The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Phil Planck]

In order to fully strip paint from dash had to remove accessory plug. Chrome was covered with black paint and overspray on bakelite. Cleaned up pretty good.

[JTR70]

Sometimes old overspray provides a nice preservative barrier as it seems to be the case here.

[Jbrooks]

Phil

I wired mine for a Phone / GPS power port at 12V. The 6V will work unless you get the RPM up and the voltage goes high and lets the smoke out of the GPS. so I switched to 12V and a USB adapter

You can get the Hella DIN accessory plug for that, new on e-bay for a couple bucks. And a gel cell 12v battery from a emergency light that fits in the trunk just outboard of the drivers hinge, I glued a magnet to the battery and ran the wires to the accessory socket. its works well and easy to remove for charging.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=hella+din+accessory+plug&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=hella+din+accessory+plug

I used a UB1259 12V 5AH SLA Battery .

[Phil Planck]

Good to know John. On my preA I installed a small 12v converter wired to the cigarette socket. Worked good navigating thru StLouis using tomtom on way to SantaFe

[Phil Planck]

Finally wrapped up gas tank install. Added boot clamp and metal drain. Installed cleaned up original overflow drain. Clamp not correct but will have to wait for next Stoddard order.

[Phil Planck]

I think I posted a video of me driving Foam Car last summer. In that video you can see all of the filler on the passenger door bottom
I did that during a moment of frustration a few years ago. In the pic after black primer above you can see the waviness along the weld area. This was primarily caused by my lack of knowledge at that time of how to properly mig weld and planish on outer panels. This and the drivers door were done the same way. You can see the long proud weld bead in the other pic above. This was filed down pretty smooth with no planishing. So I have spent many hours this past month removing the filler and planishing the complete weld area. This has smoothed the metal up fairly nice and also reduced a low area caused by weld shrinkage. I did the same to the drivers door quite a while ago. Will post pics next time in shop.

[JTR70]

Such a tough repair to do with so little access from behind to work that weld joint. The later doors like yours offering even less access than the T1 and earlier doors. Very tough, especially knowing how particular you are about your metal finishing Phil but I know you'll eventually win.

[roy mawbey]

Looking forward to the door pics after your work. This is exactly what I should have done on my drivers door, not just tinned and really heavily leaded that surface. Sure the weld was good and the finished door surface still looks good today after over 30 years when last I sprayed it, but I know really it needed planishing ! Still to look inside the door through the 3" hole you need a torch and mirror

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Slow in posting picture after metal work. Weld area much smoother now. Added some lead on rocker to fine tune flushnees to door.

[JTR70]

The door skin looks fantastic Phil; So much involved effort just to get this far. The lead application is tricky especially down low and vertical like your doing. Keep up the great progress.

[roy mawbey]

Lead really helped me Phil too. Its good because after my last attempts over 32 years ago nothing has ever moved in shrinkage like a few places where I applied a thin skim of plastic filler over a repair which in some lights you can see. Since that time I often think after looking at so many restoration attempts like all these on abcgt I should rectify that, but... I know the time it would take to get perfect would then bring me well in my eighties and so I just accept I tried my best at the time and at least I can now drive it and enjoy it while I can !

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Thanks all. I have been leaving much of car in bare metal until I can finish lead work. I have a dehumidifier in shop set at 35 percent. Has prevented surface rust so far.

[Phil Planck]

I decided to put together my taillites with the narrow amber/ wide red lenses fro PRS. One housing was very deformed and took a lot of work to get it to fit the rear opening contour. Then I realized I had 2 passenger side lenses so ordered a left from PRS. Left housing fit very well but right had a gap. Made a cardboard template from left side and placed on right side. About 1/8" gap or more on right side. Right side had extensive accident damage which took a lot of heat and banging to get it "pretty close". Figured that area above the taillite opening must have shrunk. Tried to stretch it out with slapper and dolly but not much improvement. Used my slide hammer in the top of the opening and finally got it to match template. Pics show template on left side with good match and then on right side showing gap.



Gap is worse than it looks.

[Phil Planck]

Above and inboard of the taillite opening was a bulge circlrd in black. This is in the waterfall area. I managed to get the bulge down to a ridge
Ridge is circled in red with black line on peak. Im getting some advice on allmetalshaping forum. Awaiting a hand hel shot back and deep crown hammer to hopefully flatten this ridgem

[JTR70]

I appreciate all the time and effort taken to template and double check for symmetry here Phil. That area just above the tail light is so tough to work as there is no clear shot at the back side of it with the corner of the bulkhead wall in the way and so close. Tricky tricky.. best of luck with it.

[Phil Planck]

When I tried to remove the ridge the metal tore so I cut out the bad area and made a patch. Tacked on some pieces to help hold contour.