A Big Day

1999-before moving the whole project from Atlanta to Florida

The top picture was taken in 1999. My oldest son, in the first picture, was 11 at the time and in middle school. He's now almost 29 and living a successful life in Austin. Bill Clinton was President, "911" only meant an emergency call, and the words "year 2000" still sounded weird and distant.
It's taken almost 18 years to get from that condition to now!
Last week, I finally decided "enough" and finished the last round of sanding and prep work prior to painting. I knew there would be imperfections, but I just decided that I could live with whatever they were. After all, I'm not building a trailer queen, but a car that I can drive and enjoy without worrying about a "perfect" paint job.
Today, I enlisted the help of my dad and my two brothers to lift the body off of the dolly and position it back onto the frame. I was a little worried about alignment, because back in 1998-99, when I welded the new floor pans in, I also had to replace a number of the floor braces, and I confess that I applied a less than scientific method in doing so. Basically, I eyeballed and welded them in to what looked like close enough.

2018-last day on the dolly for ever!

The whole process took about two and a half hours, and sure enough, there were three mounting points that were somewhat off. I decided to go ahead and set the car down and I'll most likely drill up through the floorboard and make new holes. Not the most elegant solution, but it will work and never be obvious from above or below.
Next step is to wet sand and buff out my paint job to take all of the orange peel out. I don't know what it takes, if it's even possible, to avoid the orange peel texture. Polishing at this stage will be much easier and thorough than if I tried to do it at the end with all of the trim installed.
I also would like to find something to wrap onto the body to protect the paint as I move around the car and work on it, as I'm sure I'll be bumping it or dropping stuff on it many times in the months to come. 

Guide on, Guide off

The guide coat will tell the truth

At some point, body work has to finish, and since this project is a driver and not a show car (a level of which I could never achieve with my skill set), I've reached a point that is satisfactory to me.
After months of welding, filling, sanding, and primering, it was time to shoot a guide coat on to see what dips and bumps remained. It's impossible to see the very minor imperfections without this coat.
I have a half gallon of some black chassis paint that I first used years ago on my first attempt at restoring the frame. I'm glad that I removed old paint and repainted using the epoxy, because even after sitting in a covered space for 15 years, rust had started to work it's way through the paint. Therefore, I had no reservation about using this stuff as a sacrificial coat to sand off as a guide coat. It also sprays on right out of the can, making it easy to apply.
My only mistake (after the fact, of course) was not thinning it a bit, so it was a little difficult getting it off.

The black spots shot the low areas

The first guide coat revealed what I expected--lots of little spots that were not apparent to the naked eye or the hand, but would've showed up terribly on the
final product. A couple  more days of lightly block sanding showed me what needed a little more attention, to which I applied successive layers of glazing putty until I was satisfied.
As a side note, while I was working on this step, a paint and body guy from the shop next door stopped by and was surprised to see someone using glazing putty. He said he hadn't used the stuff in twenty years. I have no idea what is used in today's auto body world, so I'm sticking with the old school way.
After the first guide coat was removed, and the numerous blemishes filled and smoothed, I applied a second, more aggressive coat of filler primer. It's not possible to catch all of
the little pin holes with the glazing putty, and on this car there were a lot of them after sitting outside for so many years. Once the primer was down again, I shot another guide coat on, this time thinned out a bit and less heavy in the application.
I wanted to get the roof painted with the final finish of India Ivory before I left town for the Christmas holiday, so I was really pleased when the second guide coat came off the roof with only as few tiny imperfections remaining. Last week, in my improvised "paint booth" and perfect evening weather and temperature, I shot the final coat on the roof, then closed the doors and went out of town.

Finished roof

This week, I hope to get the final sanding done on the rest of the body and, weather permitting, shoot the final coat of Harvest Gold on. Then it will finally be time to reinstall the body on the frame.

Battle of the Bulge Part 3

Cutting the bulge out was definitely the way to go.
I've gotten the fender to be reasonable straight--I think it'll be just fine and noticeable only to a real expert that things aren't exactly as they should be. I've gone through about ten more layers of skim coats and sanding, and now I'm down to glazing putty for pin holes. My hope is to shoot the first filler primer coat on by Tuesday.
One thing that has made this whole process much easier, and resulted in a much better end product, is an air file. I wasn't aware that such a tool existed until I came across a used one on Craigslist. After researching some videos, I went to my local Harbor Freight and purchased one for myself. I figured that, for $35, I couldn't go wrong.
This is certainly not a top of the line tool, but it actually works pretty good. And, it's made this whole body work process so much easier and tolerable. There's so much more control using the air file, and the length ensures that I'm getting the straightest panel possible. Over the past week, I would lay down a layer of body filler in the morning, and then go to town with the file in the afternoon.
To paint, I've erected a barrier of plastic between the back and front of the shop. I've got the car close to the garage door. I can pull the door down and rest the bottom of it on a box fan, which I point outside. The top is open, so it's not perfect, but if I select the proper conditions to paint in, I can get a pretty good coat. I'm not too worried about the primer coat, but I'll take extra care on the final finish.

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.

Breaks My Heart

As an electrician by trade, I make a couple of trips each year to the Dominican Republic to do mission work for our church. When we stay in the capitol we always stay in the same small hotel. Last year, as I was enjoying the view of the ocean from my balcony, I looked down across the street and noticed, of all things, a '56 Chevy parked in a fenced complex under the trees. From my sixth floor vantage point, it looked pretty nice. And it looked quite out of place in the congested city.
Last week, at the beginning of another trip I again was staying in the hotel overnight, and noticed in the morning that the car was still there, but the tires were now flat. I also noticed that the gate was open to the parking lot. So, I grabbed a cup of thick Dominican coffee and took a little stroll across the street to take a look. For any lover of the tri-five Chevys it was a heartbreaking inspection.
The car had clearly been sitting there for a
long time. And over that time, sitting just one block from the salty ocean breeze, the bane of all classic cars, rust, had eaten a substantial portion of the car away. Mind you, I have no problem seeing an old car in a boneyard that had given up it's life long ago, but here was a perfectly good car that was--is--slowly rusting away due to neglect. Both of the rear roof pillars had rusted through and the roof has actually collapsed onto the car.
I wanted to lift the hood to see if the original engine was still there, but I was afraid that the whole thing would collapse.
As you can see from the photos, there's no rescuing this poor old girl. Really sad.