Another chassis fab thread

#61
Metalworking takes a ton of time as you know. Originally all metalworking was doing it exactly how you are doing it now.

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You are correct. A lot of low production high end cars were hand built panel by panel up into the 70's. if you have a 60's Rolls Royce you cant take the door off another and put on yours.... I know a guy that went through that with a Rolls.

I imagine you do know but in case you don't. That picture is of the body buck for the first Cobra Daytona coupe designed by Peter Brock. That's Brock on the right in the jacket. They built a total of 6 coupes in the race shop in Venice, Ca.. The Daytona's and Cobras for that manner were aluminum. Faster to shape but slow to weld with a gas torch back in the day. But you can run an aluminum weld bead through the English wheel and crush it. Disappears. Sadly you cant wheel a steel weld.

That is a skill I have a very strong desire to learn. How to build a proper and accurate buck. Ron Covell has buck building classes scheduled this spring and I am going to try my best to attend.
 
#62
Pete Brock also designed the Super Coupe very familiar with his work.
They must have had heli-arc back then, no?
Gas welding aluminum requires an oxygen/hydrogen setup, right?

I don’t think you can gas weld aluminum the same way you would gas weld steel.
I could be wrong
 
#63
Pete Brock also designed the Super Coupe very familiar with his work.
They must have had heli-arc back then, no?
Gas welding aluminum requires an oxygen/hydrogen setup, right?

I don’t think you can gas weld aluminum the same way you would gas weld steel.
I could be wrong
Yes Oxy Acetylene was the only way until "Heli Arc" was developed. More commonly known these days as Tig.

I copied this off the Miller website as I didnt know the time frame of Tig development.

"Aluminum welding has been done for 100 years....Tig about 50, and commonly for about 35. Torch welding is like cooking over a camp fire, tig is like using a microwave. Both do the job, but one has a lot more skill involved, and smarts."

Thought that was a pretty good description. I have tried to weld aluminum with my Dillon torch and failed horribly. It has a very soft flame and I have stood and watched the factory rep weld aluminum with one for hours at swap meets. I just revert back to my Tig...

Super Coupe.... Have you ever seen it in person? I haven't but have seen the common Daytona's a bunch of times at the various S.A.A.C. conventions that I have been to. I always thought that the SC looked like it was stung by a bee and was allergic... Slightly out of proportion. Always liked the clean proportions of a Daytona Coupe.

Are you a follower of the Shelby American lineage?
 
#64
I found this 56 F-100 on the web and saved the pictures. It is as close to what I am building as I have seen. This is pretty close to the ride height that I am hoping to achieve. This truck is on bags but mine will be set static at this height all the time. The one thing that will be different on my truck is the rear pan on mine will come down as far as the bottoms of the rear fenders so there is a pleasing line across the rear. The running boards and bed have been raised like mine is being built. The front wheel openings have been moved forward like mine will be. With the running boards raised you shorten the rear of the front fender to match. This makes the bottoms of the front fender match ahead of and behind the tire. The front of the fender and the front pan is way higher on a stock truck. Running a bumper on the front is still undecided. At least it will let you see my direction that I am heading. Cant figure out how to make them smaller... Sorry...

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#65
Another web find. This one is all stock sheet metal. Huge gap between the running boards and the bottom of the cab, Also the difference in height of the bottom of the front fender ahead of and behind the wheel opening. Not as clear from this angle but you can see how fat the stock front fender is ahead of the wheel well.

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#66
Only got 1 day in last week but that allowed for fabrication of the rear filler and pulling the fender off to weld all the pieces. Today we put the fender back on the truck and built the inner filler. Got it fitted and tacked in place. We will have to figure out the last piece with the fender off and on the table. It needs a compound curve filler to make the pieces flow correctly. Sand bag and English Wheel time...

Rear filler fitted and tacked.
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Inner fillers fitted and tacked.
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#67
Got the last filler piece fitted and installed. Once we got the fender on the table where you could actually get up close it wasn't as far out of line as it first appeared. Just a little hammer and dolly work to increase the curve in the last 5 inches made it a simple piece that only required a little tweeking by hand. No wheeling needed.

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I have posted this pic before showing the original GM inner fender verses the fabricated inner fender. Today we assembled the front end sheet metal and I tried to duplicate that shot with the new raised fabricated inner verses the first version of the fabricated inner.

