Project MOVIESTAR

[scorcher1967]

nuther day, nuther rust hole patched...

Finished fabricating the various patches for the front passenger body mount. I am using thicker steel than original, and of higher quality. Most of it is new, but a couple patches are old sections of my 67 Mustangs Floor Pan. Good stuff, that old stuff! Ended up doing a lot more rocker panel work than I thought (really? more work than you thought? You are kidding, right?)

Door sill rust got cut out

Inner Rocker patches tacked in.

Front Rocker/ lower cowl fully installed

A nice look at the new toe board section from underneath. You can see the rocker patches here too. I will test fit the body mount tomorrow, then finish weld those patches, and move on the the next section.

 

[scorcher1967]

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, I finished the body mount, Happy Birthday to me!

Yeah, I spent my birthday working on the body mount. Finished welding the patches, cleaned them down. (lots of grinding!) reattached the body mount. Still need to finish a couple welds, but there it is! No rot underneath!

Spent the rest of the day trimming and test fitting the first of Frankencruisers corners onto the Moviestar. Franks lower corner are gone (no, really) And the original lowers were intact, but caved in, folded up, half fixed, bondo filled (3/4 inch!). The trim and fit took about an hour.

reworkin the original lower corner took about 4 hours. But check it out. How many of you would kill to have a corner even this good! Not perfect, but its intact! I will weld up Franks corner, then graft the original lowers on. Picture is not great, maybe I will get a better one, if y'all want.

 

[riderjgs]

Great work, Jason. Glad I didn't have to go to these extremes with bodywork when I swapped my body onto Frank's bones but my chunk of the Frankencruiser is fighting back. Looks like we'll have to do some engine mount relocation work to correct the front driveshaft alignment which the PO screwed up, but that'd have to happen anyway to install my Ranger overdrive. Elyse and I will definitely have to get our two Pigs together once you're done since we seem to be locked into co-parenting a couple of illegitimate "sons of Frank."

 

[scorcher1967]

awesome Jim! That will be quite a day, spawn of Frank!

Anyway....lower inner rear left quarter patch, ready for Franks corner.

And, another shot of the banged out corner. Be jealous.

 

[scorcher1967]

Got another full day in! Most of the day, I worked that rear left corner. Got it trimmed, fitted, spot filled some pinholes, sandblasted it and the support that goes with it, welded the support to the corner, POR-15 and truck bedliner the inner sections of the corner, so it should hold up nicely.

Since I have to wait for the paint/bedliner to dry before sealing up that corner once and for all, I attacked one of the smaller rust sections. The front passenger sill plate. POR-15 got poured in the rocker panel on monday, so hope that helps.

Chipping away at the rust. Only 3 major areas left. (corners, rear floor) 4-5 minor patches....getting closer!

 

[scorcher1967]

quarter panel patch

Bad news day! When I was cleaning the quarter, so I could weld the corner back on, I found it. Rust. Rust that did not get sandblasted off. I had thought that the lower quarter, from the wheel lip to the corner had just a couple little holes I could spot weld shut. No. There was so much rubber undercoating poured into the quarter, the sandblaster could not really get it. When I cleaned it off, it was not a couple holes. It was 90% gone. Very disappointing. Another little setback. But. BUT! It did give me a good round of practice with panel shaping, more advanced than the straight floorpan/door sill ones I did last week. Contours and curves and bends! So, pictures of the days work. Two lower quarter panel patches.

Passenger side, wheel lip end. (slight flare to finish the wheel lip)

A better (maybe) look at the flare for the wheel lip.

Passenger side patch right under the area to be cut out.

Same patch, fit over old panel.

The drivers side patch. Smaller than the other side, but with the same flare banged in.

For those of you at home, you can do this. I started with some flat steel. I only used a basic body hammer set. Used various pieces of scrap steel as dollys. My vise. C-Clamps. A bag of birdseed. And a cut-off wheel. No high dollar equipment. No English Wheel, or bending brakes, or slip rolls. All banged out by hand. All it takes is patience and persistance. Give it a try!

 

[laguna80]

haha A bag of birdseed?

 

[scorcher1967]

haha A bag of birdseed?

