The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[John Pierce]

Unfortunately the polar vortex froze us here in NH followed by rain. Temps went from 0 F to 60 F in a matter of hours. It put condensation all over my car with flash rust, even though I treated it with Pickle-X 20. Another application got rid of it all nicely.

I'm gonna have to remove my lower hinge supports from the car as they aren't aligned top to bottom without lots of shimming. Just another thing to add to my project. I noticed that you mentioned that you were going "to reinstall weatherstrip and add some layers of masking tape to simulate the door trim." How necessary is that to get good gaps? My car didn't come with trim or weatherstripping as Bubba removed them all.

[Phil Planck]

John
The pros all seem to agree that you should use the weatherstrip you plan to use after restoration installed in order to get the correct gaps and alignment. My old w/s is in pretty good shape, but I plan on replacing it with new stuff. Stoddard has had a Feb 10% off sale for years, along with the additional 10% I get for having purchased over $1000 of stuff from them over the years. So, come Feb. 1 I will be making my annual order. I will do my final door fitting on both sides after I get those parts installed. Right now I am doing what I call rough fitting. Very tedious, time consuming work. More to come after todays session finished.

[John Pierce]

Phil: any chance I can give you a call to talk in person? My email is: jjgpierce@yahoo.com

[Phil Planck]

Today was spent finessing the door, as it was too far out at the top rear and not far enough in at the bottom rear. I consulted via email with my mentor, Bruce Baker, and he advised a little force. Also asked him several other questions which I will get to later. Used a small block of wood at the bottom, rear to bend the top in. Took a few good pushes and it cooperated. Now the string test looks a lot better.




The whole top half of the door fits pretty well now.



Now the messy part. Way back, when I repaired this door, the bottom rear area had to be replaced. My fabricated repair piece was not quite the correct contour which should have had more arc to it. So, bit the bullet and decided to notch out a section in order to move the bottom in and get the proper(or at least close arc). Here is the mark for cutting:





Here is the cutting I did with a cutoff wheel in order to move the bottom in:





Reinstalled and clamped for tack weld:


Tack welded:





Recheck fit at bottom - better:



I then removed the door to finish up the rounded corner I roughed in yesterday at the front lower, and to finish 4 plug welds left undone from years ago for reasons I no not why. Also had to weld in a small missing piece above the missing plug welds.




Next, I noticed on both sides that the weather strip channel at the rear vertical did not follow the door contour. Tight at bottom and opened up as it went up. Might be able to see the condition in this poor picture:


I consulted with Bruce on this also and he advised a BFH to move the channel to the right contour. My guess is that years of slamming the door with maybe a too tight weatherstrip causes the channel to bend away.
Enough for today

Phil

[JTR70]

Looking good Phil! I see Bruce helped you tame that upper rear corner of the door quite well; It looks much better. Are you going to catch the rest of the deficit with lead or will you slice and pry the panel up a bit more? The relief slice in your lower door reminds me of the exact same thing I had to do on my passenger side lower striker panel. Though I had to spread it wider to help reduce filler on that one. Keep going its beginning to fall into place. Justin

[Phil Planck]

Not much visible progress today. Used shrinking disc on long butt weld of outer door bottom repair panel which helped smooth the joint. Did a lot of hammer off dolly at front lower area of door above the butt joint, as there had been accident damage there filled with lead. Got it as good as possible considering difficult area to access. Should have fixed this when I had the door all apart. If you go back several pages to a side view of the front lower door edge you may be able to see that the profile is not correct at the bottom. Made a template off of my 55 and correct this by welding in a piece of sheet metal connecting the new radius I added last post and the top of the beginning of the long butt weld. Way back, I tried to put the complete front shape of the edge profile on the lower repair piece. Did not work, but fortunately I had to add instead of remove. Here is the corrected profile:

[JTR70]

