finished stripping the hood and removed the center trim piece revealing the hood which is made in 2 halves
started welding it and the emblem holes, I built up the weld in front to leave a peak in the front of the hood
all welded
close up of the peak, I Still have to weld the hood latch bolts in it was getting late so ill do that tomorrow
Saw/smelled this hoods burning lead paint last night.
Smells like bacon.
finished up the hood today and laid down some epoxy primer.(still wet in the picture)
is your work over by Curtis lumber?
From the video it looks like where my buddy got a few of his cars…Bought em off the owner of a body shop, some dude named “Guy” I guess/
that must be gusters autobody, not the shop I work at.
OT: I finished repairing the last of the floor braces. Im hoping to get the rest of the braces in this week and get the front pans in next week.
I had to make my own ends, where the stock had rotted off.
compared to the factory
Any updates?
Pretty positive he left shift…
I’m in the middle of bagging a 54 Chevy too. Good luck with the build
Dave’s away at school too.
Oh okay. Didn’t realize that.
I guess in the spirit of S2K Eric’s arrest I figured Id update this mother fucker.
January 2012
I got the other front pan welded in and took out what was left of the drivers side front floor support and replaced it with the repaired one
I also pulled the inner fenders/ vent tubes off of the parts car. they are a little dirty but No rust or rot to be found! They should look like new after some elbow grease.
I then went away for a semester of school so fast forward to April 2011, spring break, and the completed floors.
Over the summer I was busy restoring the customers GT500 convertible so the 54 got put on the back burner.
September 2012
spent the morning tearing apart the front clip, it doesn’t appear to have every been apart or been wrecked.
with the parts off I was able to get a good look at just what I was up against. The fenders looked fairly solid while on the car, however once they were off they had quite a bit of rust. The front of the fender where the gravel pan met the grille was almost completely rotted. In addition the back and top of the one fender was full of holes. After sandblasting I dont think there would be much left. The gavel/stone guard seems to be pretty nice with only 1 spot that will need to be repaired.
I decided to check the fenders off the parts car, and just as I figured they were much more solid. They have an antenna hole that will need to be welded up and a couple minor dents, however the underside was pretty much intact and was protected well by the rubberized undecoating. I will still have to patch the bottom by the rocker tho.
October 2012
home again for the weekend and did more work,
stripped both fenders inside and out with some help from my female companion:cool:
the bottom of the fender and the front were both shot.
so I repaired that.
replaced the bottom outer
and inner
welded up the trim holes and the antenna hole
and laid some DP90 epoxy primer
More metal work.
Repaired the other fender which has nearly identical damage to the drives fender the bottom half was replaced along with the front part behind the grille
epoxied
now for the stone guard, it was pretty straight but the ends were rotted
Sand blasted the bottom but unfortunately ran out of media, but i was able to get most of the rust off, I treated the rest with SEM rust-mort
yeah…
after some TLC
no before on this side but it was pretty shot as well.
ran out of DP90 so i used DP40
November 2012
Didn’t have too much time to work on the car this weekend so I decided to clean up the grille and see what I needed to make it complete.
the start
the chrome cleaned up nice after some elbow grease.
I was able to get everything minus a center tooth, Id also like to find a passenger side parking housing/grille end. so if anyone has a nice original PM please.
So basically the front clip is all done now, I’m gonna turn the car around and start on the rest.
Had some semi decent weather this week so I decided to clean up the back room before the snow hits. I turned the car around so I can start on the rockers, 1/4s, and back end.
what was the old floors
now to address this mess.
December 2012
Once again due to the uncommon year of the car they do not make full quarter panels for the car. However out of sheer luck I managed to find a set on ebay.
I found some rust free 2 door 150 quarters on ebay, so I hit buy it now and made the 1,000 mile trip to Ohio. I also got a pair of inner rockers and a rust free trunk too.
the inside quarters was really impressive, zero rot and only mild surface rust. Most of the original primer was still intact.
the outsides were nice too, some dents and dings but to be expected for the age. I also welded up the trim holes for the gravel shield and shaved the gas door.
I also stripped the trunk.
and welded up the emblem holes
[QUOTE=1967eleanor;12668487]December 2012-present
got the new inner rocker on. I gotta say even with just this the car is SOLID. This car is gonna be a tank!
I also cut off the old quarter. Youll also notice the lack of a trunk floor which was already missing when I bought the car.
fitted
got it all finished up. very happy with the result, I cant wait to do the otherside.
and even bought a new tool box as a christmas present to myself.
got work done on the other side.
the crusty bondo stuffed old one.
off
and the new one fitted, still need to do some final trimming before welding it final.
more updates from the past few days,
drivers quarter is finished.
with that done it was time to address the trunk floor or lack there of. The guy I got the car from decided to cut it out to make it a “Pro street” car. So over to death row I went to cannibalize the parts car some more.
after the damage was done. I cut out the trunk floor/trunk pan and taillight housings (more on that later)
Since I want to lay frame the spare tire well had to go, So I fabbed up a patch panel to cover the hole.
Once that was done I scraped off the undercoating, wire wheeled the rust and sealed it in epoxy primer. Ignore the rot on the sides, Im gonna replace it along with cutting out the old filler tube hole which will no longer be needed.
close up of the tire tub block off.
Now to some custom stuff. I wanted to do something subtle, I really like the stock 54 housings, I have lee bubble lenses in a box somewhere to go in eventually. So I extended the quarter panel about an inch to give the car more of a fin as well as making it look longer. I plan on running a 55 rear bumper which will accent it nice I think. Ive never seen it done so itll be interesting.
stock
and modified.
with the housing, the new one piece lenses dont stick out as much which should make it look sleeker.
after staring at the taillight housing I decided to change the angle and make the bezel at more of a vertical angle. It looked like it was sagging to me.
with both sides done I decided to swap out the lenses for some one piece ones. They are shallower and flow better.
and all done.
I also got the trunk and tailpan fitted. Ill do the necessary patching before welding it up.
I spent the better part of the weekend finishing up the back half of the car, the final work on the quarters, inner rockers, and the trunk floor.
Like the rest of the bodymounts the bodymounts and edges of the trunk were rotted so I made new ones out of some rectangular steel and some sheet metal. I also cut out the fuel filler neck hole in the floor and made a patch for that,
tailpan/quater joint.
and all expoxied.
The only thing left to do is the outer rockers and the body is done.
I also got a center grille tooth and finished the grille. All original 54 chrome, no repop stuff here.
the stock 54 rear bumper
this is the bumper set up Im going to be using, It uses a 55 bumper with 54 trim. again keep in mind its just crudely mocked up. I will be cutting the bumper for the exhaust like the picture above.
YES. Updates are legit
wow that is bad ass!
Wow. Looks great. Lots of hard work and it will pay off.
Looks awesome. Better hide that thing now, Eric’s viewing this post as I type this.
That’s ok. I have nothing against Eric, simply made a bad decision. We all have at some time or another.
I want to make tue bad decision of giving you my honeymoon fund to work on the lexus
Maybe once the marriage certificate is signed
Awesome build, really enjoyed all the progress so far!
she’ll understand, haha well make it happen!
uhhhhhhh, SICK updates maigne