff that was also taking up space. It also created a nice area below to build a good, solid, long work bench, with good fluorescent lighting and plenty of receptacles.
I build some more permanent shelves on the opposite side that were only two feet wide, but with enough space to contain almost all of the remaining car stuff, which also includes a number of parts from my son's '66 Mustang restoration.
With some new found floor space, I finally took the plunge and brought the lift in from the elements and started to refurbish it.

All assembled--for the first time

I got this lift off of eBay, from a business in Orlando that basically buys anything and everything and then resells it on eBay. This lift was advertised for $800 as a functional lift, so it sounded like a good deal.
Having never owned or worked on such stuff before, I didn't know what I was really looking at when I inspected it, but decided to take a chance and made a deal for $550. As we were loading it up on my flatbed, I realized that this "functional" lift had in fact been sitting, neglected, in someone's back yard for a long time. It was full of dirt and leaves, and everything was coated with rust. However, the seller assured me that if it didn't work he would refund my money, and it seemed like they were a pretty established business, so I took a leap of faith.
The whole pile sat outside my shop for another three months before I finally dragged the parts indoors and began to disassemble it. The first problem was the pump motor, which refused to turn over. To his credit, the seller took it back and "fixed" it, then shipped it back to me to save another drive to Orlando.
Next, I realized that there were two pulleys for the cable system that were missing. Fortunately, I found a good supplier on the Internet that has all of the parts for this brand (ALM, which went out of business in the early 90s), so $100 later I was again moving forward.

My finished frame sitting high and pretty

Once I got it together, I ran a temporary wire to the motor, filled it with fluid, and held my breath as I hit the switch. Lo and behold, it worked! But--it went up about six inches and stopped. I gave a second bump to the switch, but something was definitely jammed. A close inspection revealed that one of the cables had jumped the pulley and became wedged. The force of the hydraulics actually ripped the cable almost in half, which resulted in another $130 for a replacement.
All back together again a week later, the second test run went much better, but then one of the hydraulic rams began spraying fluid out of the vent. Disassembly again and a trip to the hydraulic shop meant another $160 out of my pocket.
Finally, the day came when everything worked as it should. The final test was to put some weight on it to see if I put in back together correctly. I wasn't about to sacrifice my '55 frame, so I rolled the old '66 Mustang in place and hit the switch. The whole thing worked marvelously, and after a number of ups and downs to assure myself all was good, I put my frame on it and up she went. The rolling chassis for Old Yeller is now up high and out of harms way, giving me lots of new floor space to play with.
All told, I probably spent a good 30 hours taking apart and reassembling the whole setup.  In hindsight, it was a good thing, though, because I know every part and piece and how it all works. I could've purchased a Chinese-made lift for about $1600 (I have about $950 in mine now). However, my old lift is made in the USA, is super heavy duty, and I know every working part inside and out. So I guess I'm satisfied.