Coupe into Speedster Conversion

[John Pierce]

Justin,

That looks great. I bet that ate up most of your day!! Sometimes the little things take a LONG time to complete.


JP

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

Just spent time reading the last page of your work on the fender. I ended up tired just reading about your effort. If ever there is one section, that just makes me realise 356 bodywork is far from easy its this one. All the metal fabrication I have ever done on my car, pales into insignificance compared to the work you are doing. I thank my lucky stars my car was only 9 years old when I bought it, the work you have been doing would have stopped me in my tracks Justin.

Regarding the top crown on the fender, how else apart from a slice and re-weld can you do that? I reckon so many without a comparision car to compare, would not have realised that crown was so important to get correct.

Really great effort on this work Justin.

Roy

[Phil Planck]

At page 220 you have finally convinced me not to do one of these conversions after I am done with Foam Car. My quick calc says I would need to live to 153.4 years of age.
Great work Justin

Phil

[JTR70]

Thanks John! I figured you could appreciate how much effort went into those small flange corrections.

Roy, thank you! If you got tired from just reading through those last couple of posts you can imagine how tired I was actually being there. Maybe you just got bored? The rear crown of that fender has been tough but I changed my approach and had a break through this afternoon, details below.

Thanks Phil, I think you should do then. It will give you something to live and look forward to for the next 85+ years.

I really appreciate the feedback guys, thanks again!
Justin

2/11/14

Left fender at cowl joint


Some time spent experimenting with different tensions and pressure points to try to raise this area into alignment.

with some help from that bottle jack underneath the contour improved some but both panels where still fighting and wanting to run down hill where they met.

I soon came to realization that this approach simply isn't going to give me the end result I'm looking for. I've welded enough sheet steel to now know that even if I got these sections talked into or "forced" into position this area would be a wavy mess after all the heat and would with absolute certanty collapse back into that undesired position if not worse. To compound the issue the weld joints are just at the splash pan so accessiblity to metal finish the welds to bring it back out would be very difficult if not impossible. The end result would be a mud hole requiring liberal amounts of lead or filler to be right again. I should have realized that earlier but sometimes you just have to discover or rediscover things when your ready to.

To make this right I need to eliminate that bridge section and get my weld joints out in the open where I can get to them from the back side. I need a large patch section with the right contours. I was a little upset with myself at this point for cutting this fender earlier for that stupid filler section but after some study I still have enough here to make my new repair with.

Before any more hasty cutting I went back to my original speedster dash section to carefully study the contour and plan out the new repair section. Will post that tomorrow.
Thanks for reading this!
Justin

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

Your repair work never ever 'bores' me. I wish you all the best on this repair I just don't know how you manage to correct things the way you do. Really quite amazing to watch.

Roy

[Craig Richter]

And never "boring"...

[Phil Planck]

Justin
Ref 37264 post with many pictures; looking at the side view where the top, rear pulls down, could this possibly have been caused from weld shrinkage of that top seam? If so, stretching that area might bring it up without having to patch in a piece. If you lay some thin cardboard up there to create the proper shape you could determine how large an area needed to be stretched.
Just a thought.
Phil

[JTR70]

Thanks for the feedback Craig and Roy!

I appreciate the input Phil. The back of the fender does taper and flatten too quickly. It could be raised and that was a thought a few days back but as I've gotten my head around the situation the fender is only one half of the problem. I have several issues going on with the cowl which is compounding everything. Some of it is my fault and some of it the way it was made.

Just a quick recap as I was sent an extremely over exagerated cowl shape both at the sides and at the center.

Alot of this exagerated trough relaxed out once the inner flange was cut free however the general surface was still stretched inward too far. Hindsight being what it is I should have sent this dash and cowl back for a refund and got in line at Trevor's for his offering. Live and learn...

Again it relaxed but was never quite right as the surface began to "oil can" as I pushed down where it needed to be.

I heat shrunk it to stabilize the area but as you can see the trough was still weird and lumpy in places. Too complex of an area for a guy with my skill level to have any shot of correcting cleanly after being stretched out that far. I realize that now.

To make matters worse my mistake was flanging the edge of this cowl over way too soon. I was careful to make sure it continued the contour line from the door inwards but I completely overlooked setting the front to back profile which can only be can only be established against the eventual "set" fender. A simple oversight that I chalked up to my inexperience.

So in taking everything into account I decided to cut and replace past all the bullshit in one swoop. It was the right decision as I'll post next...

[JOP]

Tin-man Justin,
Sorry to hear about your problems to tame the metal to place...
May I ask where you obtain these cowl & dash from?
It looks extremely off from the photos.
Keep on pounding the pieces and they will/must fit
Per

[roy mawbey]

Looking forward to the next instalment Justin. I remember the cowl problems on your Carrera You managed that in the end but as you say it comes down in the end to the supplier. How many end users of items that need so much modification end up pulling out their hair in frustration. You are far, far more experienced than you think Justin. People are buying items from here and there who are streets behind you in compensating for items they receive. Its a mine field.

Roy

[JTR70]

Hey Per,

Those were Steve Hogue panels. The rear firewall assembly was very nice and the rear closing side walls were okay but the dash and cowl assembly were a completely different story.

