The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Phil Planck]

Have spent almost 8 hours removing dents.






Also got all the rust off of the back side:



There is are second drain holes just in front of the holes that the tubes are brazed to. Looks like someone just punched them in. Supposed to be there?



Next step is to go over this panel with my shrinking disc. Thinking of taking it to a friend with an English wheel to try to make it a little smoother. But will have to make several templates to check as he is 3 hrs. away.

Phil

[John Pierce]

Looking very nice, Phil. The extra drain hole is not original.

[JTR70]

You did a nice job of ironing out that section Phil! Its going to be a nice repair once you get it all welded up. Keep up the great work!

[Phil Planck]

Spent 2 hours today fitting my new lower hood latch bracket to the new inner nose panel. Wanted to get the ideal 15 degree angle so that the latch is fully engaged. Took a long time to get the fore/aft and angle just right, but it is there. Gauge reads a little more than 15 in the pic as it was still rocking, but settled down to 15. Looks like the bracket was gas welded to the inside of the nose originally. Probably because it had to be fit to each car and could not get spot welder in there with the nose on. Can anyone confirm this? I think I will plug weld it to get the welds closer to the walls. This thing needs to be as stiff as I can make it.



Phil

[Phil Planck]

On to the drivers nose section. Lots of small dents again and lead.



removed dents adjacent to center section. can't get harness out of tube so I can remove bucket. drilled out spot welds for fog light bracket



removed fog light bracket - more foam



removed some of the lead at bottom. more to go. You can see where I had to grind the flange down to get the foglight bracket out

[John Pierce]

I'm amazed of where the foam got into. One thing for sure...that foam guy did an A+ job!

[DG58INNM]

Phil, I can confirm that the T6 latch console is gas welded, not spot welded, to the front wall. At least in my somewhat limited experience.

Take care,
DG

[Phil Planck]

Not much progress this week but did finally get the drivers h/l bucket out. Harder than the other, as due to accident repair there were some extra, hidden welds. Much of my time on Foamcar has been repairing accident damage that was smoothed over with lots of lead, both front, rear, and sides of the car. There are 2 issues with the drivers h/l area: one is corrosion and the other is still deformed metal. With the bucket out, I was able to get the area between the hood opening and the H/L opening pretty smooth. Am now working on the front of the fender besides the H/L opening. Got the top area fairly smooth with a little more to do. My quandary will be how to repair the H/L opening. Think I will try to get it straightened out, then cut and weld new patches where the deep pitting is.

[John Pierce]

Phil: I don't envy you.

Are you using the old buckets or going with new ones?


JP

[Phil Planck]

Hi John
I plan to use the old buckets. Don't need another fitting problem and they are in pretty good shape.

Phil

[tperazzo]

Looking good Phil....you've chased out a lot of dents. So that headlight bucket is out of the standard oval? If you need any dimensions, I still have my headlight buckets out.

Or perhaps you can use the pssgr side bucket as a template?

Thanks for keeping us along for the ride!

[JTR70]

Thanks for the update Phil and good to see you still moving forward. I see your planishing out the previous body damage to that left fender. It looks quite reminiscent of your adventure with the right side though probably not as stretched out of shape it seems. Great work! Justin

[Phil Planck]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. And thanks DG for confirming the weld method on the hood latch bracket. Tom - don't understand your question: " So that headlight bucket is out of the standard oval?"
But, appreciate the offer for dimensions if needed.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Got 3 more hours in today. The drivers headlight opening is supposed to be flat. This one was angled in on the outboard side where you see the lines all the way down to the bottom. Got it pretty flat and welded up the crack at 3:00 o'clock.



Bucket was deformed and harness tube at an angle. Got that straightened out. This is a before pic:



Did some more dent removal and now the upper front part of the fender is in pretty good shape:



There is a section of thin metal a little further back that I am going to cut out and replace. Lots of pitting underneath.

Phil

[John Pierce]

Much improved! Very little distortion left. Did you have to shrink any of the metal after hammering? What file did you use? It came out very nicely.