Builds 1975 frame off. (2 Viewers)

[brian]

two from the way back. late 90's or early 2ks.

 

[brian]

Four years later.

 

[sterling]

Congrats man, time to enjoy the ride!

 

[brian]

put about 50ish miles on it today. i was expecting to have more of a punch list, but a minor gas leak and a steering wheel adjustment were all that was required. tomorrow i'm going to recheck the under pinnings, and adjust the accelerator cable.
took the wife for a ride....in the 40......and got caught in the rain, even she enjoyed it. the last time we got wet, i thought she was going to kill me and burn the truck.
right now life is pretty good at my house.

 

[sggoat]

Man, you have to be proud! Long time and hard work waiting for that. You're both in the Cruiser with the rain pouring down on the grin crinkles in both your faces--it doesn't get much better than that.

 

[brian]

i found most, if not all the work to be relaxing. i would look forward to being able to spend time on it. i did a fair job of keeping track of money spent on it, but regret not keeping track of the hours that i put on it. i'm not sure how accurate it would have been anyway. the last hour or so of just about every time i worked on it was just spent staring at it. every time i turned the lights off and walked out the door, there was a "days of thunder old barn scene moment".
i'm kinda at a loss now though after spending all these years planning and prepping or working towards the next step, there suddenly isn't really a next step to take. i keep thinking about an oem style soft top, but i have zero intention of letting this thing anywhere near road salt. so a full top wouldn't needed for more than a month or two each year. cool as they look i can't see the $2k for the setup.
i'm not quite ready to go full steam on the '69 just yet. and the heir to my throne should be arriving in a few months, on towards the end of summer. so the two and a half of us are just going to spend the summer enjoying the '75 together.

 

[byrd_hntr]

Beautiful rig man. Ive enjoyed following your tread. It's motivated me to start the body work on my beast. Thanks.

 

[brian]

The other day, out of the blue, I was offered the sum of five thousand dollars. ....in cash even, for it. I did decline the "offer" however.

 

[Jdc1]

Looks great.

 

[brian]

ok, maybe a little snow....
turns out i have enough parts in stock to put together a hardtop.

 

[SSCR]

Looking fantastic Brian!

 

[brian]

thanks

 

[brian]

Early stages of a hardtop. Work here dates back to when it was still a good looking, red 1977....10 years easily. All rust issues have been previously addressed. It's all fit up, strip and repainting at this point.
FYI Massey Ferguson red is a straight match to Freeborn red.

 

[brian]

Everything lines up much better than I anticipated.
When I assembled the tub I tried to keep everything level, plumb, square but really wasn't thinking about putting a top on it at the time.

 

[brian]

Yesterday morning I dropped the big parts off at my blaster guy. Yesterday afternoon I got a call from my blaster guy that the stuff was ready. I was impressed to say the least and for just a little over half as much as he originally thought he would need to do them as well.
He has done all my sand blasting on this project, so the old saying of getting in with a local guy still holds true.
This top is off a 1970. I wanted the lift up rear door.
The rear bumper will need revisited to make spare swing out, swingoutable since I wasn't thinking about a top at the time.

And here I thought I was finished with the cruiser.

 

[firestopper]

did some glueing and grinding this morning. then decided to throw the rear under it agian. it won't be long till i can let it there.

View attachment 497208

I just breezed through your build. Nice work. I wanted to point out your "fish plate" design. If I may, I suggest to radius (larger the better) and avoid "weld points" on any frame. Especially the location of your application in close referance to the rear suspension.
I was tought many years ago to avoid point welds on frames as the potential of cracking due to dynamic forces focused in the point. I have seen this failure first hand and have repaired several over the years.
Just my two cents, perhaps we have some welding/mechanical engineers reading this that can explain it in detail.
respectfully,
PN

 

[brian]

First mock-up of the fiberglass cap on the hardtop sides.
I redid the drip rail many moons ago, and never did get it on a cruiser......till now.

 

[brian]

converted my rear bumper spare tire carrier, back into a functional swing out this morning.

 

[brian]

the doors are ready for assembly.

 

[sggoat]

An awesome build for sure.
I have a question for you--what did you use to seal up/coat the interior of the frame? (and how did you do it)?