Yeah. I did not want to head into town to buy a sandbag to form the wheel lip. So, I looked around the garage, and figured a bag of birdseed is kinda like a bag of sand. What the heck, it worked until the steel ripped the nylon bag. (gorilla tape is magical) If I have to do any more extensive banging, I will get a proper bag!

 

[scorcher1967]

We will call today, the day of rubber undercoating. That same nasty stuff that prevented the sandblaster from getting the lower quarters must also be removed to weld in new steel. (if you think welding fresh POR-15 is bad, think of what 3/4" thick undercoating would do) (other than give a poor weld) Because of where it was, it took most of the day to scrape, chip, sand, melt the seam down to bare metal. Good to go now, had to tweak the patch a little, to line up better with the original corner. No time to weld today, have to pick up the kids! No pics either, who wants to see black smoke pouring out of the quarter panel anyway?

 

[laguna80]

We will call today, the day of rubber undercoating. That same nasty stuff that prevented the sandblaster from getting the lower quarters must also be removed to weld in new steel. (if you think welding fresh POR-15 is bad, think of what 3/4" thick undercoating would do) (other than give a poor weld) Because of where it was, it took most of the day to scrape, chip, sand, melt the seam down to bare metal. Good to go now, had to tweak the patch a little, to line up better with the original corner. No time to weld today, have to pick up the kids! No pics either, who wants to see black smoke pouring out of the quarter panel anyway?

The inner seam of my fenders have some weird crap like that between the wheelwell and the cargo side panel. It's so depressing to look at I haven't even tried to get it out. Kudos to you for powering through. Cleaning those tight areas is pretty much the most frustrating part for me.

 

[scorcher1967]

back to work?

So, after getting fired 6 weeks ago, starting a new job, and taking a vacation, it is time to go back to work!

Except, while moving stuff around the garage, I fell. Fractured 3 ribs. Not good.

The cute vertical lines are a bonus. Abrasions, with broken ribs underneath.

 

[StevenS]

Dude, it looks like you landed on a hot grill. WTF did you land on, anyway, to get such a pattern?

Reminds me of some road rash a coworker of mine got last year in his little Triumph motorcycle outing. Never test drive your motorcycle in shorts and flip flops, no matter how well you think it sounds.

Better rub some neosporin on that - or better yet, get the g/f/wifey to do it.

 

[htownfire]

Fab work looks great

 

[1973Guppie]

just a flesh wound, get back to work and stop whining......

 

[PabloCruise]

Any updates on this Piggy?

 

[scorcher1967]

sort of. life has been playing some mean tricks on me and the family, so has been hard to get out there.

I have been learning a bit of upholstery repair. Useful, but takes time. Nice because I can work inside. I started with some pieces of an MG I started before the pig. Practice on the MG, because if the repair does not work, you can buy a new one, so low risk. FJ55 parts? Well......you know..
I have spent about 2 days on one of the wheel well covers for the cargo area of the piggy. Torn up pretty bad, paint and rust embedded in the rubber. But I have never even heard whisper of some of these NOS or reproduction. So, I used dish soap, fingernails, plastic scrapers, toothbrush and oxyclean to remove the paint and rust without damaging the rubber. (super tedious, picking rust flakes out of rubber) I am going to take a shot at fixing the tears today. Once one side is done, I will post up a before/after picture.

 

[scorcher1967]

One wheel well cover patched back together.

Each piece of tape was a tear or hole.

A couple of the before and after variety. The second one has a fraction of the rips of the first.

 

[PabloCruise]

Good to see some posts Jason!

 

[scorcher1967]

Been working a bit more, finally. My rust rule of 3 needs an amendment however. I will call it the FJ55 amendment, which essentially doubles the original rule of 3.

Pictures? SURE!

Wheel lip patch

inner rocker, just forward of the rear wheel, not too bad, right?

Wrong, it was trashed the hidden 3 inches

So, make micro patches on the door sill

A pair inside the wheel well

Everybody's favorite, POR 15 inside the rocker panel

And, hand forming a new inner rocker panel patch.

Next, fab up the outer rocker patch, and door sill to door post patches.

 

[land cruiser kid]

Keep up the good work, Scorcher!!