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Thread: 39 Ford Project

  1. #91
    Registered Member BamaNomad's Avatar
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    Wow Brian! You've had a busy winter! And the '39 is looking better and better! You've got so much of your work into that car, you're going to want to KEEP IT.. I certainly would!

  2. #92
    Registered Member Belair-o's Avatar
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    Hi Brian,
    Great skills, great progress, great results! Thanks for sharing!
    Regards, Doug

  3. #93
    Registered Member Custer55's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BamaNomad View Post
    Wow Brian! You've had a busy winter! And the '39 is looking better and better! You've got so much of your work into that car, you're going to want to KEEP IT.. I certainly would!
    Quote Originally Posted by Belair-o View Post
    Hi Brian,
    Great skills, great progress, great results! Thanks for sharing!
    Regards, Doug
    Thanks guys, Been staying super busy since I retired!!
    Speaking of which I spent the last week building a stand for the stretcher / shrinker set I bought from HF to make the patch panels for the rest of the car a bit easier to make.




    Not my design, I just googled how to build one and adapted the one I liked best to work with the materials I had on hand. I only had to buy a couple of bolts, one heim joint and a the return springs, the rest I had left over from other projects.
    Just tried a few test pieces so far but it seems to work pretty well with the foot pedals.
    Brian

  4. #94
    Registered Member Custer55's Avatar
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    Progress Update

    The door and the trunk were both at the back of the pile of parts so I decided to do the door next for no good reason other than I could!
    Passenger door is in pretty good shape other than some rust at the bottom that will need repair.


    The bottom had quite a few small rust holes and the flange where the door skin folds over was pretty rusty and broken away in one spot.



    The outside door skin looked good but with the rust on the inside I figured it would be pretty thin where it meets the inner structure so I decided to make a couple patch panels for the lower couple inches of the door skin.



    The bottom edge of the door has a slight curve at the bottom edge as well as a curve outward from front to back.
    So I cut a couple of strips of 18 gauge and bent a 90 at the bottom to fit the lower edge. I first attempted to do the curved flange with a tipping die on the bead roller but that didn't work to well trying feed a 26" piece through while turning the hand crank on the opposite end all while trying to stay on the curved bend line. The first patch (above) I ended up doing the bend with a bench vise which worked ok but not great.



    So I came up with this homemade dolly to do the 2nd patch. Just 2 pieces of 3/8" with a 18 gauge piece between at the bottom welded together so I can slip the patch in the middle and bend the flange over. One side is beveled over a bit so the flange can go past 90 degrees.



    Here it is in action clamped in the vise with the c-clamp so the patch won't move as I hammer on it. This is on the 3rd pass through hammering it over just a bit at a time sliding the patch over, lining up the bend line so the panel will have a 90 plus degree bend the same shape as the bottom of the door.



    Here is the patch on the door. As you can see putting the curved bend at the bottom make the patch curve the opposite way that it needs to be. I already did some shrinking on the flange or this would be much worse.



    After some shrinking and stretching on the flange the fit is pretty good. You can see how the door curves up at the end by the hinge. the whole bottom edge has a very gentle curve to it.
    So all the time I spent on the stand for the shrinker / stretcher paid off here. It works excellent with the foot pedals. You actually have to be careful not to step to hard on the pedals, that's why I had to do stretching also!!



    So with the outer patches formed up pretty well I moved on to repairing the inner structure. Just going to do a section at a time on this to make sure the shape of the door is maintained during the process.



    First piece formed up and tacked in place. It doesn't look like much but was a bit tricky to fit up as it had to fit the curve of the bottom edge as well as the curve from front to back.



    With a small filler strip welded in at the corner and the welds ground out it looks much better.
    So that's as far as I got today. Next time hopefully this door will be done!!
    Brian

  5. #95
    Registered Member Belair-o's Avatar
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    Hi Brian,
    Lots of complex shapes, and lots of progress! Thanks for posting.
    Regards, Doug

  6. #96
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    I have a pair of the HF shrinker/stretcher tools. I have found that using the lever arms doesn't get as much results as I'd sometimes want. For now I only have some simple brackets that allow these tools to be put in a vise. It's good news to me that a foot operated fixture provides enough results that you can go too far. Looks like I need to build these.

