1959 356A S/R coupe project chassis # 108625

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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]

Nose work completed.
All the holes drilled and the brace/ horn mount set completing the remaining nose work.
Some fine bodywork finishing remains up here
but the hood is set in its final adjusted position.
Redrilled the alignment holes in both hinges to locate and lock in this final adjustment.
Moving to the back corner to begin those final repairs.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Left side conduit install.
Conduit installed. Onto adding the upper brace back in. In process here of fitting a filler section to its end.
Then onto locating and installing the horn mount. Last detail out here is punching the holes for the turn signal light.
Upper brace runner fully welded back in. Horn mount tacked in its best adjusted position.
Finished fusing the ends of the conduit to the insides of the battery box walls as done originally.
Moved back to the outside to punch those holes for the turn signal light. Running outof things to do on this left corner finally.

Thanks for looking.
Justin

[JTR70]

One more test fit with a headlight assembly.
Headlight sits square and the seal's in....Good to go.
Finally ready to begin plug welding it in. Trimming excess length off of the new conduit first while making sure I could slip it into position.
Excess length trimmed at both ends and ready to add in the flared edge.
New conduit tube ready to install. Before I bought this tool I would have added the old top section back on for a correct appearance. Nice to make it one piece with no danger of internal weld burs or shoulders working into the eventual wiring harness.
Installing this next.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Left headlight mount adjustment:
Drew a line down the center of the lense just make sure what I think I was seeing was actually the case. Confirmed; slightly tilted with a side glancing look to the light.
Then unbolted with the needed inward rotation. The mounting hole had to be relocated.
Bucket removed one more time and fortunately it came back out with just some firm taps. Capture nut relocated and ready to weld back in.
Bucket slipped back in and before I committed to any welding the light was remounted for this confirmation fit. Thankfully the right side was fine. All set.
Now onto setting the bucket in the sweet spot for seal and material clearances.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Left headlight bucket second installment attempt with a small adjustment needed.
Heated and hammered the openings shoulder down to relax it slightly throughout where it had bound up and then bent.
Followed with a light filing to clean up the edges. Now ready to try another installation attempt.
Bucket restraightened and fully seated into position here. The earlier relief shaping turned the trick. The fitment was still tight and positive but thankfully it went all the down without binding causing damage to it or the nose from the amount of force required to get it there.
Headlight test fit with the bucket installed. A slight orientation issue cropped up. The new nose came with mounting holes predrilled. I assumed Trevor uses these for sight marking and jig points. I didn't question their location and proceeded to weld in a capture nut several weeks back. Now that bucket is in their is no wiggle room and the predrilled hole location is tilting the light slightly giving it a sideways glance attitude.
With just a slight rotation to the middle all is right with the world. You can see half of the original hole peaking just outside of the mount tab. No choice, I had to relocate this hole. Just better than the width of the mounting bolt itself. Only a little off but making too big of a visual impact to leave alone.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Cleaning up the first attempt mess.
Got it out but I had to get a little rough with it.
Back on the table to straighten out the damage from the slide hammer and repeated hits from the behind.
Then onto reshaping the leading edge.
Then onto raising the low spot in the skin. Dust coat applied to show me what needs to come up. You can see the shoulders or edges of the bend run across between the grill opening and the headlight mounting hole and just below the weld joint at the 9 o'clock area.
Several rounds of picking and filing with a few heat shrink spots needed it was just about there. One benefit here is after all the hammering this area is now harder than it was before and will be more resistant to buckling or bending on the next try. At least that was my hope..

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Left bucket repairs:
More residual crash damage where it buckled and was beat in and is very stretched at this point. I thought about smoothing it before the bucket went in but found I have better access through the wheel well.
Onto repairing the rust holes at the bottom.
and then it was back over to the leading edge to get it back into shape.
At long last the weld joint was finished to where I no longer needed access through the opening and bucket repairs completed. Ready to be reinstalled.
The first try of course didn't go as planned. Slipped in fine and with just over an inch left to go it locked up tight on me. It was so close to seating that I didn't want to turn back as I thought it would still go eventually . A section of 2X4 was laid across bucket then smacked in the middle with a dead blow hammer at various heights. I thought I was getting somewhere but soon realized I was deforming its lip and also creating a bend to the opening between the 6 and 9 o'clock area. I was now all done, out it would now have to come out to fix the buckets lip, restraighten the nose opening, relax the shoulder opening and fix the damage I was doing to the bucket itself from the extraction. The slide hammer was bit harsh but no other way. This all quickly snowballed into a real mess.

Thanks for looking.

Justin

[JTR70]

Smoothing out the big weld joint:
Making my way up and over the top of the fender with small improvements to the surface with each pass.
Once I get down to the nose's horizontal weld joint access through the headlight opening won't be necessary . The wheel well opening provides the best access from there on down.
I'm dealing with old crash damage along with the welding heat distortion as I make my way down the side.
Fogged another tracer coat on but this area chased just about as far as I need. Pretty happy with the basic contour shape between these two panels.
A couple of spots that needed further smoothing down in here while that tracer coat dried. Getting close to bucket reinstallation time.

Thanks for looking.
Justin

[JTR70]

Thanks very much Roy! I agree, it can become just about impossible without the right tools.

[roy mawbey]

Justin now that bit of work just looks perfect to me. Very well done and not easy to do at all. Some of your tools really help you I think. The tools are so important !!

Nice photos too by the way !

Roy