Starting Patch 2. . .

The second patch is the largest area--again, while I only need to patch a smaller area I like having a wide margin around rust.

First, though, I have a nice steering wheel that I don't want to get goobered up with splatter from the welding. So it had to go.

Wheel gone! Rust holes visible to the left.

Of course it wasn't as easy as that--I do happen to own a wheel puller, but unfortunately, it wouldn't fit the narrow distance between the mounting points on the Studebaker wheel.  So off to the parts store to rent one. After having the proper tool in hand, the job only took 3 minutes.

Once the wheel was out of the way, removing one bolt on the bottom of the column and disconnecting the shift linkage allowed for removal of the outer shell of the steering column.

Does that look like something to bump your head against?

To remove the steering post requires removing the steering box. Unfortunately, I didn't have a joint separator that fit, so that will have to wait until later.  For now at least I won't be damaging a potentially expensive part, and, so far, I haven't bumped my head on it.  Hopefully I'll be able to get the right tool so I can get that out of the way before that happens.

On to the floor.  I got the area cut out using a cut off wheel on my angle grinder. This one was a bit trickier because the floor is spot welded to the brace, so I had to locate and grind through them. Once that was done, I cleaned up the surface rust with a wire brush and coated it with a rust converter so it wouldn't continue to rust.

If that brace weren't there, I'd have a one-legged Flintstone's car!

I discovered some good news: the cross brace was in excellent condition. And, surprisingly, no rust on the rocker panel.

Up next, I'll cut out a patch and get this puppy closed up.

Patch 1, Done (pretty much)

So I finally had time to work on the Stude today. If you'll recall, I had 3 areas to patch on the floor; today I decided to patch the area behind the driver's seat.

The red arrow marks the spot

The rusted through area was about 3 to 4 inches in diameter. I wanted to make sure I got all of the rust, so I cut out an area much larger:

The bad stuff removed, the remaining metal treated--ready to weld in a patch.

From this point on, I didn't take many pics. But it was a fairly simple process. First, I made a pattern by taping a piece of cardboard above the hole, then tracing around the opening from the bottom with a sharpie. After that is carefully cut out and made sure it fits the hole exactly, the pattern is used to trace an outline on the new piece and it was cut out with a jig saw.

Of course, I erred on the side of making it too big, then fit it by cutting/grinding where needed. Once I got it matched up, I used 3 large magnets to hold it in place with the edges flush, and welded several spots around the perimeter.  Then, after removing the magnets, I made more spots, spacing them to avoid warping the metal from the heat. Once I had a group of welds about 2 to 3 inches apart, I started to connect the dots.

In theory, this works very well, and for the most part it did. But I haven't welded anything this thin for quite some time, so there were several places I burned holes through it.  And, when I first started, some of my welds weren't very pretty--that's why there aren't any pictures!

But the end result (I still have a small bit of grinding to do and I'll go over it with a body hammer and dolly to level it out a bit) looks like this:

Nice and solid (and also treated again to stop rust until it is painted) now!

Of course, if this were in an area that showed, I would take more time to make it absolutely perfect--but this will eventually be covered in a thick, sound deadening "paint" with insulation and carpet on the top side and undercoating on the bottom so it simply won't show.

On Monday I'm having the owner of a body shop come by to give me an estimate for paint. It won't be long until it is away from my garage for a while.

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.

Happy Holidays

The Mad Monk works on his Studebaker

It was a little chilly in the garage this morning, but since I received a sweet Studebaker Authorized Service hoodie from my wife this holiday season, there was no reason not to start work before the garage was warmed up.

Having finished up the tar removal on the trunk floor, I have moved on to cleaning up the rear window surround. The more of this gooey stuff I can remove, the better (and faster--and cheaper) the media blasting will work.

a change of mind

Originally, I wasn't going to remove the "soundproofing" from the trunk. But I decided that although I suspected the metal was solid under there, it is a common area for these cars to rust so now is the time to do it right. Off to the garage with the heat gun and putty knife and an hour or so later, I have most of the tar off the floor of the trunk.

Gloriously rust free

I have a bit of time to do more of this work--although I'll call and get another quote, I had a discussion with a body shop that specializes in classic cars and liked the conversation we had. Unfortunately, he won't be able to start on it until late January. So more time for me to do some additional work.

Cleaning and sorting

The garage was so cluttered with parts and debris that it was getting hazardous, so I got the Studebaker carcass back on the ground and pushed it outside. Front fenders, doors, hood and trunk were neatly stacked against the side of the garage. And then the sweeping began. Amazing how much dirt comes out of a fairly clean car when you pull it apart.

After that, I started sorting the smaller pieces. What things would I clean up myself? What would a send to get rechromed? What would I have blasted? What pieces should I get chemically dipped?

The shop vac seems to want to be photographed frequently

Work has been a bit hectic lately, so I haven't had a chance to track down a shop to media blast the body yet.  But soon. In the meanwhile, I still have more cleaning and organizing to do. They say it takes the same amount of space as a 3-car garage to do a frame-off restoration on a single car. Less if you're not taking it off the frame. Well, I'm not doing a frame off, but my "almost" two car garage (which has a lot of old wood working tools lining the walls to begin with) is definitely being pushed to the limit. But at least I have a garage, otherwise I'd have to wait until spring to continue the project.

Part of the deal

When you work on old cars, you have to deal with stripped and rusted bolts. One of those was on one of the doors. I had stripped out one of the philips-headed bolts that holds the hinge to the door. While I was able to get the door hinge off the car (and the door with it) I still had to deal with that bolt. My initial attempt left a hardened steel drill bit stuck in the middle of that bolt.

So late this afternoon I decided I had time for a small project, and headed to the garage. I broke out the welder and a spare bolt and went to work:

Now if everything goes perfect, I can put a wrench on that bolt and remove the remains of the old one

After welding the new bolt onto the remains of the old bolt, I let it cool for a few moments then carefully turn it with a wrench and,  voilà:

Snap!

 
Yup, the head snapped right off. But that's okay. I was able to get the hinge off--and so the door is ready to go to the blaster. And I'll simply drill the remains out of the door and chase the threads with a tap. At least now I can easily get to it.

Earlier in the day I stopped by the Willamette Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club's annual holiday get together in Albany--I got to see some pretty Studebakers and hob nob for a few minutes with Studebaker people--good times!

Next up? Cleaning the garage--it is a mess--time to push the car out of the garage and get things organized and clean again. Soon enough, all the really dirty stuff will be done.