1970 SS454 build

[halogrinder]

 ya its not much better shape than mine lol!

Stick it in a box and give me the dims/weight and I'll email you a label to send it my way. I really appreciate the effort!

[Dtret]

Are you sure it is worth the effort. Don’t matter to me I can pitch it in the scrap bin. I was cutting it up anyway. 

[halogrinder]

ya, i mean to be honest with you I think you're right. 

[Dtret]

1 minute ago, halogrinder said:

ya, i mean to be honest with you I think you're right. 

Think about it and let me know. 

[halogrinder]

got a little more done today. Have to squeeze it in-between the whole "work" thing. 

I bent the sail piece 90 degrees to get it to fit to the trunk panel I'm replacing- but it was... well... 90 degrees. The trunk panel has a radius. Thankfully I have a shrinker/stretcher and was able to get it roughed in pretty close. 

Having to sorta work backwards. Get the sail piece in to match the trunk panel- then get the channel piece to fit (yes I know its short at the top...sigh) and then I'll tack it, the sail piece and the radiused flat piece on top together so I can remove it and start messing with making a new piece that I can spot weld it to on the inner quarter panel 

[willie]

Hey Alex Welcome to the club!!!!   What a Great job you are doing, and sending tons of pics!!! Like glen said i would love to have your hands and knowledge to attempt this very large task, in my eyes!!!     Keep up the piece by piece work!!!

I also am cutting up a parts car and will check those pieces for you tomm, i dont remember what shape they were in!

[halogrinder]

you act like I know what I'm doing 🤣

I cut the upper part out of the window area out near the upper right radius and now im really in trouble lol

[cny first gen 71]

1 hour ago, halogrinder said:

you act like I know what I'm doing 🤣

I cut the upper part out of the window area out near the upper right radius and now im really in trouble lol

Well I guarantee you know a whole lot more of what your doing than I do. Nice work so far, keep it up.

[halogrinder]

Used the invoice paperwork from rust replace to scribble a template. Tin snipped some sheet metal out. Hammer Hammer Hammer on the vice and various places on the work bench. Stare. Repeat. 

Repeat. (Start over) Repeat. 😁🤣

It's all roughed in. The little corner piece was a booger, due to it being curved and cupped at different angles. I can now tack things together to see how the glass and trim wants to fit. In any case, it'll be Friday before I do anything with it, I'm off to Circuit of the Americas for some race support on a GP2

[Montemedic]

Welcome Alex. Great photos and detailed documentation regarding your build. Keep up the good work and photos. We love photos !!!

[420ponies]

Excellent job!! That is a very hard piece to duplicate. Should work nicely!😊😊

[willie]

Alex i did get a chance today to check my cut up pieces. But of course you are so skilled as to have it already cut to order!!!! lol  Sorry it took so long as you are almost done with that area. I sent the pics today to Dennis and he said the same, that you might have it done already!!     

Keep up the good work!!!

[halogrinder]

Thanks for the help guys. 

[halogrinder]

 

I TIG welded the pieces together. 

 

I expected it to move around a bit. Some the gaps got bigger, and ill have to massage it to fit back where I want it. 

 c'est la vie  I suppose. 

I shot some weld-thru primer from POR on the panels, and attempted to weld the beat-to-cut/smash-to-fit pieces I made, and dealt with the welder pissing me off. 

 

So, I bought some .024 wire for my Millermatic 185. This welder has had a hot supper- I bought it when I was 17?18? in the late 90's. It's been through 20-30 30lb spools easily under my care, and unknown ( A LOT) with the previous owner (who I still know lol!) She's been a tank. I normally run .034 in it, but decided since I was gonna do a bunch of sheet metal work, to splurge and get some thin wire to help myself not blow through it- So, I'm pretty sure the stinger wasn't designed for .024, and it decided to wedge a piece of wire somewhere in the feed tube- effectively pissing me off, making a mess of welding wire, wasting my time and ultimately I bought another stinger. I figure 25+ years is a good run on this stinger lol.

New stinger shows up on Sunday at the house so I'll have it Monday morning.

I digress. 

I need to start on the other side and get it to about the same level of finish, so I can then take the glass and molding and throw it in the channel to make sure my gaps and shape looks right. The right side is "ok" but I fear that the molding either tweaked while I was removing it, or I'm off on my panels- so I figure if I clean up the glass nice, I can then use it and a panel gap feeler gauge and see how it fits in relation to everything. 

 

 

oh yea, here's my other girlfriend, too. don't tell my wife. 

[halogrinder]

well, got the welder back in action. had to fix some booger welds from the last stinger that got the wire stuck in it- others I just said screw it and left them. They'll never see the light of day again anyways. 

Started working on the other side. I'm a little frustrated, as I've "lost" the "line" of where I think the imaginary trim/window line is supposed to be.