Oh yes, those tiny detailed repairs can quickly eat up a session leaving you feeling as though little was accomplished that day; know it well. However they are wonderful platforms for the next days progress which may yield huge gains. The weld joint where you disc shrunk it appears pretty nice. I'll be doing the same here shortly on my rear fender. I love that thing BTW; I could never go back to being without one! Thanks Phil!
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Up to hour 1262.5. Spent today doing some more door cleanup and then working on the front, bottom corner of the rocker. Used the other half of template off the 55 and did more work to get it to finally match pretty close. Did a little work on the rear to match the door better. Very convenient to do this with the door on a stand, as I could just lay the rocker up to the door bottom to check the match. After I was satisfied with this, removed more lead at the rocker/front fender joint, removed the remaining small portion of the rocker and flatend the fender joint, as I plan to do a butt weld instead of overlap like the factory. Removed the new wire from the repro rocker. It is smaller than the original. May de-rust the original and use it. Not much picture wise to show for all this effort(3.75 hrs.). Here is a shot of most of the tools I used today. I always clean these up and put them in there proper storage spots at the end of the day.


Here is the reworked rocker that now fits the template:



Note: the bottom of the template did not need to be flush with the rocker sill. I just marked the vertical and radius.

[Phil Planck]

Went out for breakfast this morning and the advertising placemat had this on it. Think I will call and see if their records go back far enough to see if they are the culprits.

[John Pierce]

Ha!! That ad is too funny

The door area is coming along nicely. If you don't mind me asking: which vendor made the rocker? It seems to need a lot of tweaking.

[Phil Planck]

John
Got it from Stoddard about 10 years ago. Don't know who their supplier was then. I think they are much better now. My mentor advised buying the rocker in pieces as it is much easier to fit that way.
Phil

[JTR70]

Looking good Phil! Your work bench looks like mine. After you're all done with your steel repairs I am sure those guys could be hired to respray your car with foam. Bet your relieved you found that ad..
Keep up the great work! Justin

[Phil Planck]

Up to hour 1275. Spent time since last posting doing a lot of detail work on the door to finish up what was not done when I last worked on repairing it. Had a few pin holes in the long butt weld plus some poor penetration in a few spots. Got those all filled in and filed the inside of the long butt weld flush. Used the shrinking disc some more, maybe too much as butt weld is slightly low in 2 areas. Did some stretching along that area of the butt weld and improved but more stretching(or something) required. No pics will show any of this. Today was gap day. At the bottom of the door, the rocker does not follow the slight curve front to back, as it was made flat. Should have ordered another one, but guess I like a challenge. Made a long slit and pulled the rocker out to flush with the door bottom. Tacked it in location.



It took several hours to weld up that long opening and smooth the weld down.



I was not happy with the gap at the lower front where I had carefully put the correct shape to match the door. Heated it up, opened up the hems and moved the edge rearward 3mm. You may have noticed this too large of a gap in pics above. Now it is right at 5mm instead of 8mm. Lead will be required on the front edge of the door, as I removed all of it during the repair of the door. So I hope to get a nice 4mm gap after lead. I also pulled the front closing panel out to be one metal thickness inboard of the door outer panel. Used this tool to get the right depth. May be a little blurry as need 3 hand to take the pic.



It's just a piece of conduit with a piece of 20ga. sheet metal welded to it.

I did some more string work and profile starting to look pretty good. Here is improved fit at bottom and reworked front corner:






Next up is adding some metal to the closing panel edge as I trimmed of too much too soon.

Phil

[John Pierce]

Phil,
The door area is looking good. All the hours spent here to make it correct shows. You mentioned that you file your welds. No grinding? What are you using to file?

[Phil Planck]

John
Sorry to mislead you. I grind 90% of my welds, particularly when I don't get a flat bead. But on concave, exterior surfaces I file the last part. On the inside door butt weld it was hard to get my grinder in there. Was able to use it for 75% of the weld, but used a half round, double cut(I think that's what it's called file to get to the hard spots. Not a lot of grinding or filing required here, as I butt welded from the outside. I filled the pin holes(4 or 5) from the inside, and lightly welded the areas with poor penetration. This was not the easiest to file because it is convex and I had to take the handle off of the file to get it to lay flat along the inner butt weld. I will do a search on files on get you a better description.
Think it is a half round double bastard file. Used to buy Nicholson but they closed the Anderson, IN plant and moved operations out of the country. Now I just buy whatever at Home Depot or such.


Phil