Fabricating The Last Patch Panels!
A Major Milestone Reached!
I finally got to work on the rusted area between the front of the rear wheel opening and the back of the rear driver’s side door. Like the passenger side, this area was covered with a stainless rock shield that aided and abetted the rusting of this area.
Like the passenger side, once I removed the rusted quarter panel area, I found that both the outer and the inner rocker panels were rusted though as well and needed to be replaced. I also had to replace the lower portion of the inner fender panel as well.
The inner rocker panel was fairly easy to handle – basically a straight rectangular 18 ga patch. The outer rocker panel has a couple of compound curves that took a bit of time to replicate using the sand bag and various mallets and my hickory slapper. Before welding the panels in, I painted all of the hidden surfaces with a “rust” primer. The panels were welded in using the MIG with the stitch technique.
The outer quarter panel skin took more time than I thought it should. I had to work this panel several times to get the contours some what close to what they needed to be. Not great but workable and the good thing is that it will be covered by the stainless rock shield, but this time it will have drain holes and will be well covered with epoxy primer.
Today’s project will be to fill and rough in this panel and the rest of the rear wheel opening with a little short strand polyester filler, then go over all the recently repaired areas with some 180 grit and then shoot the repairs with epoxy primer.
Fitting and Installing the Door Sill
To complete the repair of the passenger side rear quarter and rocker panels I need to fabricate a new door sill to tie the rocker panel to the main floor section. My initial approach was to cut the old sill back until I reached solid metal, which was about half way through the sill. I made a cardboard template of the new sill panel and laid it out on a sheet of 18 ga sheet metal. Once the layout was complete, I cut the new sill out using the plasma cutter.
Once the panel was cut out I clamped it to my table and used various pieces of steel and clamps to make 2 3/4″ bends in the edge of the sill to step it down from the rocker panel height to the floor height. I really do have to break down and by a 36″ break one of these days… it would cut my setup time down and make for better looking panels.
I did a little trimming here and there to get a good fit and drilled holes in the floor edge to weld through to attach the panel to the floor and to the center sill support which was welded to the bottom of the rocker panel. I primered the inside of the rocker panel prior to tack welding the panel in place.
After the tack welds had cooled, I used a 1/16″ cutoff wheel to dress down the height of the tacks before doing the final weld. I started in the middle of the sill panel and began stitch welding around a 1″ section at a time. I used the 1/16″ cutoff wheel to dress the weldment while it was still warm. Once the weld was cool to the touch, I began working from the center to the ends using the same 1″ weld proceedure and alternating from side to side. Once the center of the sill was completely welded, I clamped the drilled flange to the floor and proceeded to weld through the holes to the floor below.
Even with all of my precautions to minimize the metal shrinkage in the heat affected zone, the old sill metal did shrink more than the new metal, creating a valley down the center of the sill. If I had access to the back of the sill, I would have been able to stretch the weld using a dolly and slapper, unfortunately the sill completed the rocker assembly and I had no way to get a dolly under the welds.
In that the sill would be covered by a set of polished aluminum trim plates, I could have left well enough alone and lived with the valley; but I didn’t like the way it looked so I cut the sill out from the rocker panel to the floor flange. After fabricating a new sill I tacked and welded it into place using the same proceedure as before, however this time since I was welding to the edge of the rocker panel, I had no issues with warpage.
While I was at it, I fabricated a couple of patches to repair the bulkhead at the rear of the door opening. The bottom of the bulkhead had been rusted away with the floor. The patch consisted of a plate that went under the bulkhead and over to the floor flange and another patch that was welded to the bulkhead and the plate. To prevent any flexing in this area, I also added a small gusset between the floor and the fender well.
It was a little more work and took more time than I wanted to spend, but I am happier with the way it looks now.
Rethinking My Build Plan
We had a great time visiting with our dear friend from Munich last week. It was actually quite nice to take a break from the Dodge project for a few days and have some down time. While on break I did give some serious thought on how to best move forward with the project. I have been concerned about removing the rust from some of the tighter interior crevices. Sand blasting is clearly the way to go, but I would have to do it outside the shop on my driveway which will create an unacceptable mess. I had several mini sand dunes piled up against the shop when I tired my sand blaster out earlier this year.
My neighbor took his ’38 Chevy to a local powder coating company and had them sand blast it to remove the paint and rust. He was quite pleased with the result and it was quite inexpensive. After talking with the powder coating company I think that I will take the following course of action:
- Complete the installation of the A/C drier on the core support.
- Remove all A/C equipment, radiator, transmission cooler, inner fender panels and core support
- Remove seats and seat tracks
- Remove shift cable, break pedal and gas pedal
- Remove sway bar and cats
- Remove drive shaft
- Remove fuel tank
- Remove dashboard
- Remove engine and transmission
Once everything is removed, use the pneumatic descaler to remove all of the under coating on the bottom of the car.
Load the wagon along with all the sheet metal that has been removed onto the trailer and haul it up to the powder coater and have everything media/sand blasted. While the wagon is out of the shop, expand the paint booth to full size and move the ’39 into the shop.
