The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[roy mawbey]

Phil and Gordon,

Yes, I am also in my 7th decade and I reckon Justin is correct its easier with a spit or a hoist rather than laying on the floor trying to reach. I think you two, are doing some great work, it takes me some time to evaluate the process of each step you take that's because I guess my grey matter needs more time to work out your procedures as well. Also not easy to describe in words actually what you are doing on each repair.

So important to get everything correct before welding up, very frustrating it must be when the joint is just 5mm away from where you wanted it. Recent posts on that have been interesting to note.
Always very interested in watching your progress.

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Today I finished the rough installation of the rocker panel by making a new front flange and finally getting the back to fit up pretty good.




Next I decided I better weld back in a piece of the lower hinge box that I removed in 2002. Can't believe I did not loose it. Had to remove 2 layers of sheet metal and the inboard edge where it was welded to the body at the factory. Got it cleaned up and welded back in place. This was removed to gain access to the rusty metal under the hinge box and repair it.




While filing the above pictures, I found some taken in 2002 when I started the repair in this area. This is some of the foam removed:






Now at hour 1240.

[JTR70]

Nice work Phil, its slowly happening! Bet it was nice to get that lower hinge boss section welded back in and dressed. I recognize it as one of those nagging little loose ends that we postpone while concentrating on the big ticket items like rocker panels etc. However its very rewarding to get them in the done column afterward. My god that foam was a caked on mess! I gather you've cleaned all this off by hand as the body does not appear to have been media blasted; I thought I had patients! Thanks for the update! Justin

[Phil Planck]

Justin - One develops techniques for foam removal. Not a big job market for this though. I started at the front of Faomcar and worked my way around clockwise, repairing rusted inner structure as I went. So by the time I got to this area I was getting pretty good at it. This picture shows the "cut the wedding cake technique".

[gkw]

Phil, looks like that foam was storing a lot of moisture
between metal and foam. How thick was the foam?
Gordon

[Phil Planck]

Gordon
Actually, I think the foam helped preserve a lot of metal. It was sprayed right over the rust and good metal. I saw no signs of deterioration on a lot of the metal above the "rust line" that most of these cars developed. Thickness varied from 1/2" - 2".

Regarding the rocker fit I have an unusual problem in that the front "bulkhead" inside the longitudinal is a little too wide, causing the rocker to not want to lay flush against the longitudinal. I can see this lying on the floor looking up. I thought I was able to force the rear of the rocker inboard and clamp it in place, but after yesterdays rough fitting session it seemed even harder to force it in at the back. So, I may have to alter the rocker flange for about 8" at the front bulkhead to allow it to flush up to the longitudinal. If I had laid a long straight edge along the longitudinal before welding it in I would have spotted this. No problem on the other side. My next actions will be to double check that this is the problem. If so, more cut and weld of the rocker flange to make it match the slightly bowed contour of the longitudinal at the front "bulkhead". Then I can re-install the door to get the bottom gap set. No work today, as it was weekly house cleaning, trash hauling, etc. day.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Spent 2 hours today(up to 1242) finally getting the rocker and door on the car at one time. First fitting showed the expected interference at lower front:


I marked where the new contour needed to be:


Reworked it and now could get the front almost closed. It was rubbing the edge of the closing panel flange so I used the Ron Roland suggested tool to scribe a line 1/4" away from the front edge of the door:


Here is my door and foam removal tool:


I have used this a zillion times to remove the door on the passenger side. Will be up to 2 zillion by the time I get the drivers side finished. Here is the tool in action:


Could not close the door all the way after trimming the closing panel edge due to required rework at the rear:


Reshaped the rear bottom and could now close the door. Got a rough lower gap:





Next step is to reinstall weatherstrip and add some layers of masking tape to simulate the door trim. Then some final tweaking of the door shims, as the lower rear needs to move inboard.

My rocker fit problem with the longitudinal bulkheads was not a problem, after crawling under to inspect. I had not ground down the welds at the front upper portion of the outer longitudinal under the lower door hinge. Did that and fit(upper rocker flange going flush with upper longitudinal flange.

