39 Ford Project

[Custer55]

Thanks on all your updates

Your Welcome, Glad to have time to work on the 39 again!
Brian

[WagonCrazy]

Great updates. Stay at it. Gonna be a beautiful old car when done.

[Custer55]

Great updates. Stay at it. Gonna be a beautiful old car when done.

Thanks, I will keep the updates coming!

[Custer55]

Continuing on the passenger side front fender repairs. After a lot of time with hammer and dollies, a bullseye pick (which I made myself, will post a picture one of these days), torch shrinking, planishing, and finally my shrinking disc I got the damage smoothed out enough to go ahead and start on the metal repairs.


Far from perfect but much better than it was. The first repairs will be to the wheel opening lip to stabilize everything.


And a view from the front where most of the damage was. I will still need to make a patch panel where the metal was ground too thin and created holes.


First patch formed up and fit up to tack weld in place. The cut out area above this patch had a couple of cracks so I will make a small patch for that as well.


Tack welded in place so I can make and fit up the upper section of the patch. Looks like it would just be a flat piece but it did have a slight crown in both directions so my planishing hammer worked well to make that piece.


Upper section formed, fitted, and tack welded in place.


Fully welded and finished out. At this point I had left the lower part of the patch at a 90 degree angle vs forming it completely before welding it in figuring it would be easier to planish out the welds that way. Then I formed it over to match the profile of the of the inside edge of the fender lip and finished welding it in place. I don't think I would do it that way again though as when I formed it over it threw off the shape on the outside. So I had to do quite a bit of hammer and dolly work on the inside of the lip to stretch it out enough to get the shape back where it belonged.


Here it is all finished up. Looks good but I would form the inside to shape before welding the patch in place next time. I would still have to hammer and dolly it to get the correct shape but it would be much easier to do that before it was welded in place.


Here is the next section to repair at the bottom front corner of the wheel opening. Just as I did on the first wheel opening piece I started with a straight piece and bent it on my bending brake. I needed a 5/16" radius bend to match the fender so I make 6 bends of about 15 degrees each, 1/16" apart. The recent modifications I made to my brake made this job much easier.


I used my shrinker and planishing hammer to form the shape needed to fit the fender.


And finally fitted up ready to tack weld in place. I formed the inner edge to the correct shape on this one so that should make this one easier to finish out.
Wasn't sure how well this fender would turn out but so far it seems to be going ok.
Brian

[Custer55]

​Work continuing on the passenger side front fender last week.


This patch fitted up and tack welded in place.



Next was to form up a patch for the very bottom front corner. I made this one a bit higher up into the fender as there was a crack in the fender in this area so the larger patch took care of that at the same time as the bottom edge.



Getting close to being ready to tack weld in place at this point.



All fitted up and tack welded in place.


And a view from the bottom of the lower flange of the fender. It looks much better than the mess I started with now. The thin spots/holes from the previous old repairs are clearly visible in this photo as well.


Next up was the lower rear corner where the fender brace bolts to the fender. Same repair as I had done on the drivers side fender but I decided to do this one differently.
On the drivers fender I made the patch out of 2 pieces and welded them together before welding it into the fender. On this one I welded the outer half into the fender before welding the inner half of the patch in place. This made it easier to finish out the welds on the outer half of the patch shown tack welded in place here.


Here it is fully welded in place and finished out.


And here is the inside view of the patch ready to weld the inner half to the patch in place.


And here I have the inner half welded in place and finished out.
Next up will be fixing the rust where the fender meets the running board as I did on the drivers side fender.
Brian

[Custer55]

The next step on the passenger side front fender was to repair the area at the bottom rear where it meets the running board.


Here I have the inner structure repaired. As you can see the rust holes are confined to the very corner so I was able to make the patch for this in one piece instead of the two pieces I did on the drivers side fender.


Here I have the patch all formed up and ready to fit up for welding.


All fitted up and tack welded in place.


View from the inside with the seam fully welded.


And the inside view after grinding out all the welds and planishing out the weld seam.


And the view from the outside. This one turned out pretty well, not perfect but it won't need much filler. I just need to drill out the mount holes to finish this repair.


At this point I finished welding up the seams on the two patches on the bottom front corner so I am ready to tackle making a patch panel for the area with the holes from the past poor repair.


The first step in that process was to make a paper pattern of the area the patch will need to cover. I had a light behind the fender when I took this picture so you can see holes where the light is shining through the paper. Where the paper pattern has the wrinkles indicates where the metal will need shrinking to create the needed shape.


Starting to take shape after doing tuck shrinks around the outside edge. I also did a bit of stretching in the middle of the patch on the planishing hammer at this point.


It has a ways to go yet here but getting closer after smoothing it out on the planishing hammer and a a bit more shrinking on the edges.
So that is where I left off yesterday. Hopefully by my next update this fender will be done!
Brian

[bigblock]

Awesome work!!

[Custer55]

Awesome work!!

Thank You!

[chevynut]

Wow, you're really getting good at this!!! Lots of practice. Curious what welder settings you're using to get that great penetration. What size wire? I have a Miller 211 with Autoset and I have to run it at the high end of the metal thickness setting to get good welds.

You mentioned the warm winter. We've hardly gotten any snow in Colorado and it's been in the 50's and 60's here. The weird thing is that it's been warmer a lot of days in Montana than in Colorado, but only by a degree or two. A week ago it was 49 degrees at our place at 10PM at night. We got about 16-18" of snow a a couple weeks ago and it's pretty much all melted but we got an inch or two last night. February and March is the heavy snow season in both places.

[Custer55]

Wow, you're really getting good at this!!! Lots of practice. Curious what welder settings you're using to get that great penetration. What size wire? I have a Miller 211 with Autoset and I have to run it at the high end of the metal thickness setting to get good welds.

You mentioned the warm winter. We've hardly gotten any snow in Colorado and it's been in the 50's and 60's here. The weird thing is that it's been warmer a lot of days in Montana than in Colorado, but only by a degree or two. A week ago it was 49 degrees at our place at 10PM at night. We got about 16-18" of snow a a couple weeks ago and it's pretty much all melted but we got an inch or two last night. February and March is the heavy snow season in both places.

Thanks, lots of practice helps for sure!
I use .030 wire for everything so I don't have to switch back and forth since I just have the 1 welder. (Lincoln 125, 110 volt) I set my heat a couple of settings above what it states with the info that came with the welder, and the wire speed just a bit higher. My welder has the infinite adjustment knobs so I can fine tune the settings as needed.
Also vary how long I am on and off the the trigger. It's always a moving target as my patches are 18 gauge (.045 to .048) vs the original metal be 19 gauge which can be from .040 to .030 due to thinning from the stamping process and 80 plus years of rusting. I try to get things fitted up with the gaps as tight as possible but they are never perfect either. Once the patches are tacked in place, ground flat and planished out I fully weld the seams by starting at one end and working my way to the other. I do 3 or so tacks at a time with a short pause between each tack. I start each tack just a bit away from the previous tack and move the weld puddle into the previous tack. I don't cool the welds with air of water. After each set of tacks I grind the tacks I just did about 80 to 90% flat on the outside only and then let it cool until I can put my bare hand on it before doing another set of tacks. Once the hole seam is fully done then I grind it all flat outside and inside If I have good access, then planish the weld seam and bodywork the whole area good enough that it will just need a thin coat of filler. It has been working well for me using this method but it is a fine line between getting full penetration and blowing holes. You will know right away when you cross the line which does happen sometimes!!