When the wagon returns, paint all exposed metal with epoxy to prevent further rust. Then repair the floor and smooth the fire wall before begining the body work.
For the rest of this week I will be working on building and installing a network server for my office and updating my computers to Windows 7.
Ich muss eine kurze Pause.
Not much to report today in moving the Dodge forward. I really needed to clean the shop up after all the cleaning, grinding and welding that I have been doing on the Dodge in the past month. I am at the point where most all of the major fabrication work is done. Other than fabricating a new firewall its time to start on the body work and getting everything ready for paint.
Before swamping out the shop, I did fit the the head pipes and cats up to the exhaust manifolds, other than having to repostion the cat on the passenger side to gain some clearance between the O2 sensor and the rear transmission mount, everything should fit well. I also bolted up the Oldsmobile sway bar to check all the clearances on the the new front end. Everything looks good to go!
We are having a very dear friend from Munich visiting us next week so I will not be doing much work on the Dodge or updating this journal for a week or so. As it turns out, November will be a short month as far as work on the Dodge goes. After our friend continues on her journey to Hawaii, we have the Goodguys show and then Thanksgiving.
My goal is that between now and the end of the year that I will be able to get the floor patched and the drive train and front suspension pulled so that I can send the sheet metal and other bits and pieces to the powder coater.
This also would be a good time to have the steering column and box rebuilt along with the third member which needs a major gear change as well. The 2.50:1 Cougar rear gear set isnt going to make it with the 545RFE 5th gear of 0.67:1 With 27 to 28″ rear tires I am thinking that a 3.89 rear gear would work pretty well.
Mounting the Durango Front Seats
The Durango had a nice set of comfortable modern seats which according to my measurements should fit well in the ’56 Dodge wagon and will provide a comfortable environment for long distance cruising. The 1st task was stripping the floor to seat track mounting brackets off of the front seats. The front seat tracks offer a flat mounting surface that will work well with the relatively flat floor in the ’56.
To begin fabricating the new seat track mounting brackets, I cut four mounting tabs from 2″x2″x1/8″ mild steel angle and drilled 7/16″ mounting holes in each tab to locate it to the seat track. I next tied the mounting tabs on each side of the seat together using 1″ sq tubing. Eight 3″x4 1/2″x3/16″ mounting plates were cut from a length of 3″x3/16″ flat stock. I tack welded the tubing to the tabs so that I could do a trial fit of both of the seats.
My initial thought was to reuse the original bench seat mounting points, unfortunately they would place the seat too far forward, that forced me into locating new seat track mounts. My major concern was to get the driver’s seat centered with the steering wheel/column, which required the seat to be moved quite close to the transmission tunnel which was already off set toward the passenger side. After a lot of trial fitting I found a set of locations for both seats.
Once the seat locations were established, I could determine how much I had to space the rear mounts to level the seat track fore and aft and side to side. Proper spacing was achieved by adjusting the where the tabs were attached to the square tubing and by using spacers cut from 1″x2″x1/16″ rectangular tubing.
All that remained was to cap the ends of mounts and add some additional 1 1/2″x3/16″ plate to each of the rear floor mounts to adjust for the uneven floor. I also had to fabricate 28 nut plates to fasten the new seat mounts to the floor, once I complete all of the necessary floor repairs.
Slow Day…
I spent most of the day today, updating the OTHG-Phoenix website. Dreamweaver crashed in the middle of the upload, found out that I had run out of storage on the ISP again. This is after it was bumped to 1024 MB. I am thinking that I need to move this site to an ISP that offers unlimited storage.
I did manage an hour or so out in the shop. I pulled the seat track mounts from the Durango seats and did some test fitting. I think I have a way forward to mount the seats. The driver’s seat is an 8 way power job, while the passenger seat is manual. I will have to use the passenger seat to get the basic position and set up, then put the driver’s seat in the middle of it’s positions and then determine how to mount them both. At present it doesnt look too bad. The floor is flat where each seat needs to be mounted, so the mounts should be pretty straight forward.
It does look like I will have to cut down the seat backs to get the top of the front seats where they need to be. I think I will have to install the rear seats 1st to make sure that every thing ends up at the same height.
Finally Up to Date!
With the last post, I finally have the journal up to date with what is going on with my 1956 Dodge Sierra wagon build! I will try to do a better job of keeping everything updated on a regular basis.
Next steps on the build plan:
- Position and mount passenger seat from the Durango. This seat does not adjust up and down so it will be used to establish the median front seat height.
- Position and mount driver seat. This is an 8 way power seat – I will build the mount with the seat in the middle of it’s travel to set the seat position to match the passenger seat.
- Position and mount the drive by wire throttle pedal.
- Patch holes in the floor and clean up interior.
- Mount second seat and establish back rest height.
- Cut down all seat back rests so that the tops of the seat backs do not extend up over 2″ above window opening.
- Reuse or fabricate a console for between the two front seats.
- Remove all seats and the dash panel
- Remove core support, inner fender panels, engine & transmission, steering column, shift linkage and steering box and front suspension, drive shaft, rear axle and springs.