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New
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The numbers you see on the inner fenders is the amount of inches of weld. 161 on the right and 184 on the left. I measured the right inner today and have an additional 272 inches added to the 161 already there. That's 36 feet so far. Still have a little welding to do on the upper edges of the inners once they are of the actual fender.
 
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#68
Right side inner finished. Thought this was an interesting overall shot of the modifications with it laying upside down. Right side final weld measurement was 462 inches or 38.5 feet.... I have sunburned eyelids from all the tack welds...

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We got the modifications done on the left fender to raise the inner fender today and cut the inner apart for it. We will start making pieces next week and see how close we can match the right side. The left fender had 184 inches in it already. 23 more than the right because I had to fabricate a filler for the steering box location so the right and left would match.
 
#69
Finally after almost 3 months we got back on the Blazer yesterday. Bruce's family business has kept him busy since he came back from vacation about the 10th of December. For those of you following along I hope you enjoy the pics.

I thought that I would show a little more metal shaping detail while I was making filler panels. I already made the large front and rear fillers yesterday and got them tacked in. Today I made the lower compound curved piece to tie the outer edge of the wheelhouse to the inner body of the wheelhouse. Tomorrow I will make the small lower and the upper filler that you can see missing still in the pics.

I started with a little time on the English wheel and got the start of the shape in the piece. You can see the tracks in the piece before I took it to the sand bag and hammered some more shape into it. When you look at all these pics the hammered piece looks like a bag of walnuts but with only a dozen or so passes through the E-wheel it will be almost straight. After 3 or 4 minutes of wheeling it is totally smooth with an increased compound curve. Then it hammer, wheel, hammer, wheel and on until you get as much curve as you need. It is also very easy to over shape a piece but it is also pretty easy to reduce the shape. The principal behind an English Wheel is to raise the metal with the pressure of the lower curved anvil against the upper flat wheel. So the piece will curve downward right and left of the line of motion. It will also get some curve front to rear but not as much as the right and left curve. If you have to much bowl in the piece you can wheel the outer edges to stretch the metal away from the high spot thus effectively raising the edge while reducing the amount of bowl.

First round with a little wheeling and a lot of hammer time.

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Couple of minutes on the wheel

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More hammer work

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More wheeling

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Heavy hammer work

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More wheeling

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Hammered heavily in the corner to kick the edge

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#70
Missed the wheeling pic before I trimmed it to start fitting

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A little more trimming

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No walnuts left in the almost fitted piece

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Fitted and tacked in place. This is looking at the front of the wheelhouse through the headlight opening

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From the tire side of the wheel house. Also note the top left weld, the 8th weld and the 10th weld counting from the top. They were backed with a heavy dolly and hammered as they were tacked. number 10 was the first tack. When you tack sheet metal it pulls together as the weld cools/shrinks. Hammering the weld while hot will separate the pieces and allow you to weld a gap. The 8th weld was second and then the top weld was last to lock the piece in position.

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Front and rear fillers from inside the wheelhouse

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Font filler from the radiator opening

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Hopefully more tomorrow.
 
#72
A new distraction has reentered my life. I finished a 2 year nut and bolt restoration on this car 7 years ago. Its a 1968 Pontiac Firebird. The owner has been enjoying it on a regular basis. Its a pretty unusual car option wise. It has the Pontiac unique OHC inline 6 cylinder. Power steering and power brakes. Automatic trans on the column without a console and power windows with a manual top. We stayed true to the original car with just 4 exceptions. I installed 1968 correct 4 piston caliper front disc brakes in place of the drums. Just a pure safety upgrade. Changed from the 14 inch rally wheels that it had to 15 inch rally wheels as there just aren't any decent 14 inch tires to choose from anymore. He elected to use a nice aftermarket steering wheel since the original steering wheel was long gone. And last we added a stock appearing AM/FM radio. Everything else is exactly as the general built it.

The rear power windows have been giving him trouble so I have the rear seat and quarter trim out of it. I have the right window functioning correctly but the left window motor has given up. Got one on the way. While it is here I did a full tune up on it. I hadn't set points on anything since I installed them in this car years ago. Once the windows are fixed I have to fix the windshield wipers. They wont park which was not uncommon on GM products of this era. Just one of those things. Could be the motor, could be the switch. It should be out the door in a couple of days.

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