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Messages - kimmc

#106
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
December 08, 2012, 02:04:52 PM
Hi guys.  Thanks for all the feedback.  My wife and I have been baking our bones on the beach in Puerto Vallarta Mexico for the past week.  Just got back last night so now I have to start "drying out" and getting back to the real world!  I'll resume work on my coupe this week and start posting my progress again.  It was great to come back and find your posts.  Thanks and look for more soon.  Kim
#107
Very, very nice.  Mine has a long way to go to get there!  Thank you.  Kim
#108
Looks like very good work.  How about a picture of the entire car?   Kim
#109
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 21, 2012, 12:44:17 PM
Thanks Glenn.  Hearing from you all, talking about restoration stuff, and just corresponding with you guys about this stuff is a lot of fun for me and keeps me plugging along.  I check this site everyday to see what's new and I look forward to getting the feedback posts.  Thanks for your participation.  Kim
#110
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 21, 2012, 01:05:32 AM
Hi Glenn.  Thanks for the pep talk.  Lots going on this time of year.  I guess I feel like progress is slow because I haven't been getting to work on the car for the last week or 10 days.  But you are right; it's good to get away for a while and not burn out.  It will be good to get this part behind me and be able to move on to something new.  But for now, it looks like lots of wood work ahead of me.  Maybe I can break it up with re-doing the wheels and brakes!  OK.  Thanks.  Will keep you posted.  Kim
#111
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 20, 2012, 04:04:11 PM
Well, I'm finally back to doing some work on the coupe again after a few days of doing other "chores" for the family.  I'm still working on the top wood.  Had to figure out a way to clamp the cracks I wanted to glue up.  I thought an old style carpenter's wood screw clamp would work but I couldn't get it to hold like I wanted so I made one out to 2 pieces of plywood, a bolt, and a C-clamp.  Works pretty good.  I glued a crack this morning and will continue on to fix the others.  The picture shows a void I will fill with the PolyAll mixed with sawdust.  I am going to have to pick up the pace if I want to get the car on the road by next summer!
#112
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 09, 2012, 12:55:24 AM
Well, today was a learning day and a step backwards.  I wasn't satisfied with the "even-ness" of the space between the top of the driver's door and the top of the door jamb.  It was wide on the ends and narrow above the middle of the door.  I thought there might be some obstruction that would not let me push the trim up against the main wood top piece above it.  I pulled the nails from the outside of the metal trim on the top of the door jamb and bent the tabs down thinking I might be able to clean out the space between the metal and the wood but that did not work well.  So, I decided to pull the nails from the inside of the metal piece and remove it completely.  Much better.  There were toothpics I had driven into the holes sticking out the bottom of the oak frame.  Because of those I could not get the metal trim pushed up tight against the wood.  With the metal trim removed I will be able to a much better repair of the wood piece and get the bottom of it flat so the trim will fit well.  Also, I can clean the rust from the trim and get it ready for paint.  Finally, this trim has well preserved original paint that I can probably take to the auto paint store and get a good match.  I'll finish this project eventually....little by little.
#113
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 07, 2012, 11:08:44 PM
Hello all.  Well, I've been absent a few days while I proceeded to take the OM's advice and check my car for "squareness".  We had some discussion here about it after I posted a picture of the passenger door not lining up where it should.  I thought about how to go about "trammeling" the car as OM suggested but decided to modify the procedure somewhat.  I figured that before I trussed up the car to the wall like a Christmas goose, I would check it out in a more simple way that I thought would show me if the car body and/or frame was out of whack and needed more serious work.  I started by just checking that the car was level where it sat in the garage.  I decided to use an old fashion carpenter's wooden folding measure; I figured it would be easier to use and keep straight unlike a metal tape measure.  I picked 3 different sites on the frame that had good points where I could take pairs of diagonal measurements.  I also picked 3 different sites on the body where I could measure from points at the bottom of the body to a point diagonally across the cab near the top.  Finally, I measured diagonally across the windshield opening.  I recorded everything, with sketches and pictures, in my log book.  The bottom line was that the frame is square...dead on.  I guess the steel stock gate that I totaled when I crashed through with no brakes didn't hurt the car at all!  (I was 13 and my dad saw it all).  The body is also sitting squarely on the frame; the cab is not leaning to one side at all.  Finally, the windshield opening is square as well.  So, I am satisfied that the car is good as it sits and that I can proceed with wood repair and other jobs without worrying about whether the car and frame are square and in their proper positions.  The doors will have to be tweeked and worked to get them into their correct positions.  I am much relieved that I don't have frame &/or body alignment issues.  But I am glad that I checked things out like I did; it just took me a few days to figure out the best way for me to proceed.  Now back to working on the top wood.   
