Thread: Work junk, and junk... at work. By 'junk.

just getting invited to sema is a big deal. the fact you made it to round 2 is awsome. to bad you couldnt have went

I could have, didn't want to (hate crowds, rather be working, won't help my pay). The guy who knows most about the mechanicals on that car went and that makes most sense to me.

Found a page that lists the BOTB competitors and yes a brief 73 TA paragraph appears there, alongside the concept illustration. Not far down the page. Check the 69 GP above that though, didn't know it was in the running! Anyway, it gives an idea of the competition involved. No pics from show because we got a crummy spot, or so I hear. Rice all around. I did also hear that the car was attracting lots of attention. It's specs are right there with some of the indoor big boy display cars so no wonder.

https://www.sema.org/sema-news/2015/...f-the-builders

OK OK, proof it was there, near the West Coast Customs area:











Wasn't the best spot for exposure but there is talk of a possible future magazine shoot. Yes the hood wasn't latched in those pics. Car is still stashed in a trailer while we catch up the other jobs.

Right now theres lots of rides getting worked on and lots of paint work coming up. My little slice has been Chevy truck stuff lately, mostly the '65 that the hood and fenders go to. Today the little FOX hatch rolled in. Its a 91. Uh-oh... it has some unusual issues underneath, might have had wheels stolen once and/ or might have been picked up with a forklift. A CL gem with starry-eyed dreams of 500 HP glory with a blown 351. I'm just the bodyman!

Thanks on behalf of the crew! I've never been a huge Firebird fan but I do love Pontiacs.

So the boxy Fox had a few stories to tell underneath but none were too scary. Little crack in the floor and some rust on top in a rear footwell. It needs a driver's rocker and just hammer love on the torque boxes and right rocker. I inspected the whole unibody and deemed it worthy to build on for the price. Pretty solid, relatively straight so its a go. Not a high-end build just a fun rod for local shows probably. Going back white, meh.

Spent a few days on that Mustang now...

Confirmed the front unibody structure to be square. Put the hood on and fitted it. Went around to every panel and corrected gaps by adjusting things. The hatch to roof gap is functional but less than ideal visually. Its fine at the back and shuts good now. The doors were adjusted wrong due to a common mistake but they fit right now. Front bumper fits like they all do, less than perfect. Its comparatively a fairly nice body as FOX Rustangs go these days.

As always, I tackled the worst metal work first. That smashed left rocker from last post. Cut the rivets loose and removed the rusty molding retainer strip. Started out by making holes for a couple decent-size foldover nuts to run bolts through the two deepest indents, and looping a chain off those. Pried against the pinchweld flange to yank that chain down and got most of the huge dent out. Big pry bar. Welded up the carnage from that and tried more using wiggle wire and a Mo-clamp. Tink, comes right off. The trusty Spitznagel dent fix machine helped me do the rest.

This is where it ended up. Keep in mind this does not show, and is not an area of the vehicle where our guy wants to spend a lot of his go-fast stash.so I just got it done without a lot of fussing over perfection. Just plain old quick crash fix on an old car type stuff...









You can tell LED flashlight is not best for bare metal pics. Anyway, yeah this panel should have been replaced, theres still a dent. I offer quick or best or anything in between. Quick is good when you're working on a creeper. A lift or rack would have been right in the way so I jacked up one side.

Laid on some Fibral first, where filler would be deepest- kinda looks like a can of tuna on there lol



Sanded that and did the nasty filler shaping over it, ended up here-





Rough, but it'll do. After that pic, I taped off and added filler to make the ridge at the bottom straight then blocked it all with a 4 ft PVC pipe. Its straight now, need another pic.

On to that cracked floor that was letting the driver's seat sag...

This was the least I could do. Used a Crud Thug on it then Rust Converter. Then ice pick to decide what to cut. Couldn't make it a smaller job, there wasn't enough metal thickness left.

Chop chop



Yeah that top brace is bent up. Rust went under it a little so I did too. This way I'll hide some parts of my seam and also be nicely tied in with the tips of two braces so bonus. This old stuff is THIN!



Before cutting, I made a paper template and formed a patch. Not perfect here either, no need. At least I only made one trip to the brake and eyeball-nailed the angles. Made flanges on the anvil.