[JTR70]

Nice work Phil! A lot of wrongs to correct with these parts. I'm going to be dealing with new rockers sometime in the near future and I am wondering if Simonson rockers are a better fit out of the box versus Restoration Design? David Gensler seems prefers their floors. The ones your mounting are R.D. parts, correct? I admire your dedication all the while working so close to the garage floor;not fun! Keep chipping at it! Justin

[Phil Planck]

Justin
I bought my rockers from Stoddard years ago when I was overly optimistic about how long this project would take. I believe theirs have improved since then. Don't know who their supplier was at the time. Restoration Design had different owners back then. I am at hour 1248. Have taken a time out as I needed to remove the remaining paint from the hinge and lock pillar. Also cleaned up the cruddy looking door latch and installed it. Did not like the overlap with the striker on the hinge pillar(not enough) although I think it is what it was before starting this project looking at the wear marks. So today, along with removing the paint, I removed the striker and cleaned up all of the parts. Installed new bolts in the bracket and of course cannot find the new strikers. Anyway, a little more rework required on the rear of the rocker to get it further inboard(did not make a bend on the mark I made). Tomorrow I will do that rework and look for my strikers(I did order them didn't I?).







this is what this area looked like a few years back:

[DG58INNM]

OK, since I'm opinionated by nature and Justin opened the door for me to comment.....

I've never encountered the problems that Phil did with the rocker panel/door interference. I think he is right that earlier panels had this issue, but that it got corrected later on.

In recent years, I've used rockers from both Zims (Simonsen) and RD. Both fit well. The Zims panels are near perfect. I'll give them a 9.5.

The RD panel is good too, but has a less crisp edge at the top, making the door gap less distinct. Also at the bottom where it turns under is a softer curve than it should be. I spent some time dollying the edge to make it crisper. Out of the box, I'll give it a 7.5. After some hammer/dolly work, a 9.0.

There is a big cost difference between the two. If I recall, the Zims panel is more than twice as much as the RD panel. So it boils down to what you are willing to pay. One of my cars I opted for Zims. One I used RD. The third I am going to save the original rockers.


Phil, I like your door tool/foam remover. Gotta get me one of those. For the door pins only. Fortunately I have no foam to remove.
DG

[Phil Planck]

Spent the morning cleaning off the tops of my two large work benches hoping to find my new striker. No luck, but the benches needed cleaning up anyway. Found invoice for striker, so yes, I bought one. Took all the boxes of parts, new & used out of the inside of Foamcar. Went through all of them again. Aha, at the bottom of the 5th box(last one of course) was my new striker. Got that installed and adjusted vertically. Think it is in a little too much as can be seen in pics later. Here is the new striker in place with new bolts and remainder original.


Reinstalled rocker after moving the lower rear pillar flange forward and grinding off remains of old flange still on pillar. Added one thick shim to top hinge and reinstalled door. Put some strings along body to check alignment.




You can see the top rear is too far out. May need to add a shim at bottom. Removed door to modify front lower corner from square(why did I leave it that way?) to round 1 1/4" radius.




Reinstalled door and adjusted rocker for pretty even bottom gap.



Now at hour 1253. While cleaning off workbench, found some pictures of foam.

[JTR70]

Thanks David, I think that description help clarify things further for me.

Things are looking up Phil! Man, There is just so much fabrication time invested there and no short-cuts either! Your basic overall contour is looking good! I see what you mean about your upper corner of the door hanging out past the quarter. Seems the panel is low; shimming the hinges won't really buy you much in the way of correction back there. Did you or the last owner patch that cap-run of the rear fender? Thanks for the update! Justin

[John Pierce]

Hey Phil! Things are coming along nicely. You're doing lots of great work with no shortcuts. I'm still amazed of all that foam.

I'm going to rehang my doors before moving forward so I can get an idea of how my gaps look. Do you have any insight on what is the best way to keep the same alignment each time you remove the doors? I imagine your zillions of doors ons and offs have really taught something

How tight are your door hinge pins? Mine are so tight that I need a drift to get them out.

[MMW]

John wrote - "How tight are your door hinge pins? Mine are so tight that I need a drift to get them out."

Get a second set of pins or something similar & sand them down until they are a slip fit.

[Phil Planck]

John

So far I have just kept the body side hinge bolted down tight and inserted and removed the pins with each hanging. I have been fortunate in that this has not been hard to do. However, yesterday, after some shimming, insertion and removal became much harder, probably due to the fact that the hinge pin holes were no longer in alignment but slightly skewed. Saturday was a snow day(shoveled 18" of snow off roof prior to predicted freezing rain. Thankfully I live in a small house(800 sq. ft.). This morning is another 1/2 show day to re-clear the driveway for the umpteenth time this season. Another "polar vortex" (new word for our 2014 vocabulary) is coming through. Oh, and my shop is 832 sq. ft. as a man's shop should always be bigger than his house.