Thanks once again Roy! The cowl on my coupe was factory with no issues, I believe your thinking of this project and all I had to go through to get this thing to fit and work.

Thanks again for all the sympathy guys!
Justin


2/16/17

Spent some time to really get my head around the actual and correct contour shape of this transfer from cowl to fender crown. Though no longer prestine there was enough left here on my original speedster cowl to point me in the right direction.

My coupe also helped as its very similar though the speedster is of course flatter as it approaches the window frame.

traced out the basic shape of the trough and how it fans out and fades on up to the windshield posts.

Carrying on that contour line to the fender.

It eventually dawned on me that not only is this panel sloping too steeply to align with the fender profile but the overall surface and shape of this section is just fucked.

I needed that remaining donor section to do several things all at once to have any shot of a half way decent outcome. It needed to be large enough to eliminate the troubled cowl surface, eliminate (and to soften the approach) the slightly rolled under rear fender section, eliminate that initial shortfall gap and move the weld joints out where I can work the back sides after all the welding; not asking for much. Basic cut lines to accomplish this are marked out here.

I was kicking myself earlier for burning a now very valuable section of the old fender but I had just enough left of it make this patch panel.

This is originally the mid/rear portion of the old fender now slid all the way to the back for my needs but after some time spent positioning it and fiddling around it was clear that the overall shape was consistent enough to give me what I'm after.

It was a natural and bridged all my concerns almost immediately.

I was so relieved to have finally had a solid path forward out of this mess. More on this tomorrow.
Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JOP]

Morgen Justin,

I thought it might be SH panels but was not sure....
A lesson I learned the hard way is never never throw away old pieces just because you bought new one!
Like in your case it can get you out of a jam
But also valueable countors of an OEM piece is nice to have on hand even if badly rusted.

We have said it earlier that it is a "Made by Hand" car and almost all new produced needs some work but as a producer not taking a litle bit of extra time to get it all right is weired in my world!
( NOS also needs TLC to fit but altleast it came from the right place way way back )

Atleast you have the right rear battery box wall in your Speedster

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

You are correct I got confused in my mind as that cowl repair took place 2 years and 2 months ago, on page 103 of this thread. No wonder I got confused I went back to page one and then sped through all your work to page 103. That amount of work alone was so impressive, the fact you are now over 2 years on from that cowl and the fact from my measurements I sent and photos the cowl you purchased it was so far out of any dimensional accuracy to an original you deserve a medal just to modify and fit that item alone.

My goodness what a job to date you have carried out and to see the result coming on in leaps and bounds is fantastic.

Well done, just don't know how you do it.

Roy

[JTR70]

Thanks Per, I have a few piles of old metal that I'd love to throw away but I have found myself on more than a few occasions picking through them for an odd shape or two that might turn the trick. So as much as I'd like the space and less clutter I know I'd live to regret it.

Thanks once again Roy. Having looked through a few really early progress shots when it was just a bare chassis with a pair of doors hinged on I find it hard to believe I made it this far myself before a full mental breakdown. The only thing I can attribute it to is: Small steps and Small bites.

Thanks again guys!
Justin

2/28/17
Left fender fitment about dialed in.


Trimming and fitment of the new sectioned continued but I was still fighting that double humped profile where they met.

Changed the approach by tucking the front of the fender under the nose allowing me to slightly tilt the fenders attitude to soften arched profile toward the back where it meets up with the new/old section.

The tilt is ever so slight but was enough to misalign my wired edge at the rocker but still within easy correction distance.


That slight adjustment gave me the needed approach angle to now transition onto the new section within tolerance.

With the rear portion taking shape I felt confident enough to begin slowly set screwing the front of it to the nose.

Transfer across this joint is fortunately looking pretty close. It of course won't be welded like this but after its all trimmed back for a butted weld the fender will only need to rise about the thickness of the skin. By that time the rear of this fenders skin will be all but set with that old section.

Will continue to slowly add in screws down the side.

I'll add the door back in next to continue fine tuning the shape for consistency.

A big relief by sessions end as I finally had a basic contoured fender shape across the joints that I could work with.
More to come.
Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JTR70]

3/1/17
More left fender

Forward joint all but set screwed initially.

Tried to keep it tight as I went but can see there are going to be spots that will probably end up needing some shrinking as it goes.

To synch up the rest I had to trim more excess here and free the wire so it would make that bottom roll.

Position not set in stone but a promising jumping off point.

Very relieved with the initial fit. Close transition profile from nose to fender with a good overall shape with no fender flair/crown.

Gone about as far as I can here for now.

With the front tied in I could go back to locating this section.

Top transitional profile was still fighting me but was able to get it back to "close" with some pressure underneath from my bottle jack.

Door added back on to ensure this panel flows off of its profile shape.

Once again all kinds contours and shapes all going on at once to think about before I commit.

Alot more tighening up yet to do but its slowly forming the body flow I'm looking for. So happy I got rid of that intermediate patch I was originally thinking about.

Hope to be at least tacking that new section onto this fender by my next visit.
Thanks for stopping by!
Justin