  7. #97
    Registered Member Custer55's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Belair-o View Post
    Hi Brian,
    Lots of complex shapes, and lots of progress! Thanks for posting.
    Regards, Doug
    Thanks Doug!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Rick_L View Post
    I have a pair of the HF shrinker/stretcher tools. I have found that using the lever arms doesn't get as much results as I'd sometimes want. For now I only have some simple brackets that allow these tools to be put in a vise. It's good news to me that a foot operated fixture provides enough results that you can go too far. Looks like I need to build these.
    For sure worth the time to build a stand with foot pedals. It's a night and difference with the foot pedals how they work.

  8. #98
    Registered Member Custer55's Avatar
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    Progress Update

    So to make the patch panels for the rest of the door bottom I decided to just bend straight pieces and then use the stretcher / shrinker to form them up. Unfortunately the bending brake I have is a swap meet cheapie that is just basically a couple piece of angle iron. When I tried to bend an 18" long piece of 18 gauge It didn't work to well, the part that pivots up to make the bend wasn't welded very well to the hinges so it just bent at that point so the angle iron pieces didn't line up like they should anymore. So after using a bfh I was able to beat it back in position and the welded the pivoting angle iron to the hinges on the top and bottom of the hinge as close to the pivot points as I could.



    My next modification was to make a brace with some black iron pipe so the angle iron would be less likely to defect in the middle. It also makes a good handle when making bends.



    The other thing that make this brake a pain to use is that the clamp bar is just a loose piece that you have to line up in place while trying to get you piece to bend lined up and then clamp everything in place. To help out the with that I lined up the clamp bar where it would need to be to bend a piece of 18 gauge, clamped it in place and then drilled 1/4" holes through the clamp bar and the base. Now I can insert 1/4" pins to at least hold the clamp bar in position while lining up the piece to bend and then clamping it all in place to make a bend.



    Here is one of the pieces I bent after the mods. Bend looks ok and nothing bent out of place on the brake this time.
    So for now no need to buy a new brake thankfully.



    Here is the first section of the door bottom formed up and tacked in place.



    2nd half of the door bottom before stretching and shrinking.



    After some shrinking I marked a line to trim some excess off. It takes more effort to shrink on the wider flange but still worked pretty good with the foot pedals.



    Another tool I picked up recently from HF is this shear. Not the best quality but is seems to work pretty well. Sure beats the heck out of cutting 18 gauge with an aviation snips!



    2nd side of the door bottom fitted up and tacked in place.



    All welded up and ground out the door bottom looks much better. Just need to drill new drain holes once everything else is all welded up.



    There was some thin spots in this corner so that got cut out for a small patch.
    Brian

  9. #99
    Registered Member Custer55's Avatar
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    Progress Update




    Patch welded in place and ground smooth.



    Bolted back on so I could check the fit. Still fits like it did before so on to welding on the outer patches.



    Lined up an clamped in place I tacked the 2 pieces together so I could weld up the center seam and finish it out off the door. The sharpie line and marks above the patch I did before removing any of the door bottom for repairs. They are reference marks to get the patch lined up correctly.



    Now a 1 piece patch clamped in place to scribe a line to cut away the original door skin.



    Patch fitted up and tacked in place.



    Before finishing welding the seam on the outside I got the lower flange on the inside hammered over in place. Will just need to be spot welded in place once the outside is done.



    All welded up but still needing some hammer and dolly work and more grinding to get it better.



    After a lot more grinding, sanding, hammering and even some shrinking it's pretty close to where it needs to be. I ended up removing the two lower braces from the inside of the door to get better access so those will need to be welded back in and drain holes drilled yet but for the most part this door is done.
    On to the next which will most likely be the trunk lid.
    Brian

  10. #100
    Registered Member Belair-o's Avatar
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    Hey Brian,
    Thanks for documenting the steps along the way, it is very informative. Seeing much of the nitty gritty along the way, maybe is kind of like seeing sausage made. Some of the steps may not be pretty, but are necessary and foundational to the great end result. Nice to see your vision for the car steadily taking form. Appreciated your work with your existing tools - making them do the job you need done.
    Regards, Doug

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