- Strip and prime frame.
- Strip and prime firewall.
- Strip and prime interior.
- Design and fabricate skin for firewall.
- Reskin firewall and prime.
- Strip and prime all suspension pieces.
More to follow when I get these tasks completed!
Working with the ECU wiring harness reminded me that I needed to install the brake switch that I had removed from the Durango. I also had to adapt the brake pedal to the power brake booster actuating rod. My local Ace Hardware had a 5/16 fine thread heim end to fit the rod. The hole in the brake pedal lever was 3/8” and was located too far away to line up with the rod. I welded up the existing hole and drilled a new one that would line up with the rod.
To further align the heim end with the lever, I made a boss by welding 3 – 5/16” AN washers to the lever to space the heim end out far enough so that it would not bind.
The Durango brake switch has a special mounting tab that I pulled from the Durango. I welded it to a 1 ¼ x .125 steel strap that I slotted on each end to allow adjustment of the switch.
In that I am planning on reskinning the firewall, I needed to eliminate the bolt heads that protruded on the engine side of the master cylinder mounting plate. To do this I countersunk the plate to take a 5/16” fine thread flat head cap screw which I welded into the plate and then ground down so that they would be nearly flat with the rest of the plate. Finally I reinstalled the mount, pedal and switch to make sure everything fit and worked properly. As with everything else in the ECU harness, the brake switch connector and plug fit perfectly!
The ECU in the Durango donor was mounted with an isolated mount that allowed the ECU to be easily removed for service. Luckily I pulled the mount before I sent the Durango on its way. I had to make a couple of modifications to it to get it to fit into the passenger side kick panel.
In addition to trimming the ECU mount I had to remove some of the metal from the panel so that I could easily slide the ECU in and out with all of the wiring connectors in place.
When I ordered the ECU harness from HotwireAuto.com, I asked Tony to provide enough length in the harness to be able to mount it in the passenger side kick panel. Tony did not disappoint! The harness is long enough to allow the ECU to be pulled free of the kick panel with all the connectors in place. I have the harness routed behind the evaporator and down through the top of the kick panel which will be left open to allow ventilation for the ECM.
Since I had the harness in the car, I did a quick check to make sure all the plugs on it matched up with the proper connectors on the engine and transmission. Again, a perfect match! My 4×4 friends were 100% right in their praise for Tony and his Chrysler harnesses!
When I get around to refinishing the dashboard, I will fabricate an electrical panel to mount the ECU fuse panel and relays along with the body fuse panel for the vechile wiring harness. It will either be located behind a hinged speaker grill or in the glove box.
The Gas Tank Follies …
Posted on – 02-13-2009 06:37 PM 1956 Dodge Sierra
Plan B was to locate a used tank from one bone yards down in Casa Grande AZ – I recalled seeing a 55-56 Plymouth wagon in one and a Desoto in the other. After a quick trip down the mountain to the bone yards I found that both of the tanks were in about the same condition as mine.
Okay, plan C – fabricate one myself out of mild steel which is within my capabilites but if I was going to all this work and effort, I would prefer something that wasnt going to have rust issues down the road. Unfortunately I dont have a tig (yet – its moving up on my priority list!) so aluminum and stainless were out.
Hummm down to Plan D – One of my friends suggested I contact a fabricator that they knew who did very nice work for a fair price. Since I was heading down to Phoenix for the Barrett Jackson I tossed the rust bucket and the Durango fuel module in the back of the truck and took it to the fabricator’s shop in Glendale. As it turned out the fabricator was very familiar with late model gas tanks and has made several for handicap van conversions. He quoted the job in aluminum at a price that was 1/2 of what I had been quoted. After 2 weeks I had a new tank!
Posted on – 02-13-2009 06:17 PM 1956 Dodge Sierra
Okay, now for the really bad news. I pulled the fuel tank from the ’56 and found that the top of the tank that sits under the spare tire well was pretty much Swiss cheese due to pin hole rust, and the inside of the tank was a mess as well.
The other problem was that due to the shape of the tank, and the fact that it was a Mopar none of the aftermarket tank manufacturers offered a replacement and what’s more only one would even quote building a custom tank for me – unfortunately it was out of stainless steel and would cost around $1200 including a GM pump. Needless to say this was a major blow to the project budget – had to find a better solution!
Posted on – 02-13-2009 06:10 PM 1956 Dodge Sierra
It has been awhile since I updated the Journal. December was pretty much taken up with filling Christmas present orders for clients and having to deal with a couple of issues with the Dodge.
First the good news! I pulled the gas tank from the Durango and removed the fuel module and took some basic measurements to see if it would fit into the ’56 gas tank, and as luck would have it, it looked like it would be close, but it should fit. The big advantage in using the Durango fuel module is that it is internally regulated and doesn’t require a separate regulator like the more common GM system.
A bit of bad news was that I had hoped to use it’s built in fuel level sender as well, but it turns out that it is a digital sender that communicates only with the PCM and not with any after market gauges. A bit more measuring and I found that a standard SW 240-33 ohm sending unit would fit in the tank as well!
