The past couple days I've focused on getting the doors hung and unfortunately, the pins did not fix the sag. It's an old car and I'm going to have to live with it.
The body is off the pan currently too, so it is near impossible to align the doors until everything is bolted down.
Anyway, the driver's side is all good and I had to make two 18ga steel shims for the bottom passenger side as it wanted to rub on the heater channel.
I am literally ready to paint. Now to find the time, weather, and courage!
Monday, May 23, 2016
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Day 206
12hrs in the garage yesterday...for four door pins!
A long day for sure but I had quite the task. I had to remove my donor hinges from the banged up doors, drilling out the rivets, repairing some slight tool markings with my welder, grinding them down, media blasting them, reaming, painting, and then install. I had to remove the bad hinge from my passenger door which also took a while as I wanted to be very careful.
This tool helped big time removing some of the stubborn pins!
I got 3 of the 4 pins in and still had the driver's top side to go. This requires a special pin that supports the rear view mirror. So, using some ingenuity I took the good threads from my bad pin and welded them to the top of the new pin. Turned out pretty good. I ended up having to weld the threads on 3 times before they finally worked. Every time I went to pound the pin in the weld cracked. A hassle but well worth it in the end.
In other news, I also got the bumpers back from the chromers and they look great!
Weather has been great recently. Looking to get the doors mounted again, clean the booth and shoot some paint! I also have to paint the backside of the bumpers with the same paint I used on the pan to prevent them from rusting since it's hard to get a good coat of wax on them.
Moving along...
A long day for sure but I had quite the task. I had to remove my donor hinges from the banged up doors, drilling out the rivets, repairing some slight tool markings with my welder, grinding them down, media blasting them, reaming, painting, and then install. I had to remove the bad hinge from my passenger door which also took a while as I wanted to be very careful.
This tool helped big time removing some of the stubborn pins!
 |
| Stress crack on the driver's door. Just welded this area up and grinded down. Good for another 58 years of use! |
I got 3 of the 4 pins in and still had the driver's top side to go. This requires a special pin that supports the rear view mirror. So, using some ingenuity I took the good threads from my bad pin and welded them to the top of the new pin. Turned out pretty good. I ended up having to weld the threads on 3 times before they finally worked. Every time I went to pound the pin in the weld cracked. A hassle but well worth it in the end.
Ultimately, there is still some slop in the pins but I did the best I could with what I had. It's an old car and no one expects it to be absolutely perfect. Right. ;)
In other news, I also got the bumpers back from the chromers and they look great!
Weather has been great recently. Looking to get the doors mounted again, clean the booth and shoot some paint! I also have to paint the backside of the bumpers with the same paint I used on the pan to prevent them from rusting since it's hard to get a good coat of wax on them.
Moving along...
Friday, May 13, 2016
Day 202-205
Well, it has been a whirl wind of progress the last few weeks.
Here are some updates.
Everything is taped ready to be painted.
Until I mounted the doors and saw they were sagging. I got the repair tool, replacement pins for the hinges and attempted that today. Two of the hinge pins came out fine, but the first oversize I bought is still too small. Another $70 and the 2nd oversize should take care of them.
The bottom right hinge, completely messed up the hinge itself. So I need to replace the hinge. When removing the pin the bottom expanded making the hinge pin hole much larger than I could ream. The only solution is to replace the hinge. And as you can imagine, those are hard to find...
On a happier note, two days ago I visited with the vinyl manufacturer in Portland and they are color matching my original door panel and recreating the vinyl exactly for the seat covers. Looking forward to what they come up with. I'm still searching for the headliner, we'll see how it turns out.
And today, in my anticipation that the door hinge pin progress would go well (it didn't) I went out and bought paint. There is great weather the next few days and I thought I'd take advantage, not going to happen this time.
In the middle of mixing my order they ran out of the one toner I needed. So they mixed the rest of it and then had me run over to a local car dealer and "borrow" they rest of the toner. Another step in the process but happy to have the paint mixed and ready to go.
Poor lighting, not sprayed on the car, and not with any clear on it...but that is L243 Diamond Grey!
Trying to figure out the doors situation, but other than that I am literally ready to paint.
Here are some updates.
Everything is taped ready to be painted.
Until I mounted the doors and saw they were sagging. I got the repair tool, replacement pins for the hinges and attempted that today. Two of the hinge pins came out fine, but the first oversize I bought is still too small. Another $70 and the 2nd oversize should take care of them.
The bottom right hinge, completely messed up the hinge itself. So I need to replace the hinge. When removing the pin the bottom expanded making the hinge pin hole much larger than I could ream. The only solution is to replace the hinge. And as you can imagine, those are hard to find...
On a happier note, two days ago I visited with the vinyl manufacturer in Portland and they are color matching my original door panel and recreating the vinyl exactly for the seat covers. Looking forward to what they come up with. I'm still searching for the headliner, we'll see how it turns out.
And today, in my anticipation that the door hinge pin progress would go well (it didn't) I went out and bought paint. There is great weather the next few days and I thought I'd take advantage, not going to happen this time.
In the middle of mixing my order they ran out of the one toner I needed. So they mixed the rest of it and then had me run over to a local car dealer and "borrow" they rest of the toner. Another step in the process but happy to have the paint mixed and ready to go.
Poor lighting, not sprayed on the car, and not with any clear on it...but that is L243 Diamond Grey!
Trying to figure out the doors situation, but other than that I am literally ready to paint.
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