Right now I'm about halfway through the welding stage. In some places its like welding steel leaf lol. Been there before many times, its a grind ha ha.



Oh yeah, don't try to borrow that hammer lol

looks like it time to hack up another caddy hood for a ford floor lol

This baby got brand new 18 gauge stuff because thats the thinnest we have. Its one of those borderline needs a floor jobs. People like so much goo on floors, both sides, that I reckon you don't need so much pretty new sheetmetal.

i perfer under coating like what the germans use it really save the floors. speaking of on the 73 someone back in 73 had the forsight to up undercoating on it and when we striped it back the floors were perfectly clean and had no big dents from road junk.

Yeah lots of the OE euro stuff has what domestics call rocker guard (chip-resistant coating) all over the underbody and cavity wax on internal panels. Most of our jobs get rock guard all over underneath. Acts as a cushion, especially with multiple layers. Harsh winters over there!

Done, pretty much. There will be touch up welding, I don't leave pinholes. Haven't finished grinding the bottom yet. The bends I made are tilted a little, at least visually (looks crooked). The original brace on top is in the exact old location but thats crooked and not helping the look. The contours of my qwiky-part are simplified and the factory part was slightly dished. I did not duplicate the factory stamping exactly but it attaches, fits, and functions as such. I did put a slice of exhaust pipe on a jack against the new part once installed, and indented the drain plug area with a 3 lb mini sledge and a deep 22 mm impact socket. Two licks then a stepped drill bit. Epoxy primer next step.











You want to see underneath dontcha? I already smoothed off the front part, finish it tomorrow. Bodywork ain't pretty, folks. This is a little "looser" than I prefer to do patch jobs but its a Ford floor and its solid now. They leave all this yuck out of those TV shows.

Hey look on the right, you can see that I actually did put that ridge contour in the bottom of the rocker...



Rocker again, but dirtier:

Well I had let the jack down and picked up my area before I remembered pics for here. So I stuck the cam under there with flash on, and wysiwyg. Here are those. All smooth. Not pretty now, but when done up with all the coatings it won't be obvious from underneath that anything has been done. Subframe connectors will be welded in anyway. I went over to the other rocker and fixed up all the bendy flange spots with a crescent wrench and 3 pounder bumping as needed. Passenger floor needs about a 1" patch so I dug out that hole. Welded a driver's side crack in the trans tunnel where the metal was simply stamped too thin.

FYI- This patch panel is 18 gauge. Factory steel is probably 20. The welder settings for 22 gauge worked best with all the pitting. I'm using a new Miller but it has an as-yet unidentified feed issue which makes the job more challenging. As I like to say, grinding is as important as welding on old cars. I feel like I need to show some neater work now lol. Anyway, no light comes through the seam. Might wipe a little mud on the bottom side just to help it disappear. Get a welder and try this at home.





Heres the hot rod-to-be again...



And because I know you love shiny more, heres one I didn't touch. It was rearended and the customer threw in for a few extras so most of it got repainted.



This one was front ended. Tree or pole, fairly hard. Same guy fixed this, not me. Painter put the fade down nice. What a 90s-mobile! Quite a transformation with all new trim and lamps because the whole truck was faded. I really don't miss crash work.

Your patch in the floor board reminds me of this old 70s pickup my step brother bought to rebuild, the previous owners tried to fix the floor boards by riveting in a piece of sheet metal, that wasn't even cut close to fitting, then some clear silicone caulk..........

yeah theres some backwoods stuff floating around out there. People go to a lot of trouble to do it wrong. If I dig, I could find 3 examples I think. One Rustang had a floor job in it that must have been done by a flooring store guy or something. Its amazing what you find.

Heres one, look at that mess:









Heres another Rustang floor:

one two three rot box. sing that to Sammy hangars 3 lock box lol

Thats a good song! Anybody who sings about a V8 Pontiac is OK by me even if the song is weak.

Well dammit. Straightened the core support on the Ford yesterday but fd up my wrist again doing so, swinging hammers, wailing on slide hammer, pushing on pry bars and pulling on hooks, etc. Always good to know you're not fully recovered from stuff nearly a year ago. Hurts. I think its where theres a bone chip, maybe loosened that. Its a good thing we're gonna clean shop for a half day then come back Monday. End of work complaint.