#114
Hey SDGlenn.  I know Harbor Freight carries them and I'm pretty sure just about all the auto parts stores (O'Reilly's, Auto Zone, Kragen's) have them too.  It's a small item and they only run about $15.  Harbor Freight currently has a 1.5 amp 3 stage (?) onboard battery maintainer (#99857) on sale for $19.99 (reg. $29.99).  I have used them too and they do keep a battery charged without cooking it in the process.  Kim
#115
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 02, 2012, 10:02:27 PM
Hi OM.  Thanks for the detailed instructions.  It all makes sense; all I lack is the confidence that I know exactly what i'm doing!  I think I will save this job for when I move my car back to the big shop.  It has I-beam columns and I am pretty certain those are not going to move (there's 5 yards of concrete in the footing under each one!!).  I am afraid if I put an I-bolt in the garage wall (which is a common wall with the living room) and manage to put a crack in the new dry wall, I might as well pack up, move into the garage, and learn to cook ramen on a hot plate!  I will talk to my body and frame friend tomorrow about trammeling my car.  Also, I have a neighbor just down the road that builds street rods for a living.  He has a "table" for truing up frames and chassis's.  I will talk to him too.  Maybe I can hire him and use his expertise (that is if he is willing to work on a restoration project).  Seems to me that getting the body and frame square with the rest of the world is a fundamental step to complete before doing a lot of the remainder of the restoration.  I've thought about it some.  With engine and trans out of the car, it seems to me that once the frame is supported, leveled, and squared up, that I could use a center point on a frame cross-member from which to take the other measurements to points on the body.  Lots to think about.  Anyhow, you have given me great info and it is something that I will do.  Thanks for your help.  I'll let you know how this turns out.  Kim
#116
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 02, 2012, 02:23:44 AM
...the other 2 pics that go with above...
#117
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 02, 2012, 02:21:55 AM
Did a little more PolyAll work on the top front wood piece today.  Sequence: sanded work site to clean wood of paint & dirt, air blasted, 1st coat PolyAll only; 2nd coat with sawdust filler in PolyAll on un-sanded 1st coat, then sanded, air blasted; 3rd coat PolyAll only, then sanded, air blasted.  Tonight or tomorrow will put another coat of fine wood filler on, sand it, then follow it with a final (hopefully) 5th coat of PolyAll.  Then I will move on to the other half of the front top wood piece (visible is some of the pics).  Will have to put the pictures in a couple of posts; I can only fit 2 pics on each post.  Hope I'm not boring you all!
#118
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
November 01, 2012, 09:35:16 PM
Hi OM.  OK...wow....this should be a challenge.  I have a friend who is a retired body and frame guy and also an old car buff.  I hope to recruit him...I've already spoken to him about the door fit issue I posted here.  He can probably help me "trammel" the body.  I understand the importance of getting the frame level (and square too I presume) then using a fixed point on the center of the frame as the reference point for measurements to different places on the body.  The motor and transmission are out of the car now but I expect I can use a centerline point on a frame crossmember.  But I am not sure I understand all the details about the "point on the wall".  I presume one would have measure from the wall point to a couple of points on the frame to make certain the frame was "square" with the wall first, then once that is good, start making measurements from the wall point to points on the body.  Is this correct?  I have done nothing with any adjustments or shimming yet.  I wanted to make sure I knew how to go about it so that I didn't make things worse by doing the wrong thing.  But I suspect that since these cars were made of a combination of wood and steel that these bodies were pretty "loosey-goosey" and that the fit "lines" were never very good or consistent.  This is hard for a perfectionist who tends to want everything exactly right!  Thanks so much for taking the time to respond and explain to me how to trammel the body.  I'm not going to tackle this right now but I will let you know what I find when I do this.  Kim
#119
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
October 31, 2012, 04:09:57 PM
OK, I need some help from you all.  While working on the top wood, I have noticed that the doors are not aligned properly.  The R door especially is hanging down on the handle side.  If I could put it up where it needs to be in order for the beauty lines to line up, the top of the door will rub on the top metal of the door frame (the part beneath the top R wood piece.  The door frame is up as far as it is going to go.  I don't see any way to adjust anything, even the door.  So, how do I get the doors to fit the opening properly and still have clearance at the top.  The 1st pic shows the misalignment at the door handle side.  The 2nd pic shows the minimal clearance at the top now; there is less clearance above the middle of the door and more clearance above either end (by at least 1/4+ inch).  Some one out there must have faced this same problem.  Thanks for the help.  Kim
#120
General Discussion / Re: I need some advise...
October 30, 2012, 10:05:39 PM
Hey SDGlenn.  Good to hear from you.  You are right about the guys that built these early Plymouths...I can't imagine that job.  Basically, they built the skeleton of a car out of wood, then nailed the sheet metal to it!  It's got to be a big job to re-do the wood; mine is in pretty good shape but it will still take a lot of time to get it the way I want it.  Little by little.  Your comment about the toothpics looking like some ashtrays you had seen made me laugh out loud!  It's got even more toothpics now all the way around the top....the car kind of looks like a kid with one of those spikey hair do-s!  My garage/shop was a long time coming...for many years we didn't have a garage at all.  Then my wife decided to remodel the place.  I went along with that as long as I got my own garage/shop.  She wanted a dining room (among other things) but decided that the designer's plans put it in the wrong place (it was to share a wall with my garage).  She decided we should gut the utility/mud room to make a dining room.  The planned dining room would become part of my garage!  I didn't argue at all!! I appreciate you replies.  Take care.  Kim