Work, but not on the Studebaker

I know! I haven't done much work on the car lately. But sometimes work intrudes--it has been hectic the last couple of weeks and now I'm away at training for a week.

Just so you don't get bored and go into Studebaker withdraw, here's a Studebaker puzzle you can solve on your computer. See you soon.

Back to work

Had a big present waiting for me when I got home tonight:

Driver's side--fortunately, I won't need all of this--that would be a lot of welding.

Man, that stuff is thick!

Space!

I'd mentioned earlier that I was running out of space in the garage, so this weekend I did something about it.

I still have room for more stuff!

I was to the point where I was afraid that I would accidentally step on a panel or piece and damage it--aside from the obvious health hazards of working in an overcrowded workplace. So while waiting for stuff to show up, I'll be dragging a few things down to put in my small rented storage place.

Not much else happening. We had an unusual cold snap for us this weekend--even had snow on the ground here on the valley floor; it was too cold to spend much time in the garage. Plus I'm still waiting on my sheet metal to arrive. But now, once it does, I'll at least be able to walk around my car to work on it without having to move things.

A slightly different tack

Although I haven't been posting much lately, it doesn't mean that there hasn't been movement on the Studebaker project. There simply hasn't been enough going on to make a decent post. But I started changing that this weekend.

Originally, I had planned on having the body media blasted, then primed, then I'd have it returned so I could weld in the patch panels in the floor. After much consideration I decided to change that slightly--I'm going to weld the areas on the main body unit first--so floor patches (doing larger areas than needed just to make sure), a small area around the door frame that holds the rubber weatherstripping in place (about a 3" length of that), and an area on the right rear of the trunk that I probably don't need to replace but will anyway.

So to that end I've welded supports across the open doors.; this will hopefully resolve any movement in their relative location while I cut sections of the floor out. This is probably overkill, but it is better than struggling to get the doors to align properly after everything has been sealed and painted.

Cutting lines have been outlined in blue tape.

I've also ordered the replacement metal. Hopefully it will be shipped soon.

The hope of all this is that once the body makes it to the body shop for the media blasting that it can stay there until the paint is completed. Fingers crossed: it should be in good enough shape to be primed and painted with minimal fuss.

Up next? After all the cutting and welding, I pull the engine and transmission so the body shop can have excellent access to the firewall.