The repair piece that goes from the sail panel up to the top of the roof seam is tweaked wrong- and I'm positive I'm the one who tweaked it- nearly everything I've cut and trimmed has been with tin snips. So, I'm not sure who to believe currently- the repair piece, the trim molding or me. IDK why this side is being more of a pain in my neck than the other side. So, I'm going to pull the glass out and set it in there to figure out the definitive location and curvature that I'm supposed to have. 

[halogrinder]

Aaaaaaand we're back. 

Pulled the glass out, cleaned it up (it's usable) and set the molding up. Right side fits nice. Left side was tweaked pretty good. Hard to see in the pics with the glass showing the wave and issue. Top wasn't rolled in enough either. Shrunk/stretched it into place. Tappy tap tap on random things (the back of my Wilton vise is the perfect contour for the top) 

 

In any case, tomorrow I plan to put the glass in and molding to see how it all looks. Tack a few spots, check it again and start burning it in. 

[halogrinder]

I set the glass in along with the trim mocked up. It fit pretty good. My glass guy just happened to be there and he gave me the seal of approval. So, I started getting ready to weld it in after finishing up the left hand side sail piece, TIG welding the pieces together, and shaping it to fit the glass. While I was flap wheeling the paint off the edges in preparation, this left corner pretty much melted away.... so I cut it out and made this little piece- which was a royal time consuming PITA. It bends, rolls, has a dish to match the top of the roof, twists and has the body line on that sharpie mark to to fold back, and then has the body line crease. 

So I tacked everything in- and re-set the glass in, and didn't like the way the right side fit. To say the left side went together easier and fit tighter is an understatement. Sorta like pancakes- usually the first one is screwed up. 

The right side is cut back out from the tacks, did a bunch of shrink/stretch to make it curve better, and it looks a lot better- but I've got a big gap now I need to fill- and I'm considering putting a filler piece underneath it so I can weld the gap up. Unless someone gives that C pillar a colonoscopy, no one will know it's there (except you guys :D) 

 

[420ponies]

Looks Great! Now before you final finish the back panel, you need to install these 2 items and run tubing down inside your trunk to your drain plugs in the side of the trunk drop offs like I did on my Monte. What this does is ,the rain water runs down behind the glass channel and runs to each side and drains down these tubes to the ground ( a running water hose really shows the effect ). I got these at Auto Zone years ago and still working as they should. I think they are radiator drain plugs? 5/16" dia. Then home Depot clear tubing .  I positioned these about 1 1/2" from each lower corner into the panel between the back glass and trunk lid.Not on the flat where the glass is , but on that lip of the panel between the trunk lid (clips for the trim?). Mine has the vinyl top. I think it wouldn't matter because you don't see them (trim covers these up). Hope this helps you out after all that extra work around the back glass. I'd would like to show some pictures of it done but, I have lost them from phone pictures years ago('05). Now that I looked more at your pictures, just before that curved piece and  black panel meet. Hole for this drain should be in the red piece. I hope you can make sense of what I'm laying down!

Edited October 3, 2024 by 420ponies
added content

[halogrinder]

Interesting idea. Very familiar with the concept. Could just weld in 2 bits of small tubing I suppose. 

[halogrinder]

alrighty then.  the repair panels are welded in, and ground down. home stretch (sorta). Have a few pinholes to fix up, and will get the panel welded in, and (hopefully) the pinch welds done today. A light coat of primer to keep it from rusting, and then this area of the car will get handed off to the body guy. he can fix the issues I made lol

[halogrinder]

and we're done here. It's the body shop's problem now. 

 

Off to other things.... like digging the stupid seam sealer out of the trunk. 

[Michael Boyte]

Fantastic progress and doing a very nice job at that !!  Can't wait to see it after it leaves the paint and body shop. What color do you plan on going with ?

[halogrinder]

standard black on black

[Vaughn]

Amazing progress, no messing around. Can't wait to see it painted. 

[halogrinder]

Been busy on other things like work, etc. Going out of town for biz meeting so no updates for a few days. Got the gas tank out. one of the lines still had gas in it lol
Gonna see if I can find maybe a radiator shop to boil out the radiator and gas tank, cause I may be able to reuse this one. 

I was interested in the multi fuel vapor hose setup the tank has- left/center/right hoses going to what looks to be some type of manifold and going to the charcoal cannister up front. interesting. 

 

Does anyone know any company that does reproduction VIN tags, or am I gonna have to try and clean this one up? That also goes along with the tag that's next to it on the cowl area

 

I spent the majority of my day peeling/cutting/scraping seam sealer out of the rain gutters, and the roof. I'm almost positive there is lead at the leading edge of the filler that the factory used that goes to the back glass. no way my putty knife (it is a bad [censored] one, no less) could peel steel like it was doing. 

 

Then, I got a divorce. Well, with the body and chassis.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow is "clean the hell out of the shop/put up all my crap" day. I've made a mess, and I need to clean everything up. The chassis is going outside for a while, and I need to mount the body on the rotisserie. Need to do some thinking on how to repair some metal around the windshield.