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Progress Update
Not too much progress to report. I've had a couple of other projects recently so not a lot done but still moving forward.
Started on stripping the doors starting with the passenger side. They are pretty easy to get on and off right now because a while back I had driven out the hinge pins. So pretty easy to pop them out now to remove the doors.
Passenger side door with all the paint removed from the outer skin. Mostly in pretty good shape other than some small rust holes in the bottom that will need to be repaired. The inside moldings and window were a challenge to remove. Ford does some things quite differently than GM so it took a while to figure out how some of it came apart.
Back on the car it still fits pretty good. Once I get the inside of the door media blasted I will see how much rust repair this one will need.
So on to the drivers side door. You can see here where some had cut out and probably peeled back the inner structure to do a dent repair. Not a good sign.
Bottom of the door looks pretty solid though. I don't think there will be much rust repair to do on this one.
With the paint sanded off I found a lot of surfaced rust under the paint and a bunch of lead filler in the lower rear corner covering up some nice damage.
View of the damage from the inside. This will take some work to smooth out. One good thing though after removing the factory tar based sound deadener the metal is in great shape on the inside of the door.
So today while starting to work out the damage I decided to remove the diagonal brace from the door as it would be impossible to do it right with the brace still in place as the brace was in the way of getting at the lower rear corner of the door where some of the worst damage was.
With the brace out I will have much better access to the lower corner. I already started to put some heat on the damaged area as it will need some shrinking once the dents are hammered out anyway.
More to come.
Brian
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Progress Update
So in between working on the passenger door and the drivers door I had done some cleaning and organizing of all the parts I have removed from the car so far. One thing that needed some repair before I put it away for now was the window crank mechanism for the passenger side rear window. These things are pretty cool how they work as the windows (both front and rear) slide backwards a couple of inches before the window goes down.
Passenger side mechanism is on the left. The arm with the big hook on it got bent and twisted at some point due to the widow glass getting stuck in the channels. I may have made it worse getting it out as it was stuck in there pretty tight.
From this view you can see how bent and twisted it is.
With a little help from the welding torch the arm is back where it belongs again.
So the next problem is to repair the teeth on the gear that got stripped out and damaged.
With a copper back up clamped in place I welded up the damaged area.
Then ground it down to the same thickness as the rest of the gear and to the outer diameter.
I had made a pattern of the opposite side of the gear with some card board and some spray paint.
Next I drew some lines on the pattern so I could layout where to file out the new teeth.
New teeth filed out. I mostly used a triangle shaped file to accomplish this. Not perfect but it works almost as good as new now.
Another view of the finished repair. Now I can store this thing away and it will be ready to go when I need it later.
Next I will be back on the drivers door repairs.
Brian
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Brian,
Thanks for continuing to show us your work on the 39 Ford! More great work you've done, and I've never seen 'gear teeth' repaired before this.. neat job! You're gonna have a 'factory new' body shell to work with soon...
GaryComment
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Brian,
I picked up another 'trick' from you: using the other gear and spray paint to make your template was something I had never thought of. Simple, direct, and elegant!
Thanks! DougComment
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I continue to be impressed with your work on this car. Keep up the work, and the posts!Comment
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Progress Update
So after a bunch of hammer and dolly work and shrinking the door looks better that what I started with.
View from the inside of the door.
In the spot that someone had chewed out the inner structure and peeled it back I cut out that and another section to get that area of the door in better shape. I wasn't bad in that area but there was a bit of oil canning and a low spot that I think I have in a little better shape now.
Not perfect but it shouldn't take any more than a skim coat of filler now.
Now to get the inner structure back in place. The extra section I had cut out tacked back in place
All welded up and the upper part that was previously cut out straightened out but still in some need of fitting to the opening.
Fitted up and tacked in place
All welded up and the welds ground down. At least I don't have to grind these out perfect since they will be behind a door panel eventually.
With the door back on the car I can see I will need to tweak the back edge of the door to fit better to the quarter panel but the fit is pretty good otherwise. Still need to weld the lower brace back in but I want to media blast the rust off the backside and prime it as long as it is out of the door.
So that will be my next project is to start media blasting a bunch of stuff and getting some epoxy primer on them. Was going to start that today but the rain and drizzle put a stop to that since I have to do that outdoors. One of the first things to do will be the front fender inner panels. These don't look to bad after a good cleaning to get them ready to media blast. I ordered some Tamco Direct to anything epoxy primer so hopefully I will be trying that out soon.
Brian
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Brian, You should feel very good at the improvements you've done to the body metal of that car!! I can't wait to the see the finished and primed body... it's going to look very nearly to new..
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Thanks Gary,
I'm looking forward to the day it's done too!! Still a long way to go though.
BrianComment
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Progress Update
So this week I did some media blasting starting with the inner fenders and a Bitichin Products firewall & front floor board kit I had purchased probably over 20 years ago. They had been in bare metal for that long so they had some light surface rust that needed to be removed.
One side of one blasted and the other waiting for it's turn.
Back side of 1 done and about 2/3rds done on the other one before I ran out of daylight that night.
Yesterday afternoon the weather cleared up enough to get some epoxy primer on the parts for the front floor boards.
I didn't have a good way to hang these up so I just laid an old tarp over the concrete slab outside of my garage so I could prime 1 side at a time.
Back side of the firewall primed.
This morning getting ready to prime the other side of everything.
Firewall ready to go.
Front floor board panels ready also.
Primer applied along with the brace from the drivers door.
Firewall and trans tunnel piece done.
Lower firewall pieces done and 1 coat on 1 side of one of the inner fenders. I had not planned on doing the inner fenders today because they still need some minor rust repairs but I had just a bit of paint left that I didn't want to waste. When I paint the next batch of part I will make sure to have some small parts prepped and ready to go just in case. First time using the Tamco direct to anything epoxy primer but it seemed to go on pretty nice even with my cheapie harbor freight spray gun I use for primer coats that will end up getting sanded out later anyway. Not ideal to spray with parts laying on the ground either but most of this will be welded in place and need to be re-primed later anyway. I just wanted to try out the primer and get a protective coating on everything for now.
I think my next project will be setting up a better place to do the media blasting. I have been doing it in front of the garage with a big tarp laid out to catch as much of the media as possible but its a big pain to get set up each night and then clean up afterwords so I don't end up getting much done.
Brian
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you're still making progress, Brian! That's great..
I'm curious why you chose to use Tamco Epoxy primer? I'd never heard of it before reading your post....Comment
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Thanks Gary,
I looked at several different brands including SPI and Nason that I can get locally. Tamco is a family run company out of Virginia. https://tamcopaint.com/ It is very close to SPI price wise and has great reviews as well. Like SPI it doesn't need to be top coated so it's good for a long term project like this. It seems to spray good and lays out smoothly and dries to a satin to semi gloss finish. Hopefully I made a good choice!!
BrianComment
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