wagon progress

[chevynut]

It's details like that lock misalignment that are so easy to overlook when you're doing a complete build of a car. Like you said before, you need to trial fit EVERYTHING. I know you already had them ceracoated but another way to skin the cat would have been to slice it down the middle vertically and weld it back together with a jog in it. I kinda figured you'd bend new parts using some thin stainless sheet.

My new Danchuk door handles had the screw holes drilled at an angle to the door skin so I rejected them. They said the had "no complaints" about them. I got another pair from Trim Parts and the screw holes were correct, but the pushrods were a little short. So I had to put a shim on the door latch to make them work right. It's always something.

Bummer on that magnetic brake coil. I like your idea of the grommet on the lock rod so I'll probably steal it.

The car is looking awesome.

[WagonCrazy]

I too like the grommet to isolate the lock rod. These doors tend to have a lot of sloppy parts inside, and the rattling when driving is annoying.

[MP&C]

More progress, we were test fitting the power antenna an noticed that the mounting bezel did not sit horizontally on the fender. I had quickly whipped up a wedge shaped and tapered spacer out of some aluminum as a quick test.









Where that was functional, it did not match the chrome finish of the bezel. I picked up a chunk of 1" stainless rod (local drop cut) to make a duplicate out of stainless. The wedge shape was added first, using the 12" disc sander... then clamped in the Southbend for the taper cut and a hole boring.














....and trimmed off to length














In order to hold this oddball shape for polishing, some rivnuts were used on a 1/2-13 bolt, with the wedge angle added to one for a more positive hold..









Completed, this matches the chrome finish of the bezel much better...














Since we were ready to re-install the front fenders, I thought I'd grab pictures of our fine-tuning adjustment screws for the fender to door alignment. The hex bolt shown on the right is filling an existing hole that used to have a rubber plug in it. I guess having pulled out the dried and cracked old rubber plug, I wanted a more permanent solution. We were going to use that hole but it did not align with the rib on the fender's rear brace. So another hole was drilled next to it, a 3/8-16 AVK style rivet nut installed, and a fully threaded bolt added. The bolt head was covered with a rubber cap and the inside end of the bolt had a slot added for adjustment purposes. Now we could use a screwdriver to adjust the screw outward, pushing the center of the fender until it aligns to the door surface.. A jam nut on the inside tightens against the rivnut to prevent any movement.





























And with our upper fender mounts painted, they get installed using polished button head hardware and our barely noticeable shims we had fabricated.









In the tooling department, we needed a tight radius reverse bend on some .090 aluminum, so a Gene Winfield inspired 1-1/4" round stock was added to our 4" pipe. This was bolted straight into tapped holes and used two stacked flat washers to provide the gap. The aluminum was 5052 alloy and was annealed prior to bending.

[BamaNomad]

We should adjourn TriFiveChevys some day soon, and talk Robert into a show and tell in his machine shop....

[Custer55]

Nice work!!
Thanks for posting.

[TrifiveRichard]

Nice approach to fine tune the fender contour, I’ll remember that one.

[chevynut]

I’m not understanding why you had to make an angled bezel for the antenna. The stock plastic nut was flat on bottom and the antenna was straight vertical. Why did yours sit at an angle??

[MP&C]

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with the fender and antenna fitted. The spacer we made the other day is a bit too thick and too much angle. So we’ll make another to match this up. If you force the antenna over to match the escutcheon, the antenna is slightly crooked. That’s why we needed a wedge spacer.

[Rick_L]

Looks like the antenna hole is slightly outboard and not centered on the crown of the fender.

Could have been fixed with a mockup before paint. Easy for me to say, LOL.

[chevynut]

The other day I posted this for another member looking for antenna location info. Mine was the factory antenna location. I think a 55 and 56 should be the same.

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