Model A job

[moose]

Since the cowl is smooth at the hood transition I would remove the step on the shell as well.

[idrivejunk]

It was pretty much an afternoon of bead massage. Decided that right side new strip ought to be welded so I can get serious. I managed to make it all alright but at day's end when I screwed it back on, no latchy. This dadburn spot is like the pillbox in the hill I'm trying to take! Now down to needing to scoot the back of the right quarter left. On the way home I pondered on maybe having used the wrong screw holes to connect trunk pan and tail panel. So-













At least the quarter appears straight again now. Gaining ground.  

[idrivejunk]

Since the cowl is smooth at the hood transition I would remove the step on the shell as well.

Thank you Moose, I agree. That opens the door to a slight snoot extension if useful, for the cooling package.

[idrivejunk]

Yesterday hurt and I sat on the bench today. Chair, actually. Hurt my shoulder swapping a larger gimmie computer-sitting-at chair in here at the house Wednesday night. Awkward lifting can bite and I knotted up more muscles than usual. The grumpy is fading so now I will catch up.

Felt like a win, painful or not. The right quarter trunk bead miraculously still had some fight in it.



Wouldn't shut and big gap-



Whatever means necessary means disturbing the only undisturbed portion remaining.  









That ran me all the way to quitting time Thurs. Shoulder was setting up like concrete but I gave it all my heck. Crossed fingers and latched it, and...







Take that! You ornery prewar Ford, you.

[idrivejunk]

Just an unrelated thought snack dump-

[idrivejunk]

Spent the morning getting tank house walls all bolted in. Figured I oughta before continuing. Had to recenter a bunch of bolt holes and expand them all, do some trimming, and replace a vouple welded nuts-





The left jamb had a couple high spots so I made a few snips to correct that-





Decided I do want to add tail panel to inner tub braces, its just too floppy for good trunk shutting.

Welded this one up, did a quick grind then screw to see if I hurt it. Looks alright for a first slam-

[idrivejunk]

[idrivejunk]

Green lines indicate two potential fullsize battery locations. Mike decided on two six volts, most likely laid on the side in the rear well. I would like to see them out of rearend hit range, and it is possible both could go over the tire. A bit sadistic to R & I but perhaps safer.







Swapping ends now, here are visuals explaining my intent for about four yards of friendly looking edge for the hood seal areas. Grille and cowl.



Image on the right represents the existing, proposed is on left.





This is for CK  

[kb426]

[idrivejunk]

I had marked the quarter bottom bead for relocation to match the door, driver's side. First I "moved" the step to this white line-
















Welded up the rear tub extension patch and quarter / tub width correction patch, and various other-







With qtr back on, height of the bottom is much improved. It did stick down maybe a quarter inch more, this ought to be OK. Might be a bit before I find out how it matches the door now. I took a stab at this with marks from last time doors were on, and hope it will not be too far off for mud to cure.

[idrivejunk]

You'll have to pardon me, I must begin again. It takes a long time to edit if one small mistake is made because the pictures don't appear in the composing box and if I need to insert an in the line somewhere to fix something, it has to be typed in because with the button it can only be added to the end of the post. But typing is a murderous endeavor with the soft keyboard which is all I have had for years. When typing, my device is words behind me. When I backspace (not able to select text accurately with these non PC devices) it is a paragraph ahead . I missed a half days posting and after spending way too long to attempt editing and souring the mood...

I'll just come back to it later to to try to fix it. It ate way way way too much day already. Half an hour just typing this and fixing all the typos.  Too much labor involved that I can't spare.

[idrivejunk]

OK, rewinding to the battery placement / hood seal proposition / blue pearl over black... post. Aaaand resume-  

Bottom of driver's quarter was too tall. Bead ended up aimed low in relation to door, mostly at the door end. Also the edge hung down past the floor rail. I made the patch there a long time ago.

I cut the front corner of the square bead, up past the bead a smidge so that I could flatten the step there and back about halfway along the bottom of the panel. Then I did bodyman stuffs with my simple things and beat a new step into the qtr, blending it into the old line as it goes rearward and stopping well before the corner kickup of the bead.

