39 Ford Project

[Custer55]

Hi Brian,
You have a bit of an archeological project there - un-earthing the evolution of body filler technology - from lead to plastic! How did you handle removing the lead?
Regards, Doug

It sure is. I have just been using a propane torch to soften it up enough to remove it with a wire brush. No lead dust that way.

[Custer55]

Progress Update

I continued to work on stripping the paint off the drivers side quarter panel. I had used a stripping disk on the roof which worked good for getting the paint off but turned the shop into a black dust bowl. So I have been using a propane torch to heat the paint just enough to be able to scrap it off with a razor blade gasket scraper. This has been working pretty good as it just leaves some primer behind that sands off easily with 80 grit paper. Just need to be careful not to get the metal to hot or start the stripped off paint on fire with the torch.


Area over the window is in great shape once sanded down.


No surprise to find more damage under the paint here too.




And more lead below the door handle. This can't be good!!




With all the lead melted out the damage is revealed.


The way the inner bracing is it would have been pretty tough to straighten the quarter so I cut out what was in the way. Should be easy enough to weld it back in later.




So after lots of hammering and straightening the door jam area looked better but i had a bulge in the quarter that just didn't want to go away. So I had to use the gas torch to shrink it enough to get the bulge out. The panel actually oiled canned inward at one point but went away once I did a bit of hammer and dolly work on it. Not sure why the top picture flipped sideways on me?




Still needs some fine tuning with the shrinking disk but looking much better.
Next time will be welding the inner structure back in place and moving on to more paint stripping and body repairs.
_

[BamaNomad]

It's looking very good Brian! You should feel good about what you are doing...

When all this 'crap' is over and you have a nice shiny straight metal 39 Ford in your shop... you're going to feel even better..

[Custer55]

It's looking very good Brian! You should feel good about what you are doing...

When all this 'crap' is over and you have a nice shiny straight metal 39 Ford in your shop... you're going to feel even better..

Thanks Gary,
I'm pretty happy about how it is going so far. At least I know it will be better than it was when I started.
Brian

[Custer55]

Progress Update

Running low on welding gas so I decided to hold off on welding the inner structure back in place on the quarter panel and move on to more paint stripping.






So Moe, Larry, & Curly's Body shop started using Bondo and lots of it!!
Interesting thing using the propane torch to strip the paint anywhere there was bondo the paint would bubble immediately when the torch was applied.


Damage revealed with most of the bondo removed.


Some pretty bad damage on the edge of the wheel opening. I will have to stop taking pictures up and down as they flip sideways on me for some reason.


One last spot of bondo in this spot was almost a 1/4" thick. Yikes!!


All stripped and ready to start the repair process with the filler neck and tire out of the way. I will most likely have to remove the fender at some point to straighten this thing out also. It will need to come off at some point anyway.
Brian

[Custer55]

Progress Update

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So while trying to get the fender bolts loose without twisting them off I worked on stripping the the trunk lid while soaking the bolts with WD 40.




A couple of small dents to pull out near the bottom along with the area under where the latch housing bolts on which was over tightened as some point. But overall not to bad.


A crack by the hinge pad will need to be welded up.


Quite a bit of rust to repair in the bottom edge.


Finally got all the bolts loose to get the fender off with only 1 twisted off. hopefully I can drill out the caged nut on that one so I don't have to replace it.


A better look at the damage on the lip with the fender off. Previous weld will need to be ground off.


Old weld ground out ready to start trying to straighten it out.


View from the other side shows how wavy it is.


Looking a little better now. Took some work with a pick hammer and using a c-clamp vise grip with a piece of pipe that just fit in the wheel lip and 1/4" rod to work it out and then welding up the original crack to get it in better shape.


View from the other side with some of the dents worked out as well.


Since it was a pretty nice day today I did some media blasting. The front part of the fender will need some rust repairs in the lip area where it bolts to the body. I did some light blasting on the inside of the fender also to make it easier to see where to bump up the fender from the inside to remove the creases.


The before picture of the damage behind the tire. After picture to come at a later date!!


After media blasting even more holes so this will need to be replaced with new metal. It doesn't look like there was ever any drain holes in the bottom of the deck lid so it's surprising the rust isn't a lot worse than it is.
So it doesn't look like I will be running out of things to do on this project anytime soon!!! Guess that's a good thing during these crazy times.
Brian

[Custer55]

Progress Update

For the last couple of weeks I have been working on getting the dents out of the rear fender. After a little hammer and dolly work it was starting to look better.






Some spray can primer and then block sanding make it easy to see where it still needs more work.


Same technique on the back side. This part of the fender had a lot of creases so it helped to see where to use the pick hammer on the backside to knock up the creases.


Slowly getting better.




Another round of primer and block sanding to show the areas that need more work.


Looking better at this point so bolted back on to work on shrinking the inevitable stretched metal from the hammer and dolly work.


Not to bad at this point but I still had a couple of bulges that didn't want to go away with the shrinking disc.


Hard to tell in the pictures but this spot was looking much better after shrinking with the smallest welding tip I have and then a bit more hammer and dolly work.


I made this tool to get the fender lip in better shape. Thanks for the tip Robert!!

