1959 356A S/R coupe project chassis # 108625

[JTR70]

Switching gears. The body is now ready to come off of the cellette bench so it can go back onto the rotisserie to finish out the remaining chassis repair details. Before it goes on now was the time to finish out the front and rear bumper fitments.
Wire wheeling the last of the filler and primer coats this front bumper came with. I would have left it but I found flash rust growing under the plastic filler that was applied directly to metal. This is why I always use an epoxy sealer base first. Bondo absorbs moisture and will wake up any trace amounts of rust if there isn't an epoxy barrier between the two.
Redoing a poorly repaired rust spot that formed under the deco. No repair patch, just flooded with weld and is very porous and brittle. You can get away with this approach on small holes but this one was way too big for that. I get the attitude behind this repair though, these small annoying chores never seem to end and it gets to point of " UGH! another damn hole; to hell with making a patch, just flood the damn thing closed". Its a temptation that can be hard to resist at times especially as the long journey of metal repairs gets towards its end.
Reamed the entire weld out with a step bit and now adding in a new patch.
Welds ground down, then picked and filed. All done here.
One more to fix on top where a license plate bracket may have been mounted at some point.

[JTR70]

Front bumper continued:
Outer shell completely cleaned back to bare metal to ensure I got all the flash rust that was forming under the bondo. Now onto pecking out the obvious dents and lows spots that were left behind.
On the flip side a couple of the capture nuts needs some attention.
Then it was onto adjusting and fitting these new irons to this project.
I needed the bumper to able to slide over to the right a littler further. With both halves of the iron installed this eyelet was maxed out. I had three option to get around this: I could file the eyelet open further but there is not enough meat left on its end to allow that. The entire base mount could be removed and remounted over to the left a touch to center that capture nut in the eyelet or the last, easiest and least invasive option was to remove the capture nut face plate area and index it over.
This capture nut needed repair anyway so it was cut out. A new face and nut is ready to go back on here. It will be indexed over to center it in the eyelet for maximum adjustment options for the bumper.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[roy mawbey]

Justin its always great to see the job being done properly as you have done with the rust hole. Its why restoration done well will always be expensive none of these repair jobs can be done in 5 minutes the hours soon clock up.

Roy

[JTR70]

Hey Roy, Thank you hope all is well with you! Yes, all these little repairs can side track things a bit but in the end it all has to be addressed eventually. Thanks! Justin

[JTR70]

Finishing up the front bumper prep:
New capture nut tacked and indexed over where needed.
Now both sides are more centered in the eyelets allowing for any needed lateral adjustments with the front end.
Now onto cleaning the underside of the remaining old paint scale and rust.
A bit of work eventually got the entire underside clean along with the in and around areas of the mounts. While cleaning I noticed that one side of this blade was completely different color as the other half once I got past the top coat of primer. It became clear that this was two dead bumpers mated together to make one. No wonder the profile shapes were off side to side in the beginning.
One more full mock up with the car. Best adjusted position with a good consistent reveal all the way across. First test passed. Now for the second; adding in the jewelry for its final test fitment.

Thanks for looking.

Justin