Family Tradition

[Propwash]

Thanks buddy! Ya..Flippin bunch of it too..Hopefully it's out of here pretty quick. It's May at the end of next week for crying out loud..I just dusted off the rod and reels. Maybe I should break the tip-ups back out.

 

[northerndave]

Dude, she lookin good!

Keep that snow, we just went from snow covered back to mud again... really desperate for dry firm ground and sunshine here.

 

[morbidgoat]

ya this weather sure is depressing i was really thinking about either this weekend or next driving my gtx back home from storage so i could tinker with her but now i need to wait for another good rain storm because i saw those damn salt trucks out tuesday and i dont care how well i coated the underside i still dont want to add salt to the equation.

Will, car is looking better each time i sign on. Body work and paint are just around the corner she is going to look good black on black

 

[Propwash]

Thanks fella's! Hopefully that white garbage is done falling for a while..I don't blame you on avoiding the road. Salt trucks were everywhere the other day up here as well. Sucks! Wanna pull out the Coronet....Hopefully soon


Some more progress today.......

Pulled out the parking brake assy. Booth blasted, tossed on some single stage black and the installed the new parking brake cable from Rock Auto.

Also got in the other "Safe T Cap" for the torsion bar crossmember in the mail this week. Got that all welded in..

I moved on to wire wheeling the entire front of the car. Pretty much wrapped up the joy of that..

 

[roadrunnerman]

nice work will.what's the next step,coat with self etching and primer?

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Roger! I got a handfull of patches to weld up around the engine bay area, after that, you bet, etch and then some urethane..

 

[northerndave]

she lookin good!

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Dave...What kind of beer you drinking today? ....lol

 

[northerndave]

Ummm... scraping the bottom of the barrel, probably natty light.

:grin:

 

[Propwash]

Ummm... scraping the bottom of the barrel, probably natty light.

:grin:

Oh boy..That is the bottom of the barrel.


Some pic's of the patches going on around the engine bay... I'll say it again, a plasma cutter is by far one of the best tools I bought for doing resto work.

"Like Butta!!"

While wire wheeling out the engine bay I opened up a crack in the metal on the front drivers side rail, just back from the steering box. Cut out a section and this is what I found inside.....

After cleaning it all out, not much left of the metal in that area. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty isolated area and will patch this up with some 14 guage steel.

The metal on the passenger rail was in a lot better shape at the surface, but I was still paranoid, so I cut a small hole in that side as well. Not quite as bad inside, but still bad enough. These rails rot from inside out and now I have a piece of mind that in 10-20 years, my rails up front will not be rusting apart.

After all of that I will be definitely grabing a boroscope from work and checking the rails in my Coronet

Just an example of what was underneath those patch's areas I cut out. Makes a guy wonder what is underneath the joints/seams you don't pull apart on these old cars..

 

[detmatt1]

Nice work prop, I made sure my front rails were clean too, good call. I found a lot of the same when pulling the "DOG" apart and take some comfort that there was hardly a seem on the entire car that I didn't pull apart.

 

[northerndave]

Ick, you know if we pooled all the dirt from our B-body projects here on the forums we could plant a garden.

What are the plans prop? Gonna straighten those cut edges a bit and puzzle piece some patches into place? Well i suppose clean and prime the overlay areas, sneak some patches into that frame rail area (that's a good find by the way).

I took the night off last night, had other chores to take care of around home, always something.

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Matt......Pretty much wraps up seeing inside all the rails on old skeletor as well. Shouldn't be too far down the road and our old plymouth's will probably be meeting up down the highway somewhere.


No Doubt Dave! I just dumped out the shop vac that probably weighed a good 40-50lbs and that was just from the past couple weeks. As far as the repair, I got a flexible extension for my die grinder i'll toss a wire brush on, wire clean, rust convert, encapsulate and then rust bullet, box in the inside with fresh 14 guage and then butt weld in fresh 14 guage for the outside. Passenger side has pretty clean metal inside, but I will still wire brush out, convert/encapsulate/seal and probably just weld back in that good metal I cut out.

I do have a set of (4) Hemi/conv Torque box reinforcements from ART that should show up tomorrow. Those along with the Global West subframe connector's should really stiffin ol' skeletor up.

 

[northerndave]

That's cool, I need me a set of those frame connectors.

Upon closer inspection of my quarter to door jamb areas way up high by the rear windows... yeah I have the B-body cracking, same as most seem to have.

So I'll have to weld that up too.

Damn twisty B-Bodies! lol!

 

[Propwash]

No doubt! If Mopar would have spent the extra couple bucks back then as they were discussing, it sure have would saved a lot of people a lot of work. Dang Bean counter's!

 

[Statiik82]

34 pages = good build thread!

 

[welder47]

Lots of dirt in there, I feel so lucky mine were mostly dirt free. Although the rails contained most of my headliner material thanks to a four legged beast way back when. Maybe that kept them so soild over the years. So where is the rust free spot on your car, find it yet lol. At least your keeping those welding wire people busy manufacturing wire huh.

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Statiik82!


LMAO...Yeah, good way to put it Russ..."Keeping the welding wire people busy"
I figured to find a bit of dirt in the rails, but not that dang much. Looks like someone was using the frame rail to store their bait!

As far as a rust free spot on the car.....Ummmmm, the roof? Well, haven't stripped that yet, so god only knows what i'll find. Other that that, I think pretty much every slot of metal had some sort of rot. I'll let you know how the Tetanus goes over, from living in a pile of rust for the past year..lol

I guess the good news is, once I wrap up the engine bay area and get done installing the subframe connectors & torque box reinf., the welder will be done striking arc's on this car.

 

[northerndave]

I have some unknown puzzle patching ahead of me as I move down the doors, fenders to the front of my car But I'm really hoping for most of the grind/cut/weld to be behind me... hoping.

 

[Superfreak]

I had the same issue with my front rails, rotted all over and mouse nests. I also noticed on all the frame rails I had and even the ones on the Bee that there was rot on top of the frame rails where the upper control arms are, this is a perfect spot for dirt and salt and every other known **** to settle in and create havoc. Your point about the rust being in the joints and in the frame rails front and back is why I personally if I was doing a stock resto I would have the shell and all the other parts dipped. You see lots of nice cars for 80 plus grand that have had a concourse resto but only had the shell blasted so you can imagine the **** that is still in those cars. Here's a couple of pics of my rails. Keep up the great work.