So with the everything in pretty decent shape the fender came back off to fix some rust areas. This part of the fender was pretty solid other than some deep rust pits. A couple of them had tiny pin holes all the way through but I decided to just weld them shut rather than making a patch panel.


All the deeper pits welded up. Easy to tell that the metal is ok other than the pits when welding on them doesn't just blow out a bigger hole.


With the welds ground out this area is in better shape.


This will need a patch as it looks like swiss cheese!!


The first section of the patch fitted up and ready to tack in place. I will need to do another section about this size to get rid of all the thin metal.


Tacked in place ready for the next section of patch. The marks just before the mount holes farther up is as far as I will need to go.
So that's as far as I got Saturday before I ran out of time. Once the fender is done I will have to repair the corresponding areas on the body where the fender flange was rusted and then the trunk lid rust repairs and on and on.
Brian

[BamaNomad]

Wow Brian, you're putting a lot of work into that car and it SHOWS... Nice work!

[Custer55]

Wow Brian, you're putting a lot of work into that car and it SHOWS... Nice work!

Thanks Gary, Hope your doing ok with all the crazy weather down your way lately!!

[BamaNomad]

Thanks Brian, We have certainly had crazy weather (although our early spring weather is typically violent, but this year we've had TONS of rain to go along with it...

We're doing fine, mostly staying in but without the capability to get a bud's help with some items on my car, I've got a half dozen tasks 'half finished' due to needing another pair of hands to help... ie. like I have the windshield 2/3 in, but I can't be both inside and outside at the same time...

I do really like what you're doing on metalwork on your '39... You said you would probably sell it, but you're making it too nice to sell!~

[Custer55]

Glad to hear your doing fine. I know what you mean about needing a helper at times. My son works nights so he is only available on the weekends to help when I can't do things alone. The plan for the 39 is to eventually sell it to finance a project car my wife has been wanting for a while now. She wants to get a Studebaker Silver Hawk to fix up so she has a car of her own to take to the shows. The better I get this one without spending a bunch of money (other than my time!!) will give us a better budget for that eventual project car.

[Custer55]

Progress Update

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So getting ready to replace the next section of the fender flange. Got it all marked out where it needs to be cut out.


The patch section can be seen below.


Oversized patch clamped in place to check the fit. I then scribed lines at the ends to be able to line it back up in the same place as I went.


Then the bad section was cut out. You can just barely see the scribed line on the left side just past the end of the opening


Then clamped back in place to scribe on the inside for final size of the patch




Patch compared to the rusted section scribed and cut to final size. I just used a tin snips to cut as close as I could to the line then fine tuned the fit on my belt sander.


Clamped in place ready to start tacking it in.


Started on the left side and worked my way to the other end by clamping with the c-clamp vise grip across the weld seam and then tacking as close as I could to the c-clamp. Tacks are about 1 1/4" apart.


All tacked in place ready for lots of welding and grinding.


After a bunch of welding a tack at a time and grinding it all out looking much better. I still need to use the bead roller to add reinforcement ribs between the bolt holes but I wanted to bolt the fender back on to check the fit first.


Fit looks good, at least the same as it was before the flange was replaced.


Fit at the back is off to the body near the bottom. Not sure if it is the body that is off as it had some damage in this area also, or the fender or a combination of both. So time to work on repairing the trunk lid and get it back on and aligned so I know what needs to be fixed.


So on to the trunk lid repairs. I will try to pull out this dent with the stud gun first as the inner bracing is in the way to hammer the dent out.


After working a while trying to pull the dent out I decided to move on to the rust repairs. This still looks like crap so I may just have to cut out the inner bracing to get this better since some of the inner bracing will need to be repaired due to rust holes anyway.
Brian

[Custer55]

Progress Update

I have not had much time to work on the 39 lately so just a little progress to report.


I had a little better luck with the stud gun pulling out the area under the trunk latch housing by attaching 1 stud at a time, pulling out the dent and then attaching the next stud just over and pulling on that one. Still not a great way to pull a dent but it worked better than the way I did the dent on the lower left side of the trunk.


The lower part of the trunk lid needs a bunch of rust repair inside and out but before doing any of that I bolted it back on and lined it up as best I could. The fit on the passenger side is not too bad, close enough to live with it.


The fit at the bottom is good except for the lower drivers side corner where there was previous damage that had just been filled with lead.


This side will need some work to make it fit better.


Pretty big gap at the bottom corner that had the previous damage. It was a mistake to work on this area before without the trunk lid on and lined up. Live and learn the hard way!!


This area will need some work also.


After a lot of pushing, hammering and swearing the gap is getting better but still a ways to go.
One problem trying to move things is the trunk strut rod that holds the trunk open goes into a slotted brace that is welded to the inside of the trunk opening in this area that makes it harder to get anything to move. I'm sure the brace was damaged at the same time as the body so it needs to be reshaped as well. I did get it somewhat better by applying heat on the brace where the gaps were tighter which seemed to help. I may have to just remove the brace completely if I can't get it any better.
Brian

[567chevys]

Looking good Brian ,
Thanks for posting this on the site



Sid

[Belair-o]

Hi Brian,
Your hard work is paying off - steadily shaping up - great progress!
Regards, Doug