White line in this before shot from inside the upside down panel on the bench... indicates the needed move according to marks on the panel face from when doors were on-



This is the face, after moving the line and smoothing things up a bit-



Rattle etch bombed for a better look-





Then I moved the bend at the bottom and welded up the front corner slit-









Here is the inside again, after all that-



Now... gonna give you a little exclusive spoiler... theres no pic and I did not give it but a glance until today... but-

That bead move was a good shot. Height correction done appears to be accurate. Glad of that. But I didn't put the quarter back on just yet, to check it.

The qtrs go on and off with a handful of screws in a few minutes. The left side due to the gas fill requires a top secret overlap / pry point sequence known only to me however. Heres a wide view of left qtr on bench. There are new patch welds at tips of tubs. Stand by for those, I will break here and begin another post for the sake of digestability. More story to come-

[idrivejunk]

When I had body on lift, I set width of the quarters ahead of wheel uniformly referencing the center line. The correction was this patch which brought the corner outward the better part of an inch-



Back on the car, same spot but face side. This is much closer to correct height and will pull up to the floor rail with screws-



Now, set qtr aside. Grab the back window panel and try it. Discover interference underneath, mainly on right.

Tube shown here with triangles cut... triangles were round one of clearancing. Fail, not enough-



In a move not previously unanticipated, I cut away the entire top and and half the height of the back walls of that redundant thin walled tube. The thick walled structural member sits below it and this 14 ga tube on top was merely serving as a stout L bracket. Now, thats all it is. But no pic. But clearance!

Time for a bathroom break :-}

[idrivejunk]

There was trimming of ends and screwing and shuffling in the jamb, but now theres enough down room to work with-



Still a ways to go, for sure. Looks a little less sad though.

That brings me to the next area of focus, getting the bead at bottom of roof to behave and look nice-



Now we are caught up to today. Stand by for regularly scheduled programming and thank you for your patience. Particularly when I run a little short of it.      

[idrivejunk]

I tell ya it feels good to be, for a lack of better analogy, going back to build a proper road after having wildly blazed a trail. I am knocking away nagging memorized pending concerns left by the wayside necessarily, chunk by chunk. Oh what a relief it is be freeing up memory.

In the interest of that and to set the stage for the next act, I'm gonna tell you something them we'll move on.

Prepare to judge me as passive agressive as I spin my yarn. During absence of boss during last years SEMA show, my least favorite and our only part time coworker... lets call him Dude, was really just pushing his luck all around and felt quite full of himself. "I don't come here to work, I come to disrupt old people!"...

It was Catalina roof mud time. He and Footloose were working on it, the latter on fabbed the rear window panel. In the adjacent stall to me, as I worked to complete the upper B pillars. Just before lunch, I saw dude blow a quart can sized pile of dust off a drip rail, directly at my stall. While defiantly avoiding eye contact. Its cold, doors are down. I said nothing.

After lunch, Dude's five year old at some point walked up. Yes, thats part of what I'm talking about. I didn't see the kid, I was inside the A and kiddo was a good 20 feet away. Music was at shouting to talk level and aimed right at us. I tried and tried and tried to measure three dimensions and compare side to side plus double check with angle finder using my utmost focus with two people shouting back and forth laughing heartily about things that seem to only be said to keep constant voices going.

It had been that way all day. All week. Can't stand Dude and you couldn't either for sure. Hardest part of the whole job, nowhere to run. No cool to spare.

Dude says to dude junior hey come here, I bet you Matt would like whats on your shirt. I only heard my name and had no idea a child was present and as the numbers slipped from my head yet again, the inflection of my response was unmetered. DUDE, do not ____ with me today. AT all!

Back to my work, never looking up. Did my * job, thats all. But it took me for ever due to the constant voice condition. Earplugs don't help, the mind follows conversation by default. That was a hellish time of challenge which you may recall. I shoved through with all my fortitude.

Here we are couple weeks short of a year since then and Dude has not spoken a word. Works far away from me. Thank the Lord!

You have not read all that ranty sounding crap in vain. Before my next post, I felt the need to include those details. Thanks and continue standing by